Interpret Thomas Hardy’s Jude The Obscure By Foucault’s Heterotopia Theory

Thomas Hardy was one of the important realistic novelists and poets in the late VictorianAge in England. Many sympathies were viewed to poor people’s unfortunate lives in Hardy’sliterary works, which made deep expose and criticize to civilization and morality in IndustrialEra. Anyway, some pessimistic mood and fatalism were also seen from his works. The novel,Jude the Obscure, was a typical representative of this kind of style. At the same time, thisnovel was also his last full-length novel in his whole life. This thesis is mainly to study thenovel Jude the Obscure from the heterotopia theory of Michel Foucault, who was a famousmaster for spatial criticism, to make deep research and delicate discussion. The thesis isdivided into five parts, which give special attention to three spatial heterogeneities presentedin the novel-the coexistence pattern of multivariate cultures, concatenation presentation inmutual exclusion places, and existence forms between fiction and fact.One side, the preface gives a brief account of Thomas Hardy’s writing style and literarythought, his main works, especially Jude the Obscure, which was produced under the specialsocial circumstance in England. On the other side, it gives a brief introduction about theresearch condition for the writer and his novel from both home and abroad experts andscholars. In this section, the thesis will pay more attention to Foucault’s heterotopia theory,and briefly give readers a clear view of the presentation which different heterogeneitiesappeared in the novel Jude the Obscure, then make further explanation for the starting pointand the value of the thesis. The first chapter begins from the first element of Foucault’s sixspatial heterogeneities, the coexistence pattern of multivariate cultures, to analyze how themultivariate cultures coexist followed the switch of space in the novel. This chapter is dividedinto two parts, which respectively represent the characters called “the crisis type ofheterotopia” and “the deviating type of heterotopia”, showed with detailed occasions underthe cultural intersection. Then this thesis proves the social connotation behind the coexistence,and reflects the leading role of the dominant culture. The second chapter mainly bases on thebackground of England in the late Victorian era, then gradually narrows the range to thevillage and cities the main characters lived and stayed. Through the two different traffic tools –carriage and train as the link of connection, the novel presented another element ofFoucault’s heterogeneities-the mutual exclusion places. The thesis will give a detailedexplanation about how these different places and people and things are concatenated in thesame single real space, in order to give prominence to the dominant place. The third chapterwill reflect the real spaces by illusory ones through the main characters’ thoughts, words,behaviors or other aspects, especially through the main heroine Sue’s behaviors. From Sue’sinner conflicts, we can see this kind of different lands all the time, in which contain theopposite world. The real and unreal are interlaced, and they are combined to the dominantworld, which is inseparable with current social background at that time. The conclusion leadsout the theme of this thesis: there are many strong space performances and attractive visionsin the novel, which inordinately reflect Foucault’s heterogeneities with the changed places.These elements impact each other to make up a heterogeneous literary field, then back to thedominant thought of dominant world. This kind of dominant is also the reflection of the socialpower at that time, which confirms one of Foucault’s important spatial concepts-“the powerspace”. In his concept, the power combines the space contributes to human’s labor, lives,words and all other fields, to realize domestication of those who deviate from dominationthrough normalization from the Ruling Class to individuals.