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Jude the Obscure

• When Written: 1887-1895
INTR
INTRODUCTION
ODUCTION • Where Written: Dorchester, England
BRIEF BIOGRAPHY OF THOMAS HARDY • When Published: 1895
Thomas Hardy was raised in a small, rural village in Dorset. His • Literary Period: Victorian Realism
father was a stonemason and his mother educated Hardy until • Genre: Realist Fiction, Tragedy
age eight. His family was too poor to pay for university, so • Setting: Southwest England, the fictional county of Wessex
Hardy became an architect’s apprentice (similar to Jude) until • Climax: Little Father Time kills himself and Sue’s children
he decided to focus on writing. His stories are generally set in
• Point of View: Third person omniscient
the Dorset area, which he translated into the fictional county of
Wessex. In 1874 he married Emma Gifford. The two were then
estranged, but her death in 1912 had a profound effect on EXTRA CREDIT
Hardy. In 1914 he married his secretary, Florence Dugdale. Wessex. Hardy named his fictional “Wessex County” after the
Hardy’s first novels were unsuccessful, and even his later works Anglo-Saxon kingdom that existed in southwest England in
were controversial and censored. Tess of the d’Urbervilles and medieval times. Since his resurrection of the name, it has
Jude the Obscure drew such an outcry for their sexual become a popular modern term to describe the region, and
frankness and social criticism that Hardy stopped writing there is now even a Wessex Regionalist political party.
fiction, focusing instead on his poetry. Hardy died at the age of
eighty-seven. Autobiographical. Though Hardy has claimed that Jude the
Obscure contains little to no biographical information, Sue
HISTORICAL CONTEXT Brideshead does seem to resemble Hardy’s first wife, Emma,
Jude the Obscure takes place in England during the Victorian who began as nonreligious and later grew obsessively
era, a period that lasted from 1837-1901. English society Christian. Hardy’s unhappy marriage with and estrangement
during this time was marked by sexual repression and a from Emma also contributed to his unorthodox views on
conservative worldview that emphasized the institution of marriage.
marriage and the family unit, which Hardy criticized. Murders
like those of Jack the Ripper in 1888 began desensitizing the
public to violence, leading to scenes like Little Father Time’s
PL
PLO
OT SUMMARY
murder-suicide. The town of Christminster is based on the Jude the Obscure takes place in Wessex, England in the
university town of Oxford, whose colleges were only beginning Victorian era. Jude Fawley is a poor orphan raised by his great-
to accept working-class students during Hardy’s time – Hardy aunt, but he dreams of studying at the university in
himself was unable to afford a university education. Christminster, a nearby town. He is inspired in this dream by
his old teacher, Richard Phillotson, who left with similar
RELATED LITERARY WORKS ambitions when Jude was a child. Jude starts teaching himself
Hardy is considered a Victorian Realist like George Eliot, the classical languages and learning stonemasonry work, but he is
author of Middlemar
Middlemarchch, but he was also influenced by the distracted from his studies by Arabella Donn, a vain, sensual
Romantic poetry of William Wordsworth and the social young woman. Arabella pretends she is pregnant and tricks the
critiques of Charles Dickens, author of Oliv
Oliver
er T
Twist
wist and A T
Tale
ale of honorable Jude into marrying her, but the marriage soon falls
Two Cities
Cities. Hardy’s style prefigures Modernist works like apart. Arabella moves to Australia and Jude finally makes his
Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway and his writing influenced D.H. way to Christminster. At first he is enthralled by the place but
Lawrence, especially his books The Rainbow and Women in Love. he soon finds he cannot enter the university without wealth
Emma Frances Brooke’s 1894 book A Superfluous Woman also and social stature.
opposes traditional marriage and contains a child committing While in Christminster Jude meets his intelligent, religiously
murder and suicide. agnostic cousin Sue Bridehead. He immediately falls in love
with her, though he tries to resist his feelings. He gets Sue a job
KEY FACTS with Phillotson, who has also failed to be accepted at a
university and is a schoolteacher again. Sue soon gets engaged
• Full Title: Jude the Obscure to Phillotson, but her relationship with Jude also grows
stronger and the two cousins become very close. Jude loves

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Sue passionately but Sue’s own feelings are less clear. Sue is regarding alcohol and women, and he allows his marriage to
stung to learn about Jude’s previous marriage, however, so she Arabella, even though it is unhappy, to distract himself from his
goes through with her marriage to Phillotson. dream. He shares a deep connection with his cousin Sue, but
Jude gets depressed and turns to alcohol, and he is reunited their relationship is doomed by their earlier marriages,
with Arabella (who has returned from Australia) for one night. society’s disapproval, and bad luck. Jude starts out pious and
Jude and Sue keep meeting and Sue reveals that she is unhappy religious, but by the end of his life he has grown agnostic and
in her marriage, as she is repulsed by Phillotson’s physical bitter.
presence. Soon afterward Sue admits her feelings for Jude to Sue Bridehead – The novel’s other protagonist and Jude’s
Phillotson, and asks him if they can live apart. Phillotson agrees cousin. Sue’s parents were divorced and she was raised in
to let Sue leave him for Jude, but he suffers for this decision, London and Christminster. She is an extremely intelligent
which seems morally right to him, by losing his job and his social woman who rejects Christianity and flirts with paganism,
respectability. despite working as a religious artist and then teacher. Sue is
Jude and Sue are united, but they live platonically for a while often described as “ethereal” and “bodiless” and she generally
and they agree not to get married. Arabella reveals to Jude that lacks sexual passion, especially compared to Jude. Sue marries
she had a son by him while in Australia. Jude and Sue agree to Phillotson as a kind of rebuke to Jude for his own marriage to
take the unwanted boy in, and he arrives soon after. He has no Arabella, and is then repulsed by Phillotson as a husband. She is
name but is called “Little Father Time,” and is a gloomy, world- portrayed as inconsistent and emotional, often changing her
weary child. Jude and Sue begin to lose work and respect mind abruptly, but she develops a strong relationship and love
because of their unmarried status, but they find they can’t go with Jude. Though she starts out nonreligious, the death of her
through with the wedding ceremony. They become lovers and children drives Sue to a harsh, legalistic version of Christianity
begin to lead a nomadic life, having two children of their own as she believes she is being punished for her earlier rebellion
and caring for Little Father Time. against Christianity, and she returns to Phillotson even though
she never ceases to love Jude.
Jude falls ill for a while, and when he recovers he decides he
wants to move back to Christminster and pursue his old dream. Ar
Arabella
abella Donn – Jude’s first wife, a vain, sensual woman who is
The family has trouble finding a room because they are the daughter of a pig farmer. She decides to marry Jude and so
unmarried and have children, and Jude has to stay separately tricks him into marrying her by pretending to be pregnant.
from Sue and the children. That night Sue and Little Father Arabella sees marriage as a kind of entrapment and as a source
Time both grow depressed, and the boy decides that he and the of financial security, and she uses whatever means necessary to
other children are the cause of the family’s troubles. The next get what she wants. After Jude fails to provide for her, Arabella
morning Jude and Sue find that Little Father Time has hanged goes to Australia and takes a new husband there. She is often
himself and the other two children. contrasted with the pure, intellectual Sue, as Arabella is
associated with alcohol and sexual pleasure. When she wants
Sue breaks down at this tragedy and grows obsessively
Jude back she gets him drunk and forces him to marry her, and
religious, believing that she is being punished for her disbelief
when he dies (or even just before) she immediately starts
and sexual liberties. She leaves Jude and returns to Phillotson,
seeking a new husband.
despite having no change in her feelings for either. Jude is soon
tricked into marrying Arabella again, and both marriages are Richard Phillotson – Jude’s schoolmaster at Marygreen who
unhappy. Jude gets sick and visits Sue one last time in the rain. moves to Christminster and fails to be accepted at the
They kiss but then Sue sends Jude away for the last time. As university there. Phillotson remains as a teacher, and he later
“penance” for this kiss Sue begins a sexual relationship with hires Sue and falls in love with her. They marry, but Sue finds
Phillotson. Jude dies soon after, and Arabella immediately she cannot live with Phillotson as a husband. Though Phillotson
starts looking for a new husband. is a conservative man, he finds that letting Sue leave him feels
like the most moral decision, and he sticks by it even when he is
punished by society for his disgrace and loses his job and
CHARA
CHARACTERS
CTERS respectability. Phillotson is a kindly, ethical man, but Sue’s lack
of love for him causes him great torment.
MAJOR CHARACTERS Little Father Time – Jude’s son with Arabella, he was born in
Jude Fa
Fawle
wleyy – The novel’s protagonist, a poor orphan who is Australia and sent to England to live with Jude years later. The
raised by his great-aunt after his parents divorced and died. boy was never named or given love, and his nickname is “Little
Jude dreams of attending the university at Christminister, but Father Time” because he seems old beyond his years. Jude and
he fails to be accepted because of his working class Sue christen him as “Jude,” but his old nickname sticks. Little
background. He is a skilled stonemason and a kindly soul who Father Time is a world-weary, depressed child who lacks any
cannot hurt any living thing. Jude’s “fatal flaw” is his weakness curiosity or joy. He is portrayed as a result of the divorce,

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lovelessness, and bad luck in his life, and in this he acts as a
symbol as well as a character. Little Father Time ultimately THEMES
takes Sue’s depressed words to heart and kills himself and Sue’s
In LitCharts literature guides, each theme gets its own color-
two children in order to try to free Sue and Jude from their
coded icon. These icons make it easy to track where the themes
burdens.
occur most prominently throughout the work. If you don't have
a color printer, you can still use the icons to track themes in
MINOR CHARACTERS black and white.
Drusilla Fa
Fawle
wleyy – Jude and Sue’s great-aunt, the woman who
raises Jude. She is generally bad-natured, always warning Jude MARRIAGE
not to get married because of his family's past "curse" in
Much of Jude the Obscure consists of a critique of
marriages, and lamenting that he didn’t die with his parents.
the institution of marriage, which Hardy saw as
The Widow Edlin – An old woman who takes care of Drusilla flawed and unjust. The novel’s plot is designed to
and then befriends Jude and Sue. She is always looking out for wring all the possible tragedy out of an unhappy marriage, as
their best interests and lamenting the state of marriage in Jude is first guilted into marrying Arabella by her feigned
modern times. pregnancy, and Sue marries Phillotson mostly to make Jude
Gillingham – Phillotson’s friend, a schoolteacher who usually jealous. Both protagonists immediately regret their decisions,
advises him to take the most sensible and conventional route. and realize how a single impulsive decision can affect their
Ph
Physician
ysician Vilbert – A quack-doctor who travels constantly and entire lives. When they meet each other and fall in love, Sue
sells false remedies to people in small towns. He tricks the and Jude’s pure connection is constantly obstructed by their
young Jude into advertising for him for free, and later in life he earlier marriages, and Hardy even presents the tragedy of
woos Arabella as Jude is dying. Little Father Time’s murder-suicide as a natural result of
broken marriages and unhappy relationships.
Farmer T Troutham
routham – A farmer who beats and fires the young
Jude for being merciful to the crows he is supposed to be In the narrator’s asides Hardy also criticizes marriage,
scaring. describing it as a binding contract that most young lovers are
incapable of understanding. He doesn’t believe that the
Mr
Mr.. Donn – Arabella’s father, a pig farmer and then butcher institution is inherently evil, but that it isn’t right for every
who has little love for his daughter but is a willing accomplice in situation and personality – “sensitive” souls like Jude and Sue
her attempt to "trap" Jude. should be able to live as husband and wife without a binding
Cartlett – Arabella’s second husband whom she met in legal contract. Though he argues for this flexibility and seems to
Australia. propose the couple’s unmarried relationship as an ideal
Ann
Annyy and Sar
Sarah
ah – Arabella’s friends who advise her on how to solution, Hardy then punishes his protagonists in his plot,
“trap” Jude into marriage. ultimately driving Sue back to Phillotson and Jude back to
Arabella.
Miss F
Fonto
ontovver – Sue’s religious landlady, who smashes Sue’s
statues of Apollo and Venus and then kicks her out. The novel is not a simple diatribe against marriage, but instead
illustrates a complex, contradictory situation. Sue and Jude
The Undergr
Undergraduate
aduate – Sue’s friend from years before, a
want their love to be true and spontaneous, but also totally
nonreligious but moral man who was Sue’s intellectual mentor
monogamous and everlasting. The epigraph to the novel is “the
and her platonic roommate. He fell in love with her but Sue
letter killeth,” which comes from a quote from Jesus in the
rejected him.
Bible: “The letter killeth, but the spirit giveth light.” Hardy
The Composer – A man who writes the hymn “The Foot of the intended this quote to refer to marriage, where the contract of
Cross.” Jude visits him but finds that the composer is shallow the institution kills joy and true love, but Hardy purposefully
and greedy. leaves off the optimism of “the spirit” – Jude and Sue’s joy is
Uncle Joe & Tink
Tinker
er T
Taaylor – Two of Jude’s stonemason fleeting even when they are only following “Nature’s law,” and in
companions in Christminster. the end they find no good answer for how to properly love and
live together. By the novel’s tragic end Hardy still leaves the
The Christminster Landlady – A woman who takes in Sue and
question of marriage unanswered, emphasizing only his
the children when no one else will, and then helps the family
dissatisfaction with the institution as it stands.
deal with their children’s deaths.
Challow – A pig-killer who never shows up, forcing Jude to kill
FATE
his and Arabella's pig, much to Jude's dismay.
Throughout the book Hardy subjects his characters
to many hardships and unlucky coincidences which

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come to feel like fate, whether that fate is interpreted as a WOMEN IN SOCIETY
supernatural punishment for rebelling against religion or a fate
Sue Bridehead is a surprisingly modern and
determined by a society structured to thwart independent,
complex heroine for her time, and through her
sensitive souls like Jude and Sue. The novel’s overarching story
character Hardy brings up many gender-related
of fate is that Jude and Sue’s family is “cursed” in marriage –
issues. Sue is unique in Victorian society in that she lives with
both Jude’s parents and Sue’s parents were divorced, and they
men without marrying (or even sleeping with) them, as with her
have an ancestor who was hanged for stealing his child’s body
undergraduate student friend. Sue is highly intelligent and very
from his estranged wife. This curse comes to affect the
well-read, and she rejects the traditional Christianity of her
protagonists’ actions, as they avoid marrying each other and
society. She also works alongside both Phillotson and Jude, first
possibly doubling the curse. Fate looms over the characters in
marrying Phillotson partly to further her own teaching position
other situations as well, like when Jude tries so hard to get into
(instead of acting as the traditional housewife).
a college but is always fated to fail because of his poverty and
class. Over the course of the book Jude, Sue, and their children Despite her intelligence and independence, Sue fails at her
are slowly crushed by their bad luck and an unfriendly society. endeavors throughout the book, and through her sufferings
They become depressed, and start to believe that it is better Hardy critiques the society that punishes his heroine. Sue, like
never to be born than to live in such a cruel world. The climax of other women, is expected to be the “property” of the man she
the novel, Little Father Time’s murder-suicide, is portrayed as marries, so Sue is bound to Phillotson for life even after their
an inevitable result of the situation in which he was raised: a separation. Sue is never allowed to advance in her work
product of divorce, depression, and bad luck. As with the (despite her intelligence) because of her marital status. As an
marriage question, Hardy gives no easy answer regarding fate. unmarried, disgraced woman she has no power in society.
He seems to imply that humans should struggle against their While Hardy was ahead of his time in creating such a strong
fate (if it’s bad), but at the same time he shows just how futile female character, he still clings to many gender stereotypes
this struggle usually is. about women: Sue is emotionally fragile and often hysterical,
changing her mind at the slightest whim and breaking down in
the face of tragedy. As an opposite to Sue, Arabella is greedy,
SOCIAL CRITICISM sensual, and vain – the stereotype of everything Victorian
Much of the novel serves as a vessel for Hardy’s society found bad and sinful in women. Though Arabella is
criticism of English Victorian society. Most of this usually the antagonist, she is also the character who ends up
critique is aimed at the institution of marriage, but the most fortunate in the plot, showing just how unprepared
Hardy also targets education, class divides, and hypocrisy. The society was for a character like Sue.
early part of the novel involves Jude’s quest to be accepted into
a college at Christminster, a university town based on Oxford. RELIGION
Jude works for years teaching himself classical languages, but
he is never accepted simply because of his social class and Along with marriage and society, Hardy spends
poverty. In Jude’s unjustified failures Hardy demonstrates the much of Jude the Obscure critiquing religion and the
unfairness and classism of the educational system. institution of Christianity. He often portrays
Christianity as life-denying and belonging to “the letter” that
Relating to the marriage theme, Hardy also emphasizes the “killeth” (from the novel’s epigraph). In contrast, Sue is
oppressiveness of Victorian society in dealing with any introduced as a kind of pre-Christian entity, an ethereal, pagan
unorthodox domestic situation. Jude and Sue cannot find a spirit, and she first appears buying figures of the ancient Greek
room or a steady job as long as their marital status is anything gods Venus and Apollo. Jude, meanwhile, hopes to join the
but traditional, and Phillotson loses his teaching jobs because clergy as part of his intellectual pursuits. At a model of
he allowed Sue to leave him. Hardy was far ahead of his time in Jerusalem, Sue wonders why Jerusalem should be honored
many of his views – implying that universities should accept above Athens or Rome, but Jude is mesmerized by this city
members of the working class, couples could live together which is so important to Christianity.
without being married, and even that the father of a woman’s
child should be the woman’s business alone – but Hardy’s As with most of his arguments, Hardy also undercuts himself
society was not ready for such criticism. The backlash against and favors a nuanced approach to an issue. Even as he seems to
Jude the Obscure was so harsh that Hardy gave up writing reject Christianity, he also portrays almost all the main
altogether. characters as Christ-figures at several points, even describing
them with Biblical language. The “pagan joy” of Sue and Jude’s
unmarried, unreligious love is not actually that joyful either, and
Hardy thoroughly punishes them with his plot, ultimately
driving Sue to submit to a harsh, legalistic version of

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Christianity. By associating Sue’s turn to religion with Jude’s
LITTLE FATHER TIME
turn to alcohol (both used as relief from the tragedy of their
children’s death), Hardy again adds more nuance – Christianity Little Father Time is a character in the novel, but he
may be the “right” way for his country and time, but it can still also acts as a symbol of coming of age and Hardy’s
be used for less-than-pure purposes. As “Nature’s law” fails Sue apprehensive view of the generation to come. Little Father
and Jude, so “Heaven’s law” also fails them, and the “letter” of Time lacks personality except as an excessively morbid,
the law of Christianity can seem less moral than human nature. unexcitable child, but when he kills himself and Sue’s children it
Hardy gives many examples of this, including Sue’s return to is the climax of the novel. As a symbol, Little Father Time
Phillotson, which is a kind of adultery even though they are represents the depression and amorality that Hardy sees as the
legally and religiously married. As usual, Hardy ends without inevitable result of the injustices in his society. Father Time is
any clear answer. He seems to reject a Christianity that is driven to despair by how poorly Jude and Sue are treated for
overly concerned with laws and traditions, but he doesn’t being unmarried, and by his lack of love from Arabella and her
portray paganism or atheism as a particularly fulfilling parents. After Little Father Time’s death, the doctor actually
alternative either. diagnoses his murder-suicide as “in his nature” and “the
beginning of the coming universal wish not to live.” In this way
Hardy horrifies his readers and makes his social critiques seem
SYMBOLS that much more urgent, implying that the injustices of his
generation will lead to tragedy in the next.
Symbols appear in teal text throughout the Summary and
Analysis sections of this LitChart.
QUO
QUOTES
TES
CHRISTMINSTER Note: all page numbers for the quotes below refer to the
Christminster is a fictional university town based Penguin Classics edition of Jude the Obscure published in
on Oxford, England. Jude first learns of it when he 1998.
is eleven years old and his teacher, Mr. Phillotson, leaves
Marygreen to go there. Christminster then becomes the young Part 1, Chapter 3 Quotes
Jude’s goal in life, and he idealizes the place as “The New
As the halo had been to his eyes when gazing at it a
Jerusalem” and a “city of light,” watching its faint, distant glow
quarter of an hour earlier, so was the spot mentally to him as he
from the roof of the Brown House. When Jude finally makes it
pursued his dark way.
to Christminster, he imagines the shades of dead philosophers
“It is a city of light,” he said to himself.
speaking to him in the streets. In the first part of the novel
“The tree of knowledge grows there,” he added a few steps
Christminster symbolizes Jude’s hope and idealism, and his
further on.
desire to make a better life for himself despite his low social
“It is a place that teachers of men spring from, and go to.”
class.
“It is what you may call a castle, manned by scholarship and
The reality of Christminster soon strikes Jude (and the reader), religion.”
however, as he learns that despite his hard work and natural After this figure he was silent for a long while, till he added,
intelligence, the colleges are only open to the upper classes. “It would just suit me.”
Phillotson, his predecessor, has also failed and settled back into
his earlier role as a schoolmaster, and Jude likewise remains a
stonemason. In this way Christminster comes to symbolize Related Characters: Jude Fawley (speaker)
Jude’s failed hopes and dreams, and Hardy’s pessimistic
worldview. After years of moving about nomadically, Jude Related Themes:
returns to Christminster for one last attempt to achieve his
goals. It takes him a long time to realize it, but he finally gives up Related Symbols:
Christminster as a hopeless dream. He recognizes that it would
take “two or three generations” to do what he tried to do in one Page Number: 25-26
generation – raise his social class through his own hard work Explanation and Analysis
and intelligence. Because of the tragedy of Jude’s situation,
Jude has been fantasizing about Christminster, asking other
Christminster ultimately becomes one of Hardy’s greatest
men about it and hoping to catch a glimpse of it from the
critiques of the unfairness inherent in his society.
roof of the Brown House on clear nights. Although the men
have told Jude that at Christminster they read books in

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languages he will never understand, Jude has resolved to and unrealistic.

make it his life's goal to attend one of the colleges there. In The narrator remarks that it was "remarkable" that "nobody
this passage, Jude gazes at the distant "halo" of the city seemed at all surprised" by the ceremony, suggesting the
while describing it to himself in positive, even holy terms. reader themselves should feel surprised or alarmed by what
Indeed, phrases such as "city of light" and "tree of has taken place. Indeed, the narrator's words highlight the
knowledge" emphasize the way in which Christminster is bizarre and arguably immoral nature of marriage by
holy to Jude, and that his dedication to it has become akin to describing the vows as a promise to feel the same way
religious faith. forever. The way Jude and Arabella have felt in the short,
At the same time, the way Jude talks to himself about tumultuous weeks they have spent together is now
Christminster illustrates how isolated and uninformed he supposedly to automatically extend for a lifetime. This is
really is about his goal. The information he's received about alarming not only because of its unrealistic resistance to
the city has almost entirely come from other working-class growth, maturity, and change, but also because the "few
men who have never been there, and this is part of the preceding weeks" have been hardly ideal in the first place.
reason why Jude elevates it to mystical, unrealistic Although sensually attracted to each other, it is clear that
proportions. Jude's lack of realistic information also Jude and Arabella are not particularly compatible, and the
foreshadows the fact that he will ultimately fail to be whole reason why the marriage is taking place is because
admitted to the university. His final statement, "It would just Arabella lied to Jude––a rather worrying precedent for a
suit me," is tragically erroneous. Although the ideal climate lifetime of marriage.
of "scholarship and religion" that Jude imagines would
indeed suit him, the reality of Christminster is a place that is
closed off to Jude and other men of his social class. Part 1, Chapter 11 Quotes
Their lives were ruined, he thought; ruined by the
fundamental error of their matrimonial union: that of having
Part 1, Chapter 9 Quotes based a permanent contract on a temporary feeling which had
And so, standing before the aforesaid officiator, the two no necessary connection with affinities that alone render a life-
swore that at every other time of their lives till death took long comradeship tolerable.
them, they would assuredly believe, feel, and desire precisely as “Going to ill-use me on principle, as your father ill-used your
they had believed, felt, and desired during the few preceding mother, and your father’s sister ill-used her husband?” she
weeks. What was as remarkable as the undertaking itself was asked. “All you Fawleys be a queer lot as husbands and wives.”
the fact that nobody seemed at all surprised at what they
swore.
Related Characters: Arabella Donn, Jude Fawley (speaker)

Related Characters: Jude Fawley, Arabella Donn Related Themes:

Related Themes: Page Number: 69

Page Number: 57 Explanation and Analysis

Jude and Arabella's marriage is a disaster; Jude has
Explanation and Analysis overheard friends of Arabella's saying that she tricked him
Jude has told Arabella that he thinks he should move away, into marriage, and the couple have been arguing ferociously.
and in response Arabella has lied, telling him that she is In this passage, Jude comes to the realization that "their
pregnant. Although Jude believes this will signal the end of lives were ruined... by the fundamental error of their
his dreams of going to Christminster, he nonetheless agrees matrimonial union." Jude's thoughts frame the problem not
to marry her, as this is the honorable thing to do. In this as unique to his and Arabella's unhappy situation, but rather
passage, the narrator describes the marriage ceremony, as a fundamental issue with the institution of marriage in
describing it in detached language and framing it as a pact to general. The feelings he and Arabella had for one another
"believe, feel, and desire precisely as they had believed, felt, were temporary, and not conducive to "life-long
and desired during the few preceding weeks." Although comradeship." Note that this kind of question remains at the
marriage was a completely normal and central institution heart of debates over marriage in the present day, and thus
during the Victorian era (and still is), the narrator here seeks this passage reveals just how forward-thinking Hardy was
to defamiliarize it, showing how the very concept is strange for his time.

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Part 3, Chapter 1 Quotes

Arabella's taunts to Jude are also significant for the way that
they invoke the notion of fate. Arabella suggests that “Cathedral? Yes. Though I think I’d rather sit in the railway
unhappy marriages are a kind of curse in Jude's family, station,” she answered, a remnant of vexation still in her voice.
repeating within each generation in a cycle of misery. Again, “That’s the centre of the town life now: the Cathedral has had
consider the way in which this kind of thinking preempts its day!”
20th-century sociological and psychoanalytic discourse “How modern you are!”
about cycles of trauma and abuse. Although Arabella's “So would you be if you had lived so much in the middle ages as
words seem unfairly harsh, it is nonetheless reasonable to I have done these last few years! The Cathedral was a very
infer that Jude's distrust of the institution of marriage good place four or five centuries ago; but it is played out now… I
originates in witnessing his parents' unhappy marriage and am not modern, either. I am more ancient than mediaevalism, if
eventual divorce. you only knew.”

Related Characters: Sue Bridehead, Jude Fawley (speaker)

Part 2, Chapter 2 Quotes
Only a wall divided him from those happy young Related Themes:
contemporaries of his with whom he shared a common mental
Page Number: 135
life; men who had nothing to do from morning till night but to
read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest. Only a wall – but what a Explanation and Analysis
wall!
Jude and Sue have met in Melchester, and Jude has learned
of Sue's engagement to Phillotson. Although he is
Related Characters: Jude Fawley devastated, Jude attempts to appear happy for Sue, and
suggests that they visit the cathedral together. In this
Related Themes: passage, Sue admits that she'd rather "sit in the railway
station," as "that's the centre of the town life now." Despite
Related Symbols: this straightforwardly modern statement, when Jude
remarks that Sue is "modern," she corrects him, saying she is
Page Number: 86 "more ancient than mediaevalism." Why does Sue deny that
she is modern, after associating herself with the train
Explanation and Analysis
station, one of the key symbols of modernity?
Jude has finally gone to Christminster, and on his first night
Part of the reason is that Sue's wild, free spirit is associated
there walks around in a rapture, feeling as if he is
with paganism. Her fierce character is closer to the rugged
surrounded by the ghosts of dead writers. In the morning,
natural world than to the industrial, urban landscapes we
however, reality begins to sink in. Jude has noticed that the
associate with modernity. In addition, Sue's dismissal of
buildings are decayed, and briefly considers the notion that
modernity is also perhaps the result of the pessimism that
being a stoneworker is perhaps as valuable as being a
defines the novel. Although Jude the Obscureis highly
scholar. However, this thought does not last long, and Jude
critical of Victorian culture and norms, it resists
ponders the "wall" that separates him and the students at
romanticizing the future as a time in which the problems of
Christminster. These thoughts reveal Jude's insight as well
the Victorian era will be resolved. Indeed, the suicide of
as his naïveté. Of course, much more than a wall separates
Little Father Time is a good indicator of the extent to which
Jude from the Christminster students––at the same time,
the novel presents a pessimistic view of the future.
by exclaiming "what a wall!", Jude shows understanding of
how the wall symbolizes the exclusivity and elitism of the
university. You prove it in your own person. You are one of the very
Indeed, this passage raises complex questions about the men Christminster was intended for when the colleges
relationship between material existence and the life of the were founded; a man with a passion for learning, but no money,
mind. As Jude rightly infers, even an elite university like or opportunities, or friends. But you were elbowed off the
Christminster relies on the work of stonemasons and other pavement by the millionaires’ sons.
manual laborers in order to function. Ironically, it is these
workers who construct the walls that then symbolize their Related Characters: Sue Bridehead (speaker), Jude Fawley
exclusion from the institution within them.

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Related Themes: Explanation and Analysis

Sue has sent Jude a rather formal letter informing him that
Related Symbols: she will soon marry Phillotson. She then sends another
letter asking if, as her only male relative who is married,
Page Number: 151 Jude will "give her away" at her wedding. She adds that she
finds the concept of being given away "very humiliating," and
Explanation and Analysis objects to other parts of the marriage service, such as the
Sue is staying at Jude's house, although he has had to hide notion that the bridegroom chooses the bride, but the bride
her from his landlady in order to avoid a scandal. The pair herself is passively given "like a she-ass or she-goat." Once
have discussed their education, and Jude has realized that again, Sue has revealed a kind of proto-feminist
Sue is more widely-read than he is. Sue has described to consciousness and affinity with contemporary critiques of
Jude how she lived platonically with a Christminster the institution of marriage. Her intelligence leads her to
undergraduate who was in love with her; however, she did understand that even seemingly innocuous elements of the
not love him, and he died of what Sue suspects was a broken marriage ceremony fundamentally belittle women.
heart. In this passage, Sue tells Jude that she believes he Furthermore, Sue is unequivocal in her condemnation of the
(Jude) is "one of the very men Christminster was intended sexism of religion. She exclaims sarcastically, "Bless your
for when the colleges were founded," but that the original exalted views of woman, O Churchman!". Note that, once
ideal of accessible education has been corrupted by again, this criticism coheres with contemporary feminist
exclusivity and elitism. critique of the sexism within organized religion. Although
Once again, Sue shows a level of insight and maturity that this critique is rather common now, it would have been
makes Jude look naïve in comparison. She understands the highly scandalous at the time Jude the Obscurewas written.
paradox at the heart of Christminster and other elite
educational institutions: although they have the potential to
promote progressive values and social mobility, they are Part 4, Chapter 2 Quotes
taken over by "the millionaires' sons" and thus remain a
Jude, before I married him I had never thought out fully
privilege only afforded to the wealthy. Note the similarity of
what marriage meant, even though I knew… I am certain one
Sue's critique to Christminster to critiques of the way
ought to be allowed to undo what one has done so ignorantly. I
Christianity has changed since its earliest forms in the
daresay it happens to lots of women; only they submit, and I
centuries after Christ's death. It is certainly possible to
kick… When people of a later age look back upon the barbarous
draw a parallel between the way that both religious and
customs and superstitions of the times that we have the
educational institutions have egalitarian ideals at their core,
unhappiness to live in, what will they say!
but are corrupted by elitism, exclusion, and the desire for
power.
Related Characters: Sue Bridehead (speaker), Jude Fawley,
Richard Phillotson
Part 3, Chapter 7 Quotes
Related Themes:
I have been looking at the marriage service in the Prayer-
book, and it seems to me very humiliating that a giver-away Page Number: 215
should be required at all. According to the ceremony as there
printed, my bridegroom chooses me of his own will and Explanation and Analysis
pleasure; but I don’t choose him. Somebody gives me to him, like Jude and Sue's aunt has died, and they have met in
a she-ass or she-goat, or any other domestic animal. Bless your Marygreen for the funeral. Sue has confessed that she likes
exalted views of woman, O Churchman! Phillotson as a friend but finds him repulsive as a husband.
She tells Jude that she wishes it were possible "to undo
Related Characters: Sue Bridehead (speaker) what one has done so ignorantly," and that she believes
people in the future will look back on marriage as a
Related Themes: "barbarous custom." Although Sue has previously claimed to
be more pagan than modern, in this passage she strongly
Page Number: 170 identifies herself with a more enlightened, fair, and rational
future that she imagines will follow the era in which she

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lives. Note the similarity between Sue's objection to Related Characters: Sue Bridehead (speaker), Jude Fawley
marriage and that expressed by Jude; both point to the
absurdity of committing forever to feelings that can change Related Themes:
so quickly.
Page Number: 272

Explanation and Analysis

Part 4, Chapter 3 Quotes
Sue has spoken with Arabella, who advised her to marry
“What is the use of thinking of laws and ordinances,” she Jude. However, this has only further convinced Sue that
burst out, “if they make you miserable when you know you are marriage is a "vulgar institution." In response, Jude has
committing no sin?” remarked that Sue seems more like someone from an
“But you are committing a sin in not liking me.” ancient civilization than the Christian era in which she lives.
“I do like you! But I didn’t reflect it would be – that it would be Yet Sue continues to confess her doubts about marriage,
so much more than that… For a man and woman to live on asking Jude if he thinks he would continue to love her if they
intimate terms when one feels as I do is adultery, in any got married, and reminding him that there is a history of
circumstances, however legal. There – I’ve said it!... Will you let resistance to "compulsion" within their family. Once again,
me, Richard?” Sue raises the notion that the legalistic nature of marriage
can destroy "passion," happiness, and love. Although she
Related Characters: Sue Bridehead, Richard Phillotson conveys a more generous view of hers and Jude's family
(speaker) than Arabella, she clearly feels concerned about the familial
legacy of divorce and how it might influence her own fate.
Related Themes:

Page Number: 222

What does it matter, when you come to think of it, whether
Explanation and Analysis a child is yours by blood or not? All the little ones of our
time are collectively the children of us adults of the time, and
Jude and Sue have parted ways, kissing passionately before
entitled to our general care. That excessive regard of parents
doing so. Jude has decided that, since he loves Sue so
for their own children, and their dislike of other people’s, is, like
fiercely, he cannot join the clergy; meanwhile, Sue is
class-feeling, patriotism, save-your-own-soul-ism and other
tormented by her feelings for Jude, and hides from
virtues, a mean exclusiveness at bottom.
Phillotson in a closet. Phillotson confronts her, and Sue tells
him vaguely that she is "miserable" and that living intimately
with him would constitute "adultery... however legal." Sue's Related Characters: Jude Fawley (speaker)
words reveal her strong opposition to legalistic
understandings of morality. Rather than judge her own Related Themes:
behavior against moral rules and societal norms, Sue
evaluates her situation as individual and unique. At the Related Symbols:
same time, it is clear that she is very much concerned with
morality, a concern made evident by her reference to Page Number: 274
adultery and "sin."
Explanation and Analysis
Jude and Sue have been living happily together, having put
Part 5, Chapter 3 Quotes aside their concerns about marriage. Meanwhile, Arabella
has written a letter telling Jude that she has given birth to
Jude, do you think that when you must have me with you
his son in Australia, and asks if Jude and Sue can take the
by law, we shall be so happy as we are now? The men and boy in. Although Jude is not certain that the child is his, in
women of our family are very generous when everything this passage he asserts that it doesn't matter; adults have a
depends upon their good-will, but they always kick against responsibility for all children "of the time," and to artificially
compulsion. Don’t you dread the attitude that insensibly arises prefer one's own children to others is immoral in the same
out of legal obligation? Don’t you think it is destructive to a way as "class-feeling, patriotism, [and] save-your-own-soul-
passion whose essence is its gratuitousness? ism." Having presented radical views on love and marriage,
the novel now undermines traditional notions of the family.

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Jude's thoughts equate focusing on the blood relation difficulty of negotiating a life that runs counter to societal
between parents and children as exclusionary and unjust. norms and expectations.
Indeed, his statement about caring for all children "of the
time" suggests a communalist ideology that conflicted with
I feel that we have returned to Greek joyousness, and have
the Victorian Christian focus on the patriarchal, nuclear
blinded ourselves to sickness and sorrow, and have
family unit.
forgotten what twenty-five centuries have taught the race
since their time, as one of your Christminster luminaries says…
Part 5, Chapter 4 Quotes
Related Characters: Sue Bridehead (speaker)
“Nobody thought o’ being afeared o’ matrimony in my time,
nor of much else but a cannon-ball or empty cupboard. Why
Related Themes:
when I and my poor man were married we thought no more o’t
than of a game o’ dibs.”
Related Symbols:
“Don’t tell the child when he comes in,” whispered Sue
nervously. “He’ll think it has all gone on right, and it will be
Page Number: 297
better that he should not be surprised and puzzled. Of course it
is only put off for reconsideration. If we are happy as we are, Explanation and Analysis
what does it matter to anybody?”
Jude, Sue, and Little Father Time are at the Wessex
Agricultural Show, along with Arabella and her husband
Related Characters: The Widow Edlin, Sue Bridehead Cartlett. Jude and Sue seem incredibly happy together, and
(speaker), Little Father Time have even reached a point where they can communicate
without speaking. Arabella, meanwhile, has grown to resent
Related Themes: Cartlett, and looks on at Jude and Sue with a mix of envy
and disdain. In this passage, Sue describes her happiness
Related Symbols: with Jude, saying that they have "returned to Greek
joyousness," meaning that they have managed to conduct
Page Number: 288 their lives with a kind of pagan freedom and joy, free from
the constrictions of Victorian social codes and Christian
Explanation and Analysis
morality. The contrast between Sue and Jude and Arabella
Jude and Sue have adopted Little Father Time, and begun and Cartlett supports Sue's view, suggesting that marriage
the process of getting married; however, the Widow Edlin truly does often destroy couples' feelings for one another.
has told a story about an unhappy marriage in their family
Sue's statement that she and Jude have "forgotten" the
that causes them to doubt whether they should proceed,
lessons of the past twenty-five centuries suggests that they
and eventually they decide to postpone the wedding. In this
have returned to a more innocent, joyful state of existence.
passage, the Widow Edlin comments that nobody was afraid
However, Sue's happiness seems almost too good to last, as
of marriage in the old days, and treated the whole matter
the rest of the narrative will prove. Although it may indeed
casually. This illustrates the way in which Sue and Jude are
be the case that people's lives are happier without marriage
distinctly modern figures, representing a new era. Unlike
and other legalistic social customs, the novel also shows
the Widow, they place a great deal of emphasis on the
how difficult––even impossible––it is to live against the
emotional aspect of marriage, and how it might change their
dominant norms of one's era.
relationship.
Meanwhile, Sue pleads that the Widow not mention the fact
that she and Jude did not go through with the marriage to
Little Father Time. Although she strives to live freely and
unconventionally in her own life, Sue is evidently concerned
with how this lifestyle will affect her adopted son. While she
claims that "If we are happy as we are, what does it matter
to anybody?", it is evident that Sue realizes that it does
matter, even if she disagrees with the logic people use to
judge unmarried couples. Overall, this passage confirms the

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Part 5, Chapter 8 Quotes Part 6, Chapter 2 Quotes

“She’d have come round in time. We all do! Custom does it! “It would almost be better to be out o’ the world than in it,
it’s all the same in the end! However, I think she’s quite fond of wouldn’t it?”
her man still – whatever he med be of her. You were too quick “It would almost, dear.”
about her. I shouldn’t have let her go! I should have kept her “’Tis because of us children, too, isn’t it, that you can’t get a
chained on – her spirit for kicking would have been broke soon good lodging.”
enough! There’s nothing like bondage and a stone-deaf task- “Well – people do object to children sometimes.”
master for taming us women. Besides, you’ve got the laws on “Then if children make so much trouble, why do people have
your side. Moses knew… ‘Then shall the man be guiltless; but ‘em?”
the woman shall bear her iniquity.’ Damn rough on us women; “O – because it is a law of nature.”
but we must grin and put up wi’ it – Haw haw! – Well; she’s got “But we don’t ask to be born?”
her deserts now.” “No indeed.”
“Yes,” said Phillotson, with biting sadness. “Cruelty is the law “And what makes it worse with me is that you are not my real
pervading all nature and society; and we can’t get out of it if we mother, and you needn’t have had me unless you liked. I
would!” oughtn’t to have come to ‘ee – that’s the real truth! I troubled
‘em in Australia; and I trouble folk here. I wish I hadn’t been
born!”
Related Characters: Arabella Donn, Richard Phillotson
(speaker), Jude Fawley
Related Characters: Little Father Time, Sue Bridehead
Related Themes: (speaker)

Page Number: 318 Related Themes:

Explanation and Analysis
Related Symbols:
Arabella has run into Phillotson on the road and introduced
herself to him. Phillotson reveals that he was disgraced as a Page Number: 333
result of divorcing Sue, and Arabella tells him that Sue is
now unhappy and that Phillotson should have stayed with Explanation and Analysis
her. Arabella's words present a bleak, depressing view of In Christminster, Sue, Jude and the children have been
gender, marriage, and indeed human existence in general. refused lodging because of the fact that Sue and Jude aren't
She compares women to horses that need to be tamed, and married. Sue is deeply depressed, and in this passage talks
says that Sue has got what she deserved. Phillotson is not as to Little Father Time about the difficulty of life. Although
harsh, but seems lost and defeated by the tragic she doesn't mean to, Sue inadvertently confirms Little
circumstances of his life, exclaiming that "cruelty is the law Father Time's suspicions that she and Jude would be better
pervading all of nature and society." off if the children didn't exist. (This will eventually lead to
In many ways, this statement can be interpreted as the main Little Father Time's horrific murder-suicide.) The boy's
message of the novel. Regardless of the choices one world-weary personality suggests that, despite his young
makes––whether one chooses to pursue individual age, he understands the world better than the adults
happiness and freedom or succumbs to societal around him. Aspects of life that adults don't question––such
expectations––life is ruthless and most people are as why people have children, given that life is so
miserable. Arabella's claim that "it's all the same in the end" hard––trouble Little Father Time. His philosophical
resonates with this bleak view of humanity. No matter how reflections on these matters show both his intelligence and
hard people try to find happiness, they are inevitably broken his deep pessimism about life.
down by the cruelty of life.

“No,” said Jude. “It was in his nature to do it. The doctor
says that there are such boys springing up amongst us –
boys of a sort unknown in the last generation – the outcome of
new views of life. They seem to see all its terrors before they
are old enough to have staying power to resist them. He says it
is the beginning of the coming universal wish not to live.”

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Related Characters: Jude Fawley (speaker), Little Father

Related Symbols:
Time

Related Themes: Page Number: 337

Explanation and Analysis

Related Symbols:
Little Father Time has hanged his siblings and then himself
in a horrifying murder-suicide. A doctor has told Jude and
Page Number: 337
Sue that Little Father Time's nihilistic view of the world is
Explanation and Analysis symbolic of a new desire for death among the younger
The day after Sue and Little Father Time's conversation generation. Jude and Sue go to see the children's bodies,
about life, Sue goes to bring the children breakfast only to and feel that Little Father Time's face "expressed the whole
discover all three children hanged––Little Father Time has tale of their situation." This passage utilizes the language
murdered the others before killing himself. Though all three typically used to describe parental love for children in
are dead, Jude summons a doctor anyway, who confirms positive terms, while twisting it in a decidedly sinister way,
that there is no hope for them and adds that Little Father suggesting that Little Father Time has paid for his parents'
Time was in some sense predestined to commit suicide. The "accidents, mistakes, fears, [and] errors." Once again, Little
doctor even suggests that Little Father Time's actions were Father Time is represented less as an individual character
representative of "the coming universal wish not to live." than a symbol for some of the novel's key themes—a kind of
This remarkable statement is surprising given the shocking Christ figure of modernity, who dies without reason or hope
nature of the murder-suicide. Little Father Time's actions because of the sins of the world.
completely contradict the way children are expected to
behave, and thus the doctor's words indicate the boy's total
dissimilarity from traditional ideas of childhood innocence. We said – do you remember? – that we would make a
Indeed, as Jude stresses in this passage, Little Father Time virtue of joy. I said it was Nature’s intention. Nature’s law
seems to have bypassed this state of innocence altogether, and raison d’etre that we should be joyful in what instincts she
arriving at a sorrowful, pessimistic view of the world before afforded us – instincts which civilization had taken upon itself
he is old enough to be able to properly cope with suffering. to thwart. What dreadful things I said! And now Fate has given
The doctor's suggestions that Little Father Time is us this stab in the back for being such fools as to take Nature at
representative of a more general "wish not to live" her word!
emphasizes Little Father Time's association with a bleak,
cruel future. At the same time, this death-drive itself is a Related Characters: Sue Bridehead (speaker), Jude Fawley
cancellation of futurity, suggesting that even as Little Father
Time symbolizes the coming of modernity, this future world Related Themes:
is just darkness, nihilism, and death.
Related Symbols:

The boy’s face expressed the whole tale of their situation. Page Number: 339
On that little shape had converged all the inauspiciousness Explanation and Analysis
and shadow which had darkened the first union of Jude, and all
the accidents, mistakes, fears, errors of the last. He was their Following Little Father Time's murder-suicide, Jude and Sue
nodal point, their focus, their expression in a single term. For have gone to view the children's bodies. They hear an organ
the rashness of those parents he had groaned, for their ill- playing a hymn, and Sue comments that it feels as though a
assortment he had quaked, and for the misfortunes of these he force is punishing them for the way they have behaved. In
had died. this passage, Sue continues to fixate on the idea that "Fate
has given us this stab in the back for being such fools." This
is a crucial turning point in Sue's attitude toward faith,
Related Characters: Little Father Time, Jude Fawley freedom, and morality. Whereas before the children's
deaths Sue staunchly associated herself with a kind of
Related Themes: "ancient," pagan atheism, the trajectory of her life has
caused her to experience a crisis in which she believes she is

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Perhaps as we couldn’t conscientiously marry at first in the
being punished by God. old-fashioned way, we ought to have parted. Perhaps the
This passage displays not only Sue's sudden turn to world is not illuminated enough for such experiments as ours!
religiosity but also her newfound sense of pessimism. In Who were we, to think we could act as pioneers!
previous years, Sue justified her nonconformist lifestyle by
claiming that she was living according to natural instincts. Related Characters: Jude Fawley (speaker)
Now, however, she suddenly sees nature as deceitful and
cruel, and exclaims in shame about the "dreadful things" she Related Themes:
used to think.
Page Number: 352
“I see marriage differently now!... My babies have been Explanation and Analysis
taken from me to show me this! Arabella’s child killing
Sue has grown increasingly religious, obsessed with the idea
mine was a judgment; the right slaying the wrong. What, what
that the children's deaths were God's punishment for the
shall I do! I am such a vile creature – too worthless to mix with
fact that she and Jude lived together despite being
ordinary human beings.”
unmarried. Jude is horrified by Sue's sudden religiosity,
…He returned vehemently… “You make me hate Christianity, or
though in this passage he too concedes that perhaps they
mysticism, or Sacerdotalism, or whatever it may be called, if it’s
shouldn't have been together considering they "couldn't
that which has caused this deterioration in you. That a woman-
conscientiously marry at first in the old-fashioned way."
poet, a woman-seer, a woman whose soul shone like a diamond
Note the stark difference in the way Jude and Sue interpret
– whom all the wise of the world would have been proud of, if
the "mistake" of their relationship: whereas now Sue
they could have known you – should degrade herself like this! I
believes that marriage is important because it is part of the
am glad I had nothing to do with Divinity – damn glad – if it’s
natural law of God, Jude believes that it is simply too
going to ruin you in this way!”
difficult to "act as pioneers" and live against the rules and
conventions of society. Despite everything, Jude infers that
Related Characters: Jude Fawley, Sue Bridehead (speaker), their way of life was an "illuminated... experiment" in a
Arabella Donn, Little Father Time backwards world.

Related Themes:
Part 6, Chapter 5 Quotes
Related Symbols:
It was like a re-enactment by the ghosts of their former
selves of the similar scene which had taken place at Melchester
Page Number: 350
years before. When the books were signed the vicar
Explanation and Analysis congratulated the husband and wife on having performed a
noble, and righteous, and mutually forgiving act. “All’s well that
Following the children's deaths, Sue and Jude and have
ends well,” he said smiling. “May you long be happy together,
moved to Beersheba, where they live in a state of
after thus having been ‘saved as by fire.’”
depression and despair. Sue has declared that they are
being punished by God, and thus have "no choice" but to
"conform." In this passage, Sue explains her dramatic change Related Characters: Richard Phillotson, Sue Bridehead
of heart, telling Jude that she interprets Little Father Time
killing her children as "the right slaying the wrong." Jude Related Themes:
responds by telling Sue that she makes him "hate
Christianity, or mysticism, or Sacerdotalism," and feel glad Page Number: 369
that he's not religious. Jude's reply is interesting, as it Explanation and Analysis
highlights the fact that he has now taken on Sue's previous
beliefs wholeheartedly, and is indeed defending them from Sue has decided to remarry Phillotson, although she is still
Sue herself. Jude and Sue have switched places, and Jude is physically repulsed by him, panicked about the prospect of
now the one speaking with Hardy's skeptical and pessimistic being married, and in love with Jude. Even Phillotson begins
but defiant voice. to doubt whether the marriage is a good idea, but
eventually decides that they must go ahead with it in order
to conform to societal expectations. This passage describes
the ceremony, during which the priest's positivity contrasts

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distinctly with the doubt, misery, and fear felt by the bride cynicism, Jude simultaneously remains a romantic idealist.
and groom. The priest's declaration that "all's well that ends His dream of running away with Sue is hardly realistic,
well" is devastatingly ironic considering all that has especially considering Jude is extremely sick and was barely
happened and how unhappy an "ending" this is. This able to make the journey to Marygreen. Furthermore, Jude
confirms the notion that societal conventions such as seems to believe that Sue's conversion to a dogmatic,
marriage are not designed with people's best interests at legalistic strain of Christianity is a temporary state of being,
heart, but rather function as a way to force people to like getting drunk. He refuses to accept that Sue will never
conform to legalistic understandings of religion and go back to the version of herself Jude used to know.
morality.

Part 6, Chapter 10 Quotes

Part 6, Chapter 8 Quotes As for Sue and me when we were at our best, long ago –
We’ve both re-married out of our senses. I was made when our minds were clear, and our love of truth fearless – the
drunk to do it. You were the same. I was gin-drunk; you were time was not ripe for us! Our ideas were fifty years too soon to
creed-drunk. Either form of intoxication takes away the nobler be any good to us. And so the resistance they met with brought
vision. Let us then shake off our mistakes, and run away reaction in her, and recklessness and ruin on me!
together!
Related Characters: Jude Fawley (speaker), Sue Bridehead
Related Characters: Jude Fawley (speaker), Sue Bridehead
Related Themes:
Related Themes:
Page Number: 400
Page Number: 390
Explanation and Analysis
Explanation and Analysis Time has passed, and Jude's illness has abated, before
Both Jude and Sue have remarried their original partners, returning. Arabella has told Jude that she will allow Sue to
Arabella and Phillotson, although they secretly remain in come and see him, but Jude responds that he doesn't wish
love with one another. Jude has developed a respiratory to see her. Jude then reminisces about his time with Sue,
illness and, knowing he will soon die, travels to Marygreen reflecting that "our minds were clear, and our love of truth
to see Sue. They meet in the church and argue at first, fearless," but that society was not ready to handle such
before kissing passionately. In this passage, Jude tells courage and independence. Although undeniably tragic,
Arabella that they were both "drunk" when they got Jude's thoughts in this passage also contain a note of
remarried; Sue was drunk on religion, and Jude on gin. He optimism. His assertion that he and Sue were "fifty years
suggests that he and Sue run away together, showing that too soon" suggests that more honest and free ways of living
despite everything that has happened, Jude has still not may be possible in the near future. Unlike Sue, he also
relinquished his desire to be with Sue and live against refuses to blame himself for the events that befell him, but
societal customs. understands that they were the result of terrible luck and a
Indeed, this passage shows that despite his nihilistic harsh, oppressive society.

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SUMMARY AND ANAL

ANALYSIS
YSIS
The color-coded icons under each analysis entry make it easy to track where the themes occur most prominently throughout the
work. Each icon corresponds to one of the themes explained in the Themes section of this LitChart.

PART 1, CHAPTER 1
In the small town of Marygreen, everyone is upset because the These scenes are a sort of prequel in which Hardy lays the
schoolmaster, Richard Phillotson, is leaving. He is moving to foundation for the rest of the novel. Marygreen is a small, pastoral
Christminster, which is a university town about twenty miles town in Hardy’s fictional Wessex county, which is based on the
away. Phillotson has a piano that he is unsure of how to move or county of Dorset. The college town of Christminster, immediately
store. An eleven-year-old boy named Jude Fawley, who is appears as an idealized destination.
helping Phillotson pack, suggests that his aunt could store the
piano in her fuel-house.

Jude is sad that Phillotson is leaving, as he has been Jude’s best Phillotson first acts as Jude’s idol and his precursor in the dream of
and closest teacher. Phillotson reveals his secret ambitions to attending the university. Hardy hasn’t yet revealed how impossible
Jude, saying that he wants to go to Christminster so he can try it is for working class people of places like Marygreen to ever be
to get into a university there. Phillotson rides off on his cart and accepted in Christminster. Hardy throws in a critique of modernity
Jude is left feeling melancholy and melodramatic. The narrator for modernity’s sake – he is often calling for social reform, but
describes Marygreen briefly – it is a small, old-fashioned town regarding architecture Hardy is old-fashioned.
in North Wessex. Though it is old, its original church has been
torn down and a new one of “modern Gothic design” has been
built in its place.

PART 1, CHAPTER 2
Jude returns home. He lives with his great-aunt, Drusilla Hardy lays out all his themes from the start, as this novel will be
Fawley, who is a baker, as both his parents are dead. Drusilla is very open in its social critiques and pessimistic worldview. Jude is
talking to some neighbors when Jude walks in, and she first presented as unwanted and unloved, and also cursed regarding
mentions aloud that it would have been better if Jude had died marriage. Divorce was rare and frowned upon in Victorian times.
with his parents, as he is a “poor useless boy.” She tells Jude Drusilla first presents Christminster as an ideal for Jude, and
that he should have gone with Phillotson to Christminster, as associates the town with both his love of learning and his cousin Sue
Jude is “crazy for books” just like his cousin Sue, who lives – Hardy foreshadows heavily.
elsewhere. Drusilla says that Jude’s parents had divorced, and
she advises the young Jude to never marry, as marriage always
goes badly for Fawleys.

Jude feels uncomfortable at all the attention and goes off to Hardy immediately begins portraying Jude as a sympathetic, kindly
the bakehouse to eat breakfast. Then he goes to his job, which character, one who is very sensitive to the suffering of others but
is scaring crows away from a cornfield with a clacker. As he who is doomed to experience great suffering of his own. Jude’s first
clacks, Jude muses on the crows and decides that they deserve job is basically a living scarecrow, showing just how poor and alone
some food too, as the farmer has plenty to spare. He lets the he is.
crows eat, feeling that they alone understand his plight of living
in a world where he is unwanted.

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Farmer Troutham, the owner of the cornfield, catches Jude Hardy often portrays the natural world as more sympathetic than
“idling” and beats him with his own clacker. He fires Jude and human society, and Jude finds kinship with the crows and
sends him home, telling him never to return. Jude goes back to earthworms in his innocence. We are already aware that tragedy
his aunt’s house, ashamed, and carefully avoids stepping on any lies in wait for Jude, we just don’t know what form it will take. He is
earthworms on the way. He has always been unable to hurt any too sensitive for the harsh, unjust world that Hardy wants to
living things, which the narrator calls a potential “weakness of critique.
character” that will cause him to suffer greatly in his life.

Jude goes back to his aunt, who is disappointed that he has Drusilla encourages Jude to go to Christminster, but then
been fired. She tells him again that he should go to immediately informs him that it is hopeless. Many characters will
Christminster. Jude asks her about it and whether he could lament the “mutual butchery” inherent in existence, which is part of
visit Phillotson there, but Drusilla says that the people in Hardy’s pessimistic view of fate. No matter how good one’s
Marygreen and Christminster never associate with each other. intentions are, every action causes suffering to someone or
Jude goes out, feeling depressed that “mercy towards one set something.
of creatures was cruelty towards another.”

Later that day Jude goes into town and asks a man where Marygreen is set in opposition to Christminster – the unlearned,
Christminster is. The man points north-eastward, and Jude poor, working class against the wealthy, well-born upper class with
sets out in that direction even though he has to pass through the leisure to study. Jude is trying to move from one class to another,
Farmer Troutham’s field. The forbidden aspect of this path which is nearly an impossible feat in his world.
seems to make Christminster more appealing.

PART 1, CHAPTER 3
Jude walks a few miles north and comes to an old barn called Jude shows his tendency for melodrama, idealism, and using
the Brown House. He climbs a ladder onto the roof, where two Biblical language to describe earthly things. He builds up
men are working. He tells them he is trying to find Christminster as his lifelong dream based only on hearsay and
Christminster, and they say it is sometimes visible from the Phillotson’s presence there, so it is almost inevitable that he will be
roof, but not today. Jude decides to wait until the weather disappointed someday.
clears, hoping to catch a glimpse of the city – which he thinks of
as “The Heavenly Jerusalem” – before going home.

Dusk falls and Jude prays to see Christminster, and eventually It is significant that Jude may not actually be seeing Christminster
he sees distant lights and spires, “either directly seen or itself, but perhaps an imagined halo of light or another distant town.
miraged in the peculiar atmosphere.” Then he goes home, trying He has no idea about the real Christminster, but builds up a specific
not to be afraid of the dark. In the following weeks Jude dreams image in his mind.
of Christminster, romanticizing not just the beautiful city but
the “mentally shining ones therein.”

One day Jude returns to the Brown House at dusk and waits Christminster is a fictional town, but it is based on the university
for night to fall, watching for Christminster from the roof. town of Oxford, England. Hardy himself was too poor to attend the
Instead of seeing individual lights he sees a vague glow this university there, so in this way Jude’s struggles are semi-
time, but he imagines Phillotson in the light like a holy figure. autobiographical. It is ironic, considering Phillotson’s later presence
Jude then imagines a sound of bells, or the voice of the city in the novel, that he starts out as a “holy figure” for Jude.
saying “We are happy here.” Jude sees some men carrying coal
pass by on the road, and he asks if they are coming from
Christminster. They say they aren’t.

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The men tell Jude that the people of Christminster read books This is a comedic moment as the man goes into great detail about
in languages that he will never understand, and it is “nothing Christminster despite never having been there, but it is also tragic
but learning” there. A man goes on to describe the religion, for Jude, as he is now orienting his life around secondhand
music, and beauty of the city, though he admits that he has information. Jude seems already well-versed in Biblical language,
never been there. Jude heads home alone, suddenly feeling and again he associates Christminster with a holy city, a kind of
older and deciding that Christminster will be the goal of his life. “Heavenly Jerusalem.”
He declares to himself that it is a “city of light” where “the tree
of knowledge” grows, and decides that it will suit him perfectly.

PART 1, CHAPTER 4
On his way home Jude runs into Physician Vilbert, an itinerant Vilbert is quickly revealed to be liar, but Jude believes him when he
quack-doctor who travels constantly and sells false remedies to affirms his idealism of Christminster. This is a relatively harmless
people. Jude asks him about Christminster, and Vilbert says example of what will become a tragic pattern later – Jude is too
that even the old washerwomen there speak Latin. Jude affirms high-minded and sensitive to properly survive a society that takes
his desire to learn Greek and Latin and go to Christminster one advantage of him.
day, and Vilbert offers to sell Jude his old grammar books if
Jude will advertise for his medicines at every house in the
village for two weeks. Jude agrees, and he upholds his end of
the bargain.

Two weeks later Physician Vilbert returns and Jude gives him The world of the novel is very small, and Vilbert will return years
the orders for medicines he has taken. Vilbert is pleased, but he later to “defeat” Jude again. In Hardy’s worldview, English society
says he has forgotten his grammar books (and he seems to have rewards the vain and narrow-minded at the expense of the pure,
forgotten about Jude as well.) Jude is disappointed, and innocent idealists.
realizes what “shoddy humanity” Vilbert is made of. Soon
afterwards Phillotson sends for his piano, and Jude hides a
note inside the instrument requesting any old copies of
grammar books Phillotson can spare.

After a few weeks Phillotson sends Jude two grammar books. This is the first disappointment Jude feels regarding his dream and
Jude begins to read them excitedly, but then he is overwhelmed its extreme difficulty. Many characters get depressed and wish they
by the difficulty of learning a new language and memorizing had never been born, illustrating the novel’s pessimistic outlook and
thousands of words. He thinks this is beyond his intelligence, the seemingly unavoidable hand of tragic fate.
effectively crushing his dream. Jude grows depressed and
wishes he had never been born.

PART 1, CHAPTER 5
In the following years Jude starts helping his great-aunt at the Jude becomes more sympathetic in his struggles to reach beyond
bakery, and he delivers her bread via horse-drawn cart to the his allotted station in life. He has to do all the work of a normal man
areas surrounding Marygreen. Jude studies Latin while he of his class, but also study in every available second to try and reach
drives the cart, leaving the horse to find its own way. Once he is the university.
rebuked by a policeman for this, but afterwards the officer
doesn’t give him any trouble.

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One day the sixteen-year-old Jude is passing by the Brown Hardy often seems to endorse a pagan closeness to Nature over the
House in his cart. He notices the beautiful sunset and he strict Christianity that was ubiquitous in his time. Jude flirts with
dismounts in a kind of daze, reciting a pagan hymn in Latin. the kind of “Greek joyousness” that he will later experience again
Afterwards he is ashamed, and decides to read the Bible more with Sue, but for now Jude takes the orthodox path.
instead of “heathen works.” He procures a New Testament in
Greek and begins studying that on his rides.

Jude thinks more practically about moving to Christminster, Jude’s struggle to enter Christminster involves double work because
and he decides to take up stoneworking as a way to earn of his situation – he has to constantly labor to save up money (and
money. He apprentices himself to a stone-mason in Alfredston survive), but he must also teach himself Greek and Latin. Hardy
(a town near Marygreen), and he keeps lodgings there during himself worked as an architect, as he also was too poor to afford
the week, returning to Marygreen on weekends. Jude passes university.
the next three years working and studying.

PART 1, CHAPTER 6
One weekend the nineteen-year-old Jude is walking to This is Jude’s high point just before his loss of innocence, when it
Marygreen from Alfredston. He feels optimistic about reaching seems that he might actually be able to achieve his dream of
Christminster soon, and he recites aloud his accomplishments Christminster. He dreams of joining the church, but mostly as an
in learning Greek and Latin. He declares that once he saves afterthought to his intellectual and scholastic desires.
enough money, a college is sure to accept him. He even dreams
of becoming an archdeacon or bishop one day.

Jude is suddenly struck on the ear by a piece of pig’s flesh Because of the repressive viewpoint Victorian society took toward
(genitalia, though the narrator never explicitly names it), sex, Hardy can never mention anything sexual outright, and even
interrupting his speech. He hears laughter and sees three pregnancy is only talked around. The pig’s flesh introduces Arabella
young woman washing “chitterlings” in a nearby stream. The as a sensual, worldly woman distracting Jude from his lofty dreams.
girls tease Jude about the pig’s flesh, and one girl in particular
gets his attention.

The girl introduces herself as Arabella Donn, the daughter of Jude is a “tragic hero” because it is not only his external situation
the pig farmer, and she boldly separates herself from the group that leads to his downfall, but also a “fatal flaw” within himself –
to talk to Jude. She produces dimples in her cheeks at will, and mostly his weakness regarding women. Arabella’s practiced dimples
Jude is struck by her prettiness, having never really noticed a immediately show her artificiality. For her, Jude is a prize to be won
woman before. He asks if he can see her the next day (Sunday), by any means necessary.
and Arabella agrees.

Jude leaves in a daze, suddenly feeling like his studies and work Hardy begins his critique of marriage by showing how the
are not so important. Jude’s intellectual side recognizes his institution can be abused. Arabella doesn’t really love Jude, she just
foolishness, but then it is overwhelmed by thoughts of wants a husband, and through the conventions of marriage it is easy
Arabella’s charms. Meanwhile Arabella talks to her friends to entrap him and distract him from his dream.
about “catching” Jude.

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PART 1, CHAPTER 7
The next day Jude considers studying his Greek and ignoring The narrator pulls no punches in disparaging Jude’s distraction from
Arabella’s invitation, but then he decides it would be rude not Christminster for Arabella’s sake. Though Christminster is perhaps
to call on her. It is as if an external force casts aside his an idealized, impossible dream, Jude’s fatal flaw is casting aside his
“elevated intentions” and sends him off to Arabella. Jude future and “higher nature” for worldly pleasures.
arrives at her house and takes her for a walk, talking with her
about the “commonest local twaddle” as if it were his beloved
Latin or Greek.

Arabella and Jude see a fire in the distance and they run off to The picture of Samson and Delilah is an obvious warning for Jude –
investigate it. It gets late and they are far from home, so they Samson was a Biblical man of incredible strength who was seduced
stop at a bar where a picture of Samson and Delilah is hanging by Delilah, who cut off his hair, the source of his power. Arabella also
on the wall. They drink a beer and Arabella shows her becomes associated with alcohol, Jude’s other sensual weakness.
surprising knowledge of liquor. They walk home in the dark and
Jude kisses Arabella several times.

When they enter Arabella’s house Jude is surprised that her In this society there is no “casual” dating, but only wooing with the
family thinks of him as a serious suitor. Jude returns to his own intent to marry or else a scandalous, sinful affair. Jude still tends
home and starts to wonder if he is “wasting” his life on books towards melodrama and romance, while Arabella is narrow-minded
instead of loving a woman. The next day Jude returns to and greedy.
Alfredston for work, romanticizing the night before but keeping
his romance a secret.

An hour later Arabella passes by the same spot (the scene of It is telling that Jude passes by the spot of their kiss and cherishes
their kiss) with her two friends, recounting all the details of the the memory, while Arabella passes by without even noticing. Hardy
previous night and declaring that she wants to marry Jude. Her can never state it outright, but it becomes clear that Arabella’s plan
two friends, Sarah and Anny, propose that Arabella try a special is to seduce Jude, get pregnant (or seem to), and then guilt him into
trick to “catch” Jude, if he is an honest man. Arabella is confused marrying her. In this society, sex outside of marriage is a great sin,
at first but her friends explain it, saying that “lots of girls do it” and can only be rectified by a wedding.
and it is the cause of many marriages, and Arabella decides to
try it.

PART 1, CHAPTER 8
Jude and Arabella’s romance progresses, and one weekend Jude is innocent regarding anything sexual, as Arabella is the first
they chase a lost pig through the village together, ending up woman he has ever even considered romantically, and it is almost
alone on a hill. Arabella tries to lure Jude into lying down next comedic how he accidentally resists Arabella’s advances. Arabella’s
to her, but he innocently doesn’t notice her tricks. The next day parents clearly share her mindset, as they vacate their own house to
Arabella tells her parents to leave for the evening, as she wants condone their daughter’s illicit relations – as long as it leads her to
the house to herself to successfully trap Jude. That night Jude “trap” a man.
(who hasn’t studied in weeks) comes to Arabella’s house, and
she lures him upstairs and seduces him.

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PART 1, CHAPTER 9
Two months later Arabella meets with the quack-doctor Hardy can’t even mention pregnancy, especially if it occurs outside
Vilbert, who tells her something that cheers her up. That of marriage. Jude continues to be high-minded even to his own
evening Jude tells Arabella that he should probably move away, detriment, as he chooses to stick to the honorable path even though
but Arabella cries and tells him (in roundabout language) that it destroys his dreams of Christminster. He is now idealizing both
she is pregnant. Jude is shocked but he immediately offers to Arabella and marriage instead of the university.
marry Arabella. He admits that it is a “complete smashing up” of
his dreams of Christminster, but he decides to do the
honorable thing.

That night Jude starts to realize that Arabella will not make a Hardy begins his explicit criticism of marriage. His main complaint is
good wife, and the townspeople gossip about how Jude’s lofty that it is a contract binding people for life (divorce was rare and
ideals have fallen. The two are soon married, and the narrator frowned upon), but is usually made by young, innocent people in the
comments on the ceremony where they swear to feel exactly grip of hormones – the people least qualified to make such a huge
the same way for the rest of their lives, and where no one is decision. Drusilla acts as the voice of fate and tragedy.
surprised by such an oath. As a wedding present Jude’s great-
aunt sends him a cake and another declaration that it would
have been better if he died with his parents.

The couple settles in together in a small cottage between Arabella is further associated with alcohol, another “sinful” pleasure
Marygreen and the Brown House. On their wedding night that is also Jude’s weakness. Arabella is the opposite of Sue and an
Arabella reveals that she has been wearing an extra bundle of example of all that Victorian society found sinful and bad about
hair that is not her own (to make her own hair look bigger), and women – she is greedy, narrow-minded, tempting, and artificial.
also that she used to be a barmaid in Aldbrickham, a nearby
town. Jude realizes that Arabella has a kind of “artificiality in
[her] very blood.”

The couple is satisfied for a few weeks, and one day Arabella Hardy never relents in his (often heavy-handed) condemnation of
meets her friend Anny in town. Arabella reveals that she isn’t marriage. Hardy himself was estranged from his first wife, and so his
actually pregnant, and Anny congratulates her on “shamming arguments here are personal. He feels that one impulsive decision
it.” One night Jude asks Arabella about the pregnancy, and she should not be able to ruin a young person’s life, especially as the
says she “made a mistake.” Jude is shocked, and suddenly sees contract of that decision is totally determined by society.
his situation differently – he feels trapped by the marriage,
condemned by one impulsive action (marrying Arabella) for the
rest of his life.

PART 1, CHAPTER 10
Autumn comes and Jude and Arabella wait for the pig-killer Jude has not lost his sympathy for all living creatures. This scene
Challow to come slaughter their pig. Challow never shows up, shows just how incompatible he and Arabella are – she is concerned
so Jude and Arabella have to kill the pig themselves. Jude tries only with how much money they can get for the meat, and cares
to kill it quickly, despite Arabella’s demands that it “must die nothing for the pig’s suffering. The blood on the snow is a stark
slow” so the meat will be more valuable. Jude is very distraught image of lost innocence.
by the process, and he laments over the snow “stained with the
blood of his fellow-mortal.”

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One day Jude is walking off to Alfredston when he hears some Hardy begins with this example of a bad marriage, and then shows
of Arabella’s friends talking about how Arabella tricked him into how it will continue to haunt Jude for his whole life. Jude and
marriage. Jude returns home and argues with Arabella about Arabella are clearly wrong for each other, but they are now bound
how he wishes they had never married. Arabella, who is melting together by law and religion because of one impulsive act.
the pig’s fat, says the pregnancy was her own risk and right.

PART 1, CHAPTER 11
The next morning the couple argues again, and Arabella throws The nature of the couple’s fight drives home how marriage to
Jude’s books onto the floor. Jude gets angry and pulls her away. Arabella is the opposite of Jude’s dreams of scholarship. Jude
Jude suddenly realizes that his life has been ruined by this recognizes the tragedy of his own situation, a tragedy that Hardy
“fundamental error of their matrimonial union.” Arabella taunts has purposefully drawn out to show just how bad a bad marriage
him about the divorce that runs in his family and then storms can be.
off.

Jude goes to see his great-aunt and asks her about his parents Hardy’s characters often seem trapped in an inescapable, tragic
and his aunt and uncle, and Drusilla admits that both couples fate, and for Jude this fate involves the divorce that runs in his
divorced. Jude’s parents broke up near the Brown House and family. This is another aspect of the “fatal flaw” that leads to his
then Jude’s mother drowned herself. Drusilla declares that downfall – he cannot escape his own blood, which always leads to
Fawleys aren’t meant for marriage, as there is something in failure in marriage.
their blood that revolts against being sworn to love.

On his way back to his cottage Jude walks out onto a frozen Jude now succumbs to the depression that accompanies his
pond and tries to break the ice (and kill himself) by jumping on recognition of his tragic fate. He sees the symbolism of the Samson
it, but he fails. Then he goes off to get drunk at the inn with the and Delilah picture now, and surrenders to his other great
picture of Samson and Delilah on the wall. Jude gets very drunk weakness, drunkenness.
and returns home to find Arabella’s note that she is staying
with friends.

Arabella doesn’t return for a few days, and then Jude gets a Australia was an English colony at this time, so Arabella’s exit is not
letter from her saying that her parents are moving to Australia, as random as it might seem. Jude again sees how different he and
and she is going with them. After she has sold their possessions Arabella are. Jude is a romantic, while Arabella is only concerned
at auction Jude finds a photo of himself in a broker’s shop, with getting the most for herself at the expense of others.
which was his wedding present to Arabella. Jude buys the
photo and burns it, feeling the “death of every tender
sentiment in his wife.” Arabella and her family leave a few days
later.

Now that he is alone, Jude returns to his dreams of It seems like Jude has escaped his disastrous marriage and can now
Christminster. He passes by a milestone where his sixteen- return to his dream, though Hardy will later show that Jude can
year-old self had carved “Thither, J.F.” and a hand pointing never be truly free of Arabella. Hardy seems to propose that we
towards Christminster. Jude then decides to “battle with his should battle against our tragic fates, but at the same time he shows
evil star” and keep pursuing his dream, despite all his obstacles. how futile this resistance usually is, as Jude will ultimately succumb
to his “evil star.” This signpost becomes a potent image of Jude’s
youthful dreams.

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PART 2, CHAPTER 1
Three years after his marriage, Jude finally goes to Arabella temporarily leaves the novel as Hardy continues to
Christminster. He has grown skilled at his craft of foreshadow the approach of Sue Bridehead, his other protagonist
stoneworking, and marches into town with his tools. He was and progressive female character. Jude seems on the right track to
partly motivated to move by seeing a portrait of his cousin, Sue achieving his dream now – the distant halo of Christminster has
Bridehead, at his aunt’s house. Sue lives in Christminster, become a real city.
though he doesn’t know where.

Jude enters the town and takes lodgings in an area called Though Jude has reached the real Christminster, he is still seeing it
Beersheba. He goes out at night and passes by the ancient, through the haze of his own idealism. As a stonemason, Jude is able
ornate college buildings. He wanders the empty streets and to admire the beautiful old stonework and add it to his idolization of
imagines the shades of dead philosophers and writers around Christminster, imagining the wondrous scholarship that must dwell
him. He converses aloud with them until a policeman inside the magnificent buildings. Jude’s interior life is so
comments on his odd behavior. Jude returns to his room and as overwhelming that he can become almost delusional.
he falls asleep he hears more quotations from the “spectres” of
different writers. The next morning he remembers that he is
here to find Mr. Phillotson and his cousin Sue.

PART 2, CHAPTER 2
That day Jude goes out into the streets again to find This sentence sums up much of the tragedy of Jude’s life – the
Christminster looking much less romantic – “What at night had contrast between his idealized reality and his harsh actual fate.
been perfect and ideal was by day the more or less defective Hardy begins his critique of the educational system. The narrator
real.” All the buildings seem pompous and decayed. Jude offers some external criticism, implying that Jude has over-
wanders around looking for work, and for a moment he feels romanticized Christminster’s intellectual life.
that his stonework could be just as valuable as being a scholar,
but then he returns to his old dream.

Jude is discouraged and asks his aunt to send the portrait of As usual Drusilla acts as the voice of Hardy’s pessimism, trying to
Sue. Drusilla does so, but she warns Jude not to try to find Sue. warn Jude to avoid his tragic fate but not really expecting him to do
Jude decides to wait until he is more settled before finding so. Jude extends his idealism to Phillotson, assuming that the
Phillotson, whom he assumes is now a parson. Jude wanders schoolteacher already achieved the goal that Jude is now striving
about the colleges for days before realizing how far he still is for. In his new vision of the “defective real” Jude can see reality
from his dream of studying at a university. Though he shares better.
the students’ mental life, he is still a poor working-class man
who cannot afford the colleges.

Jude finally gets a job offer from a stonemason and he accepts, Jude’s first perception of Sue is that she is religious and pure, though
deciding that his first priority should be to save up money. His we will soon learn otherwise. He puts her on a pedestal – a common
aunt sends another letter warning about Sue, but Jude decides way of viewing women in Victorian times – but is also ensnared by
to go see Sue anyway. He learns that she works as a designer at her beauty. His fate is already sealed, as the only way to avoid it was
a shop and he goes there. He watches the beautiful Sue to take Drusilla’s advice and never see Sue.
illuminating the word “Alleluja” on a scroll, and he decides that
she is innocent and saintly. Jude leaves without revealing
himself.

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Afterwards Jude often follows Sue or seeks out her presence, Jude has taken the “curse” of the Fawleys more to heart since his
but she doesn’t notice that he is there. He admires her beauty own bad marriage, and because Sue is his cousin she also falls under
and refined nature, which he assumes she acquired in London, the same curse. Jude’s tendency towards idealism is now focused on
and wonders how one of his “almost accursed stock” could have Sue, as he prefers observing and romanticizing her from afar instead
reached such “niceness.” He begins to fall in love with her, but of actually talking to her – like he longed for Christminster for years
recognizes that they could never marry because he is already before actually going there.
married, it is bad luck for cousins to marry, and they are both of
the same family which is cursed regarding marriage. Jude
resolves to think of Sue only as a cousin and friend.

PART 2, CHAPTER 3
Jude learns that Sue goes to the church services of the Jude is reinforced in his idea of Sue as a conventional, religious
Cardinal College, and he goes there to find her. He watches her woman. Jude and Hardy both seem to think in Biblical language,
and listens to the choir singing “Wherewithal shall a young man showing the ubiquity of Christianity even as Hardy critiques it.
cleanse his way?” This reminds him of his disastrous marriage,
which he now wishes he could undo. Again Jude refrains from
approaching Sue.

The narrative jumps back a few days, when Sue had a holiday The book now expands to include its second protagonist, the
and was walking through the country. She comes across a man fascinating character Sue Bridehead. Contrary to Jude’s first
selling sculptures of pagan gods, and she buys one of Venus and impression of her, we first see Sue rebelling against the Christianity
one of Apollo. Sue nervously wraps them up and brings them of her surroundings by buying pagan statues and secreting them
back to Christminster, “the most Christian city in the country.” into her room.
She takes them up to her room and is then approached by Miss
Fontover, her elderly landlady.

Miss Fontover asks Sue about the package she is carrying, and We see that Sue is anything but conventional already, as she is well-
Sue lies and says she bought statues of St. Peter and St. Mary read, rebellious, and religiously unorthodox. At the same time Hardy
Magdalene. After Miss Fontover leaves Sue unwraps the still lets her slip into some Victorian female stereotypes – he makes
statues and places them on her dresser with a candle between her very emotional, high-strung, and inconsistent.
them. A picture of Jesus on the cross ironically hangs over the
idols. Sue reads some poetry (about Jesus’s breath turning the
world gray) and then falls asleep.

PART 2, CHAPTER 4
Jude works a while refinishing old buildings and lettering Hardy furthers his critique of marriage, lamenting that the
tombstones. One day he is on a ladder working at a church, and institution puts a contract on love, which is a fickle, voluntary
he sees Sue with Miss Fontover at the service inside. His feeling. Jude is obligated to love Arabella because of one act (their
passion for Sue grows stronger in the following days, though he mistaken marriage), and his whole lifetime of feelings following that
tries to resist it. Jude recognizes that by law he is obligated to act are then invalidated by his religion and society.
love Arabella forever, despite the reality of his feelings.

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One afternoon Sue comes to the stonemason’s yard while Jude We don’t learn this until later, but Sue associates their meeting place
is away, and she asks for Jude Fawley. One of Jude's coworkers with the curse of the Fawleys regarding marriage. She also has
mentions the visit, and Jude recognizes Sue by her description. grown up a child of divorce, and heard the same advice to never
He then finds a note from her at his lodging, saying she will be marry. Sue breaks through Jude’s idealism by coming to see him
leaving Christminster soon. He immediately writes back to her herself, instead of acting as a distant, almost holy figure.
and proposes to meet Sue outside. Sue agrees, but finds the
particular place Jude chooses to be “gloomy and inauspicious in
its associations.” They greet each other bashfully.

Jude asks Sue if she knows Mr. Phillotson (whom he assumes is The “defective real” returns again, now crushing Jude’s hopes for
a parson), but she says she only knows a schoolmaster of that Phillotson. Phillotson’s failure is also a blow to Jude’s own hopes of
name in nearby Lumsdon. Jude suddenly realizes that raising his social station.
Phillotson has failed in his ambitions of attending a university.
Jude invites Sue to come with him to visit Phillotson, and they
set off.

They find Phillotson, and his “homely complexion” destroys the Phillotson was Jude’s precursor and idol, and his failure to be
idealized vision Jude had had of him. Phillotson doesn’t accepted at Christminster does not bode well for Jude. Phillotson is
remember Jude, but he vaguely remembers sending him the still relatively successful as a schoolmaster – he lacks Jude’s fierce,
Greek and Latin grammar books. Phillotson admits that he gave hopeless ambition, and is willing to settle for something less than
up his lofty goals long ago. He is comfortable as a schoolmaster ideal.
again, though he is in need of a pupil-teacher. The three talk for
a while and then Jude and Sue return to Christminster.

As they walk home Jude is struck by “what a revelation of Hardy can build a complicated world with only a few characters,
woman” Sue is, and he realizes he is even more in love with her and Phillotson returns to play a completely different role than
than before. Jude asks why Sue is leaving Christminster, and before. We learn that Sue has grown bolder in pushing against
Sue says it is because she had argued with Miss Fontover, who Christianity and authority, as she is leaving Christminster because
broke her statues when she saw them. Jude proposes that Sue Miss Fontover broke her pagan statues.
work for Phillotson as a teacher, and she agrees to consider it.
The next day Jude visits Phillotson and he agrees to hire Sue,
though he says the job is low-paying and so would only be
useful to her as an apprenticeship for a teaching career.

PART 2, CHAPTER 5
Sue starts working for Phillotson right away. It is part of his Hardy offers another subtle critique of Victorian views of sexuality.
responsibility to give her private lessons, but according the law The law cannot conceive of a man and woman studying together in
they have to have a chaperone with them during these. private without also having sex, so they must have a chaperone.
Phillotson thinks this is unnecessary because of their age This is unjust both for denying the potential for sexuality and
difference, but he still finds himself growing attracted to Sue. A assuming that humans cannot be anything but slaves to their
few weeks later they go to visit a model of Jerusalem in desires.
Christminster, which their students are to visit.

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They examine the model and Sue wonders why Jerusalem Sue expands a bit on her unorthodox religious views. She is
should be so honored over Athens, Rome, or Alexandria. intellectual and detached from any kind of religious fervor, and so
Suddenly she notices Jude, also watching the model and doesn’t see why Jerusalem should be elevated over other places that
enthralled by it. He compliments the model but then tries to contributed more to culture and literature.
agree with Sue when she criticizes it. They agree to all meet
that Friday.

On Friday Jude goes out to meet Sue and Phillotson, but as he Jude realizes the tragic irony of the situation, as he introduced
(unseen) watches them approaching he sees Phillotson put his Phillotson to Sue in an attempt to keep Sue near himself. In contrast
arm around Sue’s waist. She removes it, but then Phillotson to Arabella Sue is almost asexual, and hardly ever reciprocates
puts it back and she lets it remain. Jude is distraught by this and affection. Though Arabella is absent, Jude can never escape his bad
he hides from them as they pass by. He realizes he wants to marriage.
interfere and pursue Sue himself, but he still technically
belongs to Arabella and can do nothing.

PART 2, CHAPTER 6
Jude’s great-aunt grows ill and Jude returns to Marygreen to Jude has become distracted by a woman again, though Sue is much
visit her. Drusilla is angry that Jude has been visiting Sue, and more worthy of his devotion than Arabella was. Drusilla acts as the
tells Jude some stories about how immodest and precocious foreboding prophet, reminding Jude to struggle against his “evil star.”
Sue was as a child. After his visit Jude meets some villagers, The people of Marygreen are basically right, but Jude can never give
who are surprised that he hasn’t gotten into college yet. They up his dream.
remind him of his old dreams and worship of Christminster,
and say that they were confirmed in their suspicions – colleges
are only for the rich.

Jude is struck by their words and he resolves to renew his Christminster is Hardy’s great symbol of the unfairness in his
attempts to enter a college. He writes letters to five influential society, especially regarding education. The university should be a
professors, explaining his circumstances and requesting advice. place encouraging new ideas and fresh intelligences, but instead it
Jude waits a long time with no response, and he starts to has limited itself to the upper classes and whoever can buy their
despair of ever achieving his goal. One day he “awakens” from way in. Jude recognizes his fate, but he will continue to long for
his dream and recognizes that the privileges of university are Christminster.
not for people like him, but only for the luck upper classes. Jude
wishes he could at least have Sue to console him in his
depression.

Jude finally receives a response from a professor at Biblioll The “defective real” of Christminster is made explicit in the
College. The professor recommends that Jude remain in his professor’s letter. Jude is punished for trying to push against his
“own sphere” instead of trying to study at a college. Jude’s social role and change his status for the better – a pattern that will
depression deepens at this and he gets drunk and wanders the repeat itself later with his domestic situation. Hardy critiques
streets. He starts to realize that the “reality of Christminster” religion, but he also identifies most of his characters with Biblical
is all the working folk who don’t study or become famous. Jude figures. Jude is often compared to Christ or Job, both of whom
writes a quote from the book of Job on a wall with a piece of suffered for seemingly no reason.
chalk, declaring that he is “not inferior.”

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PART 2, CHAPTER 7
The next day Jude feels like a fool. He thinks that Sue is the only The great tragedy of the marriage-centric aspect of the novel is that
soul he truly has an affinity with, but she is forever cut off from Jude and Sue are truly compatible and seem to be “soulmates,” but
him by his disastrous marriage. Jude goes to a tavern that night they are prevented from being together by the rigidity of the
where some other masons are drinking too. They start talking institution of marriage. Jude again turns to alcohol in his depression.
about the colleges, and Jude curses the professors for rejecting
him, claiming that he is smarter than most of them.

Uncle Joe, one of Jude’s companions, challenges Jude to recite All of Jude’s hard work and study is only good for impressing people
the Nicene Creed in Latin to prove his academic prowess. Jude at a bar, people who have no idea if he is speaking Latin correctly or
recites it all, but then he gets angry when everyone applauds not. It is ironic that Jude recites the traditional declaration of faith
him and he storms out of the bar. Jude, still drunk, walks to even as he seems to have lost faith in everything he previously
Lumsdon and knocks on Sue’s door. Sue lets him in and calms believed in.
him down, putting him to bed and promising him breakfast in
the morning.

Jude wakes up at dawn and is ashamed that Sue has seen him in Jude is again compared to a Biblical figure, this time Jesus himself,
this state, so he slips out of the house without waking her. Jude though Jude feels he has degraded himself (by drinking) during his
returns to Christminster and finds a note from his employer “martyrdom.” It was unjust that Christminster didn’t accept him, but
dismissing him for missing work. He walks to Marygreen, Jude also hurts his cause by turning to alcohol when he faces failure.
feeling miserable and downtrodden but a “poor Christ” figure.
Jude meets his great-aunt by the town well and then goes to
stay with her in his old room.

Jude wakes up feeling that he is a failure “both in ambition and Jude seems to be following in Phillotson’s footsteps again, giving up
in love.” Jude wanders about the town and meets a clergyman, the dream of Christminster but still hoping to be successful within
Mr. Highridge. Jude confesses his plight and failed dreams, and his own social sphere. The problem is that Jude’s religious faith is
Highridge says that Jude could perhaps enter the church as a not as strong as his idealistic ambition and tendency towards
licentiate if he gives up drinking. sensual pleasures.

PART 3, CHAPTER 1
Jude decides to follow the clergyman’s advice and pursue the This seems like a good plan for Jude and a chance to improve his
church separate from a scholarly life. He decides to become a station in an achievable way, but his fate will lead him down a more
low-ranking clergyman and try to do some good in the world tragic path. Hardy arranges the parts of the novel around the
and to his soul. Jude is slightly cheered by this decision. He gets different towns Jude and Sue live, as they seek to find their place in
a letter from Sue, who tells him that she is going to enter a a world that does not accept them.
Training College in the town of Melchester. Jude knows there is
also a Theological College there, so he decides to move to
Melchester too.

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Jude postpones his move for a few weeks, waiting for the days Sue has tried to suppress her intellect and independent nature and
to grow longer after the first of the year, as he will have to find submit to the strict, religious Training School, but this has clearly
stonemasonry work in Melchester. One day Sue writes him a made her unhappy. Though Jude already loves Sue, Sue begins by
letter saying that she is “lonely and miserable,” and she asks seeing Jude as a kind of protector and confidant, as she recognizes
Jude to come immediately. Jude gladly does so. He arrives in the affinity between their natures.
Melchester and sees that the cathedral there is undergoing
restoration, a good sign for his job prospects.

Jude finds Sue and they greet each other. She looks more prim As Sue’s character is developed, it becomes clear just how
and disciplined than before, but still beautiful. Jude takes her to revolutionary she is for her time. She agrees to marry Phillotson
dinner and she tells him about the strictness of the Training mostly to further her own career – instead of acting as a traditional
College, which she finds abrasive. She mentions that Phillotson housewife, she wants to keep teaching alongside her husband. Like
might find her a teaching job after she graduates. Jude asks Jude before Arabella, Sue is ignorant regarding sexuality and the
about Phillotson’s romantic interest in her. Sue at first tragic possibilities of a bad marriage.
dismisses this, saying Phillotson is too old, but then she
confesses that she had promised to marry Phillotson in two
years and then teach jointly with him at a school in a larger
town.

Jude is upset but he tries to congratulate Sue. She recognizes Sue is extremely intelligent, so she clearly recognizes Jude’s
his distress and tries to downplay the marriage. Jude suggests romantic interest in her. Sue is in a strict Training College, but she
they go sit in the Cathedral, but Sue says she would rather sit in can’t help still critiquing religion and alluding to her own affinity
a train station, as “the Cathedral has had its day.” Jude calls her with both modernity and pagan culture.
“modern,” but Sue says she is “more ancient than mediaevalism.”
They part ways.

Jude begins finding piecemeal work and then is employed to As a former architect, Hardy throws in some obscure critiques of
work at repairing the Cathedral, whose stonework is being modernity in stonework, as he usually disparages restoration for
completely overhauled. He reads books of theology in his spare restoration’s sake. Jude began with “pagan” writers, and so he still
time, preparing himself for his new career. When he needs finds comfort and solace in a lack of Christianity.
relief he reads modern, nonreligious authors though.

PART 3, CHAPTER 2
One day both Jude and Sue have a day off, and they decide to Corinthian architecture is associated with Rome, while Gothic is
take a trip together. Jude wants to visit some Gothic associated with the Christian mediaeval period, so this discussion of
architecture, but Sue wants to see Corinthian instead. They architecture reflects Sue and Jude’s respective religious beliefs. It
take a train and visit an old castle, and Sue watches Jude becomes more clear that Sue has reasoned herself beyond religion.
examining the pictures of saints on the wall. She is clearly
intrigued by his religious faith, which she herself seems to have
moved beyond.

After the castle they go for a walk in the country, and they get Jude is still thinking of his idealized Sue illuminating the word
lost in the expanses. They find a shepherd who invites them to “Allelujah,” as the real Sue has not yet stepped off her pedestal and
spend the night at his cottage, as it is too late to return to shown how unique she is. Though in many ways she is modern and
Melchester that night. Sue comments that she enjoys the revolutionary, Hardy also associates Sue (like many of his heroines)
shepherd’s simple, naturalistic life, and especially his great with a pagan freedom and closeness to Nature.
freedom. Jude dismisses this, calling Sue a “product of
civilization” and an “urban miss.”

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PART 3, CHAPTER 3
The women of Sue’s strict Training College see that she has not The Training College is the epitome of the Victorian prudishness
returned at night, and they gossip about her. In the morning that Hardy mocks. Sue is basically imprisoned for going out with her
Sue returns and the administration decides to punish her, cousin on her day off, and the only way she can escape this
confining her to a solitary room for a week. The other girls find repressive environment is by risking her life. It is also telling that the
this punishment harsh and protest against it, but then they find school’s mistress is more concerned about being respectable than
that Sue has escaped her room through the window. They about Sue’s possible drowning.
worry that she might have drowned in the river below, but the
mistress is mostly worried about the scandal this would bring
to the school.

Meanwhile Sue arrives at Jude’s lodgings, freezing and soaked Jude is delighted that Sue came to him first, but Sue is still trying to
through from crossing the river. Jude is reading when she keep their relations platonic. She recognizes Jude’s protective
tosses some gravel at his window. He takes Sue in and hides her nature, and knows he will be more sympathetic towards her than
from his landlady. Sue admits that she was angered at the anyone else.
injustice of her punishment and so she ran away from the
Training School, but she doesn’t want them to find her.

Jude feels that he and Sue are “counterparts,” as she came to Hardy begins to develop an idea that Jude and Sue are almost
him in her time of need. He gives her some of his own clothes twins, having similar natures or as separated parts of one soul. This
and some brandy. Sue falls asleep by the fire and Jude watches makes their inability to be together all the more tragic. Jude’s love
her, seeing her as “almost a divinity.” for Sue has become his new Christminster.

PART 3, CHAPTER 4
Jude’s landlady comes upstairs to ask about dinner, and Jude Sexuality is so taboo in Victorian society that Jude could be evicted
hides Sue from her. He offers that Sue stay the night. They eat just for having his cousin in his room alone. In this conversation Sue
supper and Sue reminds Jude of his earlier comment about her finally presents herself as the unique, unorthodox woman she is, and
as a “product of civilization,” and she describes herself as we see that she is the most intelligent character of the book. Most of
instead a “negation of it.” The two discuss their educations, and Hardy’s ideas come through in her voice.
Sue says that she knows Latin and Greek grammar. She lists
some of the authors she has read and Jude realizes that she is
much more well-read than he is.

Sue tells Jude that she used to live platonically with an Sue is especially progressive (for her time) in that she lived with a
undergraduate, who lent her books. She says that he wanted to man without marrying or sleeping with him. Yet from her comment
be her lover, but she did not love him. They still lived together it is clear that the undergraduate would have wanted their
as friends, but the undergraduate died a few years later. Sue relationship to be something more than platonic. In other words,
thinks he may have died because she broke his heart. society doesn’t support her views, and those views cause harm—the
undergraduate dies. The undergraduate seems to foreshadow Jude’s
fate.

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Afterwards Sue had lost her money and then moved to Though Sue is revolutionary in her religious and social ideas,
Christminster to the design shop. Jude calls her innocent and sexually she is still the “pure woman on the pedestal” that is the
unconventional, and Sue declares that she is still a virgin. Jude stereotype of Victorian times. Sue speaks with Hardy’s voice,
grows depressed by this conversation, and they start to discuss claiming that morality can be disassociated from religion and
religion. Jude says he assumed Sue was a Christian because she mocking the pompous, self-congratulatory university system. Sue,
was working in Christminster. Sue says she was cured of like Jude, can speak with Biblical language, but she turns it on its
religion by the undergraduate, who was both irreligious and head to critique Christianity itself.
very moral. Sue mocks Christminster with Biblical quotes,
saying it is decaying.

Jude is stung by Sue’s criticism of his ideal, but Sue says that he Sue also clarifies Hardy’s argument against the university – Jude
is the kind of person who most deserves to be accepted by the was the ideal candidate for Christminster, but it rejected him in
colleges, and it is unfair that he was “elbowed off the pavement favor of wealth and intellectual stagnation. Sue offers a very
by the millionares’ sons.” Sue offers to make Jude a “new” New unorthodox idea about the New Testament, treating the Bible as a
Testament by cutting up the books and arranging them in the historical document instead of the infallible word of God.
order they were probably written, with the gospels last. She
then comments on the Song of Solomon, mocking how the
clergy try to make a love poem into a metaphor for the church.

Jude calls Sue “Voltairean” (thinking like the philosopher Voltaire was a famous philosopher who mocked and satirized the
Voltaire), and is struck by her unorthodox ideas. They argue Catholic church and religious and political intolerance. Jude uses a
further but then make up, and Sue says that she wants Jude to Biblical quote about him and Sue never being divided – it originally
be her intellectual comrade. Jude feels closer to her than to referred to a Christian never being separated from Christ’s love.
anyone before, and he feels that they will never be divided. Sue
falls asleep and Jude goes out to the yard to wash.

PART 3, CHAPTER 5
Jude returns to his room to find Sue dressed and ready to Sue is brilliant and progressive, but Hardy still indulges some
leave. She is suddenly worried what Phillotson will think of her stereotypes about women in her characterization. She is very fickle,
for running away from the Training College. Sue decides to take emotional, and changes her mind seemingly at random. This is bad
a train to stay with a friend at Shaston until the scandal of her news for Sue when an institution like marriage can turn an
exit dies down. Jude accompanies her to the train station, and impulsive decision into a lifetime of suffering.
as she leaves Sue says she knows Jude is in love with her, but he
is only allowed to like her, not love her.

Jude goes home, depressed, but the next morning he gets a This will become a pattern where Sue immediately changes her
letter from Sue saying that he can love her if he wants to. Jude mind after speaking with Jude, and then informs him of her new
is greatly encouraged by this, and he writes back to Sue but decision by letter. As a further critique of marriage, Hardy shows
receives no answer. He gets worried and goes to visit Sue in how society presents this supposed lifelong declaration of love as a
Shaston. He finds her and she tells Jude that the Training kind of apology for a scandal.
College won’t take her back, and that there are “vulgar” rumors
about their relationship. The administration had suggested that
Sue marry Jude to save her reputation.

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Jude discusses his forbidden love for Sue, and the narrator Jude’s heart is now wholly in Sue’s hands, and he will suffer greatly
comments that he ought to kiss her, but he does not. Jude (like the undergraduate before him) because of her fickle nature.
instead chooses to “dwell upon the recognized barriers Hardy heightens the tragedy of his story by both emphasizing how
between them.” Sue says that they ought not to see each other Jude and Sue are “meant for each other” while also reinforcing the
anymore, and Jude leaves unhappily. The next morning Sue many barriers between them—they are meant for each other but
apologizes in another note, saying that she acted cruelly and society makes it impossible for them to be together.
wants to meet with Jude again.

PART 3, CHAPTER 6
Meanwhile Phillotson is thinking about how he has abandoned Phillotson now enters the story as a major character, and we see
his earlier plans for Sue’s sake. One day he sets out to visit her another point of view regarding the novel’s events. Phillotson, like
at the Training School, but when he gets there he learns all the Jude, has abandoned certain ambitions for the sake of love and
circumstances of her scandalous departure. Phillotson is marriage.
shocked, and he goes into the cathedral. He notices Jude is
there too, working, and Phillotson approaches him.

Phillotson asks Jude about Sue, and Jude assures him that Phillotson is a very ethical man, but in the situation Hardy creates
nothing has happened between them, though he hints that he he is just as harmful to Jude and Sue’s love as the purposefully
does love Sue. Phillotson believes Jude that Sue is innocent, antagonistic Arabella. It is fate and the injustice of society that are
and the two men part. Later that day Jude sees Sue, who is to blame more than any one person.
coming to fetch her belongings from the Training School.

Sue acts coldly towards Jude, and he remarks that she is nicer Even though it is eternal in the sight of God and the law, Jude feels
in her letters than in person. Jude then confesses his own that his first marriage is a kind of adultery when compared to his
history to Sue, including his marriage to Arabella. Sue is upset pure love for Sue. Sue rightfully calls Jude out on the disparity
at him for withholding this information, and she wonders how between his life and the religion he professes – the strict Victorian
Jude can reconcile his religion and the supposed sanctity of Christian view of marriage is unrealistic for people like Jude and
marriage with his own life. They both grow miserable, trapped Sue.
in their confused feelings.

Jude and Sue walk around town, and Jude says that Arabella is This parting dialogue condenses many of the novel’s themes. Jude
the only obstacle between them. Sue argues that her own lack and Sue discuss the unhappy fate of their family, the many
love is another obstacle, and also the fact that they are cousins. obstacles society has placed between them and their pure
Sue then mocks the people of the Training School, who can only fellowship, and the repression and condescension inherent in
perceive men and women as having relations based on “animal Victorian laws about sexuality and marriage.
desire.” Jude tells Sue about the curse on their family regarding
marriage, and Sue says she had heard the same thing. The two
decide to act like friends and cousins, nothing more, and they
part ways.

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PART 3, CHAPTER 7
Two days later Sue sends Jude a letter saying that she is Sue repeats Jude’s mistake, though she has different reasons for
marrying Phillotson in a few weeks. She signs the letter rushing into marriage with someone she does not love. She is more
formally, with her full name. Jude is crushed by this news, and intelligent and well-read than Jude, but just as innocent regarding
he wonders if he drove Sue to this rash action by revealing his marriage as he was when he first met Arabella. Even in her
own marriage. Sue then sends another letter asking if Jude will heartbreaking letter Sue (and Hardy) can’t help throwing in a
“give her away” at the wedding, as she is his only male, married critique of the sexism in the marriage ceremony.
relation. In the letter she also comments on how this tradition
makes the bride into a mere piece of property to be passed
from one man to another.

Jude agrees to give Sue away, and offers that she and Hardy creates situations where what is usually the legal and
Phillotson stay at his lodgings in Melchester. Sue arrives ten religious “right” action actually becomes the ethically wrong option.
days before the wedding and has breakfast with Jude, both of Jude has experienced the lasting effects of a bad marriage, but he
them sensitive and nervous. Jude feels that he is committing a does not properly warn Sue, as she is already distancing herself from
sin by not warning Sue about the oppressive institution of him via the marriage itself.
marriage she is about to subject herself to, but he says nothing.

Jude takes Sue to visit the church where she is to marry Sue can’t help continuing to be unorthodox even as she tries to
Phillotson, and she walks down the aisle holding Jude’s arm, conform to society. In a similar way she keeps causing pain to the
play-acting at a marriage in her curiosity for “a new sensation.” men who love her when she indulges her spontaneous whims. In
Jude almost breaks down at this, and Sue apologizes. Jude then another situation Sue’s marriage to a basically good man like
leaves her with Phillotson. Jude recognizes that Phillotson will Phillotson might have been tolerable, but for such a sensitive nature
be a kind husband, but Sue clearly doesn’t love him. as hers it will be disastrous.

Jude is struck again by the cruelty of having him give Sue away In his pain Jude finally sees some of Sue’s flaws, but he still can’t
to Phillotson, and he wonders why Sue keeps inflicting pain on help loving her and continuing in his tragic fate of pursuing their
herself and others on a whim. Sue and Phillotson marry in a doomed romance. Society and religion see marriage as rectifying
simple ceremony, and as they walk away Sue looks back, earlier mistakes, but Hardy creates a situation where the marriage
suddenly looking frightened. Jude wonders if she now realizes itself is clearly wrong, and we see Sue making the same mistake
what she has done for the sake of a small revenge and assertion Jude did.
of independence.

PART 3, CHAPTER 8
Jude grows depressed after the wedding, and finds that he Jude doesn’t turn to alcohol this time, but he still lets Sue’s decisions
can’t stand staying in Melchester any longer. He learns that his stifle his own life. Even though Christminster has rejected him, Jude
great-aunt is ill again, and he returns to Marygreen to see her. can never stay away for long. The novel is divided by different
Jude writes to Sue, as Drusilla is her relation as well, and he settings, but Christminster never disappears.
suggests that they meet in Alfredston, as Jude plans to visit
Christminster and look for work again.

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The next day Jude goes to Christminster and is haunted by Because he met Sue in Christminster, the place is now doubly
Sue’s “phantom” presence there, which affects him much more haunted by her (unmarried) presence and the ghosts of Jude’s failed
than the philosophers he used to imagine. He suddenly feels dreams of scholarship. Jude finally succumbs to temptation and
that he doesn’t want to find work in Christminster after all, and goes off to drink.
he visits the old tavern where he once recited the Creed in
Latin.

Jude then notices that Arabella is one of the barmaids, and he Arabella returns as an agent of discord, antagonizing Jude and Sue’s
gets her attention. Arabella is surprised, as she thought Jude relationship for her own personal gain. At the same time she is still
had died long ago. She says she returned from Australia three sympathetic and human, though of a very different character type
months before. She makes Jude wait and meet her at nine, after from Jude and Sue. She returns to his life at a low point, and seduces
she gets off work. Jude misses his train and his meeting with him through alcohol and his own despair.
Sue, but he recognizes that his lawful duty is to show
preference to Arabella over Sue, despite his real feelings. Jude
and Arabella drink together and then spend the night at an inn
in Aldbrickham.

PART 3, CHAPTER 9
The next morning Arabella tells Jude that she had married a Arabella is also inconvenienced by her first marriage, but she has
hotel manager in Australia, and she asks Jude to keep this a remarried for respectability and comfort instead of true love. In a
secret, as it is a crime. Jude is upset but agrees to keep his great irony, Hardy convincingly portrays Jude’s lawfully and
silence. The two part ways and Jude wanders around religiously-sanctioned wedded relations with Arabella as a kind of
Christminster, waiting for the train. He feels “degraded” by adultery against Sue.
having resumed his relations with Arabella.

Jude returns to the station and encounters Sue, who is Jude has succumbed to his lesser nature in returning to both
distraught. She thought that Jude had missed their meeting Arabella and alcohol. Though she is forbidden to him by society and
because he was drinking away his sorrow. Jude feels whole fate, Sue is just as lofty a dream for Jude as studying at the
again in Sue’s presence, and he compares her “ethereal” spirit university was. This begins many descriptions of Sue as a kind of
to Arabella’s low worldliness. Again he feels ashamed of unearthly spirit – holy, but also asexual.
sleeping with Arabella.

Sue and Jude ride the train to Alfredston together, and Jude Sue is reluctant to admit it, but she has made the same mistake
asks her about her marriage to Phillotson. Sue deflects the Jude did, and created a lifetime of misfortune through one act of
question for a while, claiming to be a “happy wife,” but finally bad judgment. Sue has also succumbed to the “Fawley curse”
admits that she is unhappy. They visit Drusilla, who laments despite Drusilla’s many warnings.
that Sue has gotten married just like Jude. Sue is upset by this,
and she tells Jude that she does indeed regret her marriage.

Jude takes Sue to the train station so she can return to Arabella seems to be gone again, but in the novel’s world the binding
Melchester. He asks if he can visit her sometime, but Sue says contract of marriage never really lets someone go. Even as Hardy
he can’t yet, and she rides off. Afterwards Jude devotes himself calls for progressive changes, the language of marriage is still
to his religious studies. He gets a letter from Arabella, who says inherently sexist – the wife is always spoken of as “belonging” to the
that her Australian husband has come to England for her, and husband, just as she must be “given away” by a male relation.
they have gone to London to run a bar. Arabella says that she
feels she “belongs” to her second husband more than to Jude,
and now she has a chance at a better life.

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PART 3, CHAPTER 10
Jude returns to Melchester and throws himself into his This chapter contains a small side venture where Jude’s idealism is
religious studies. He starts to worry that he isn’t fit for the again punctured by cruel reality. Jude tries to forget Sue by studying
priesthood because of his tendency towards liquor and sexual religion just as he tried to forget her by getting drunk. Hardy never
desire. He develops an interest in music and starts singing in a wholly condemns Christianity, but he does show how people can
local church choir. One day he is especially moved by a hymn come to religion for all the wrong reasons, which invalidates the
called “The Foot of the Cross,” and he learns that it was written religion even if it is the “correct” path.
by a man from the nearby town of Kennetbridge. Jude resolves
to find this composer, as he surely would understand his plight.

Jude travels to Kennetbridge and visits the composer, but soon The composer is another example of religion gone about in the
discovers that the man wrote music only for money, and is now wrong way. In Hardy’s world, unique and sensitive characters like
going into the wine business instead. Jude leaves, feeling Jude and Sue will be eventually crushed by society and fate, and the
ashamed, and when he returns to Melchester he finds a note greedy, narrow-minded characters (like the composer and Arabella)
from Sue apologizing and inviting him to dinner. Jude writes will thrive.
back and they agree to meet a few days later, on Good Friday.

PART 4, CHAPTER 1
The narrator describes the town of Shaston, where Sue now The setting changes again as Jude and Sue keep searching for a new
lives, as a place of worldly pleasures. Jude arrives there and place to call home in a world that does not want them. They show
comes to the schoolroom where Sue teaches, but he finds it their perfectly attuned natures by the fact that they have both been
empty. Phillotson’s old piano is there, and Jude sits down and affected by the same hymn at the same time. Even the piano
plays “The Foot of the Cross.” Sue appears behind him and says becomes a recurring character.
that she also has been recently affected by that hymn.

They have tea and discuss their relationship, and again both are Jude and Sue’s relationship constantly shifts between argument and
struck by the similarity of their natures. They spontaneously affection, as they are both extremely intelligent, sensitive, and
hold hands several times. Jude accuses Sue of being a flirt inconsistent. Sue calls Jude “Don Quixote” (a delusional romantic)
sometimes and she is offended by this, but she admits that she and also “St. Stephen” (a martyr killed for his faith) in an exaggerated
does love being loved. Sue calls Jude a “tragic Don Quixote” and but apt characterization. Sue is again the mouthpiece for Hardy’s
compares him to St. Stephen the martyr, and then she muses social criticism.
about society’s pigeonholing of individuals – she is called “Mrs.
Phillotson” now, but she is still a lonely, inconsistent woman.

Sue tells Jude to come back the following week and she sends Sue does have passion and love in her, though it rarely appears and
him away. Jude wanders about town, waiting for the train, and it tortures Jude with its infrequency. We never know if she is actually
he passes by Sue’s house. Through the window he sees her looking at a photo of Jude or not, or even just how strong her
looking at a photograph, and Jude wonders if it is a picture of romantic feelings for Jude are. Jude starts to recognize that his
himself. Jude leaves, planning to resist his feelings for Sue but professed Christianity is growing more hypocritical.
already recognizing that “the human was more powerful in him
than the Divine.”

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PART 4, CHAPTER 2
The next morning Sue sends Jude a letter retracting her Hardy positions both Drusilla’s death and the blossoming of Jude
invitation for the following week, saying they were “too free” and Sue’s romance around Easter, the time of Christ’s resurrection.
before. Jude writes back and agrees. The next day, which is This is a cynical irony in that the situation involves death and
Easter, Jude learns that his aunt is dying. He goes to Marygreen nonreligious, illicit love, the opposite of Christianity’s most
and meets the Widow Edlin, who had tended to Drusilla in her important day.
illness. Mrs. Edlin says Drusilla is already dead, and Jude writes
to Sue to deliver the news.

Sue arrives in Marygreen for the funeral a few days later. After Sue speaks with Hardy’s voice again, musing on possible solutions to
the ceremony Jude and Sue discuss their tragic family and their the marriage problem. Hardy is clearly dissatisfied with the
unhappy marriages. Sue muses on how divorce should be institution as it is, but he never comes to a definite conclusion about
easier if a marriage is unhappy, especially if marriage is only a the best way to fix it. Making divorce easier and less socially suicidal
social agreement and not a religious one. Sue hints that she is one of his most reasonable, achievable solutions. Sue shows
finds Phillotson’s presence repulsive, and she can’t bring herself again as a kind of “bodiless,” spiritual intelligence who resists
herself to sleep with him. She says she must return to Shaston sexual lust.
that evening, but Jude convinces her to say at the Widow
Edlin’s house instead.

Jude apologizes to Sue for not warning her about marrying Sue’s initial feelings for Jude are as much about jealousy against
Phillotson. Jude and Sue vaguely discuss their relationship, and Arabella as they are about real attraction. Sue has succumbed to
then Jude reveals that he saw Arabella again. Jude pretends her inevitable fate, and now she and Jude are both trapped. Hardy
that they are living together now, and Sue starts to cry. She never relents in his criticism of the institution of marriage, and now
goes into more details about her relationship with Phillotson – Sue can more eloquently elaborate on his ideas.
she likes him as a friend, but not as a husband, and she hates
the “dreadful contract” (marriage) that binds her feelings.

Jude pushes his face against Sue’s cheek and asks if she would Just as Sue resists the “dreadful contract” of marriage, so she also
have married him if not for his first marriage to Arabella. Sue resists Jude’s persistent need for her to clarify her feelings. We are
walks out without answering. Jude tries to sleep but he is reminded that Jude is still a compassionate, sympathetic man living
awakened by the cries of a rabbit in pain. He goes outside and in a harsh world. The rabbit is like Jude himself, but with no one to
finds the creature, which is stuck in a trap and dying. Jude put him out of his misery.
mercifully kills it, and then notices that Sue is looking out her
window at him.

Jude talks to her, and Sue admits that she was already sleepless In his love for Sue, Jude lets himself be more easily swayed by her
worrying about her marital troubles. Jude says that he may be beliefs, and he is now rapidly approaching Sue’s own religious
starting to lose his religious faith, and so he won’t judge her for agnosticism. Jude has also realized that the Christianity he
making him her confidant. Suddenly he kisses her hand and professes exists in opposition to the way he wants to live his life.
promises to give up all religion for her love. Sue stops him, but Hardy speaks through Sue as usual, looking forward to a more
then she wishes aloud that she could undo an impulsive mistake progressive time when his ideas will be accepted.
like her marriage. She thinks that people of the future will look
at marriage as a “barbarous custom.” Sue kisses Jude on top of
the head and shuts her window.

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PART 4, CHAPTER 3
The next day Jude and Sue part ways in the road, go a few This is the largest display of passion from Sue yet, and makes her
yards, and then run back to each other and kiss passionately. into a more human, sympathetic character. Now that he has some
Then they separate for good, both of them flustered. After this reciprocation in his love, Jude decides to fully give up his pretensions
Jude decides that he cannot become a clergyman as long as he at religiosity and embrace his “sinful,” progressive lifestyle.
loves Sue so passionately and has an estranged wife living apart
from him. Jude notes that his ambition towards the clergy has
been checked by Sue just like his ambition for Christminster
was checked by Arabella.

Jude gathers up his theological books and pamphlets and burns Jude still thinks in Biblical language – the “whited sepulchre” was a
them behind his aunt’s house. Jude feels cleansed by this, like phrase Jesus used to describe the hypocritical Pharisees – but Jude
“an ordinary sinner, and not as a whited sepulchre.” Meanwhile is now turning that language against Christianity itself.
Sue weeps on the train to Shaston, promising to herself to
break off all contact with Jude.

Phillotson meets Sue at the station, and Sue admits to him that Sue is still innocent of worldliness in many ways, so she makes the
she held Jude’s hand, but says nothing about the kiss. bold request to live apart from Phillotson when such an idea would
Phillotson seems unperturbed. That night Phillotson wakes up be scandalous and unthinkable to anyone else. For someone as
and notices Sue still isn’t in bed. He finds her hiding in a closet sensitive and idealistic as Sue, a marriage (especially involving
under the stairs. He pulls the door open and Sue pleads with physicality) to anyone she does not love is unbearable. Though
him to leave her alone. Phillotson says it is cruel for her to avoid Phillotson is a kind man, he can’t help causing Sue torment by his
him so, as he is a kind husband, but Sue says it is just the cruel mere presence.
universe that determines her feelings. Phillotson agrees to
leave her in peace, but the next morning she asks if she can live
apart from him.

Phillotson is surprised and questions Sue’s reasons, and she Hardy suggests again that divorce could be made easier or that
explains how she felt forced into the marriage by the opinion of marriage laws could be relaxed. Sue’s statement that her married
society and the Training College. Phillotson says that this relations with Phillotson would be “adultery” is especially potent – it
behavior is “irregular,” and Sue says she wishes domestic laws overturns all conventions of law and religion, but Hardy has
could be changed “according to temperaments,” as the laws are managed to create a situation where we are sympathetic to Sue’s
failing if they make her miserable for committing no sin. She case.
feels that it is “adultery” for them to live together without love,
even if they are legally married.

Phillotson asks if Sue plans to live alone, and she admits that Though she is emotionally inconsistent, Sue is usually incapable of
she wants to live with Jude. Phillotson accuses her of being in lying, so it may be that she doesn’t actually love Jude yet. She is still
love with Jude, but Sue denies it. The couple then goes off to looking for an intellectual, platonic “soulmate” in a world that only
teach at the school, but they continue their debate by writing recognizes sexual relations and legal marriage contracts.
notes that they pass to each other through their students.
Finally Phillotson agrees to live in the same house but in
separate rooms.

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PART 4, CHAPTER 4
One night Phillotson stays up late and accidentally returns to Sue has such a natural aversion to Phillotson, especially sexually,
the room he shared with Sue out of habit. Sue is so distraught that she leaps out the window as a first reaction to his sudden
by his sudden appearance that she jumps out the window. She entrance. She still likes him as a person and a friend, but she can’t
isn’t badly hurt. She pretends that she was asleep when she did help hating him as a husband.
it, but Phillotson feels “wretched” about the situation.

One day Phillotson goes to see his friend Gillingham, who is a Phillotson becomes a very sympathetic character now, as he is
teacher in a nearby town. Phillotson explains his marital trapped in a tragic situation through little fault of his own, just like
troubles and the fact that his wife is repulsed by him. He Jude and Sue. Phillotson gives voice to Hardy’s ideas about Jude
describes Jude, saying that Jude and Sue “seem to be one and Sue as natural “twins” who are meant to be together.
person split in two.” Phillotson says that Sue’s intellect is far
superior to his own, so he cannot answer her arguments. He is
almost ready to let Sue leave him for Jude.

Gillingham is shocked that he would even consider this option, Under the law Phillotson has the right to confine Sue to his room
but Phillotson feels that it might be the most moral thing to do, and even make her have sex with him, but he is a moral man and
though it goes against law and tradition. Phillotson again recognizes (like Hardy hopes his readers will) just how terrible and
describes Jude and Sue’s relationship, comparing them to unethical such actions would be.
characters in a poem by Shelley (lovers who are also siblings),
and he admits that he finds himself taking their side.

Gillingham argues that such action threatens the social unit of Gillingham acts as the voice of Hardy’s critics, and indeed Jude the
the family, but Phillotson says he is just trying to do what he Obscure was viciously attacked as trying to undermine the sanctity
personally feels is right. As Phillotson leaves, Gillingham of marriage and the family.
advises him to hold on to Sue no matter what, but Phillotson is
not convinced.

The next morning Phillotson tells Sue that she is free to leave Hardy creates a situation where the morally right thing to do is to
and do as she pleases. She is very grateful and proposes that free a woman from a confining marriage, but his critics disagreed
they still be friends, but Phillotson asks that she truly separate with this view and held the strict rules of tradition over personal
herself from him and keep all her actions to herself. She morality. Hardy was so overwhelmingly criticized for the content
mentions Jude’s name and Phillotson says he doesn’t want to and ideas in his novel that he gave up writing fiction after Jude the
know anything more about Jude. Sue feels a real compassion Obscure.
and gratitude towards Phillotson for his actions, but she still
cannot bring herself to love him.

Phillotson sends Sue off to the train station and pretends to Phillotson is an elderly, conservative man, but in following his moral
kiss her as they part. Later that day Gillingham comes to visit compass he has suddenly found himself as revolutionary and
Phillotson, and Phillotson admits that he has let Sue leave him unorthodox as the agnostic Sue. Hardy uses such an extreme
for Jude. Phillotson says that he thought he was an “old- situation to show just how corrupted social rules can become when
fashioned man” regarding marriage, but in such a situation he left unchecked by personal morality.
simply acted as he saw fit.

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PART 4, CHAPTER 5
Jude meets Sue at the train station in Melchester, and he tells Jude thinks that Sue has come to him as a wife of sorts, but Sue is
her that they are traveling on to Aldbrickham, a larger town still trying to think of Jude as a protector and intellectual
where no one knows them. Sue feels bad for ruining Jude’s companion, and she is still distraught by the horrors of being
work with the Church, but Jude declares that he has lost his trapped in a marriage. Jude embraces his loss of faith and makes
religious faith and now lives only for Sue. They take the train Sue his new ideal.
and Sue describes how kind Phillotson was to her. Jude tells her
that Arabella wrote requesting a formal divorce.

As they approach Aldbrickham Jude reveals that he has booked Sue’s statement about who fathers a woman’s children is one of
one room for them at the Temperance Hotel, and Sue is upset Hardy’s most revolutionary ideas, but he only mentions it here as a
by this. She hints that she doesn’t want to have a sexual sort of side-note. Sue remains emotionally inconsistent and
relationship yet, which saddens Jude. Sue still can’t say outright sensitive – though she is basically a feminist before her time, she still
whether she loves Jude or not. For now she says that out of has many of the weaknesses that Victorian men associated with
respect for Phillotson she would prefer that she and Jude women.
remain platonic. Sue also comments that in a “proper state of
society” the father of a woman’s children will be her own
business and not judged by all.

Jude shows Sue a note he received from Phillotson, asking that Phillotson affirms that Jude and Sue are “made for each other,”
Jude be kind to Sue and affirming that the two are “made for which means that their inevitable separation is all the more tragic.
each other.” Jude tells Sue that he fears she is incapable of Sue’s feelings remain unclear. Part of Hardy’s critique of marriage is
loving anyone. Sue is offended by this and describes her love as that it is too heavy-handed for “delicate” natures like Sue’s.
a “supremely delicate kind” that doesn’t involve sexual
relations. Jude still worries that Sue is tricking him, but he
believes her when she pleads with him.

Sue then asks Jude if they can stay at a different hotel, and Though they have both given up religion now, Jude and Sue
Jude accuses her of being a slave to social conventions despite continue to speak in the language of Christianity, and in this way
all of her unorthodox ideas. Still he affirms his love for her, Hardy never totally rejects religion.
using a Biblical quote to emphasize how they can never be
divided.

They reach Aldbrickham and decide to stay at a different hotel. Though Sue is rebellious and unorthodox, she is still nervous in the
It is the one Jude stayed at with Arabella, though he doesn’t face of society’s scrutiny. Even though Jude and Arabella are legally
notice this. When Jude is out of the room, a maid tells Sue that married, it was emotional adultery for Jude to sleep with Arabella.
she saw Jude there with a different woman a month or two Jude’s argument is hypocritical, as he has been previously denying
earlier. Sue immediately accuses Jude of deceiving her with the validity of his first marriage.
Arabella. Jude doesn’t deny it, but he reminds Sue that Arabella
is his legal wife.

Sue breaks down crying, saying that she jumped out the The world of the novel is small, and Jude and Sue suffer many bad
window rather than sleep with Phillotson. Sue is clearly jealous, coincidences like returning to this specific hotel. Sue affirms her love
so Jude tells her that Arabella has taken a second husband. He for Jude in this roundabout way, by lamenting that she would rather
vows to never inform against Arabella, but he assures Sue that jump out the window than sleep with her husband, but Jude easily
Arabella is truly no longer his wife. Jude says that he is still succumbed to his wife.
“comparatively happy” just to be in Sue’s presence, as she is
such a beautiful, “tantalizing phantom.” Sue is pleased and she
lets Jude kiss her cheeks.

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PART 4, CHAPTER 6
Back in Shaston, Phillotson is the subject of much gossip from Phillotson becomes another victim of society’s unfairness.
the townspeople. Soon the chairman of his school summons Phillotson’s companions (like Hardy’s critics) are unwilling to
him to ask about his marriage. Phillotson admits to letting Sue examine how unethical it would have been to imprison Sue – they
leave with her lover, as he was “not her gaoler.” Afterward are only concerned with sticking to the status quo. Phillotson shows
Phillotson is asked to resign for condoning adultery. He refuses himself a man of stubborn morals.
to resign, as that would be an acknowledgment of guilt and he
still believes he has acted rightly.

Despite Gillingham’s advice Phillotson continues stubbornly There is no justice for Hardy’s characters, and he plays up their
forward, and he calls a public meeting to defend himself. All the misfortunes to show how corrupt society can be. Phillotson is a
“respectable inhabitants” of the town are against him, but he totally sympathetic character, but all his neighbors turn against him.
also has many surprising allies. The meeting soon devolves into
a brawl, and Phillotson falls ill afterward.

Gillingham convinces Phillotson to write to Sue about his Sue cannot help being honest and continuing to break Phillotson’s
illness, and a few days later she visits him. Their reunion is heart. Phillotson has been publicly condemned and scorned for
painful, and Phillotson asks Sue once more to stay with him, letting Sue leave him, and he gets little relief in his private life. Even
saying that he will forgive everything if she does. Sue again Gillingham, seemingly his closest friend, remains disapproving.
refuses, and she tells Phillotson that Jude is seeking a divorce
from his first wife. They part ways and Phillotson tortures
himself imagining Sue returning to Jude’s embrace.

Afterwards Gillingham visits Phillotson, and Phillotson tells him Phillotson’s whole future is ruined because he made one
that he has decided to formally divorce Sue. He recognizes that compassionate choice that happened to go against the status quo.
he probably can’t teach anymore because of his disgrace, but he Again Hardy creates a situation where he shows just how flawed
might as well endure the rest of his life alone and truly free Sue Victorian society can be.
to marry Jude. Gillingham disagrees with Phillotson’s motives,
but thinks it is a good plan.

PART 5, CHAPTER 1
A few months later Jude and Sue are still living in separate but Jude and Sue are now officially “free” of their first marriages, and so
adjacent rooms in Aldbrickham. They get a letter saying that could marry each other. Sue knows that she could never have
Sue’s divorce has been finalized, just a month after Jude’s obtained a legal divorce if the authorities knew about her “sinful”
divorce from Arabella was officially concluded. Jude comments present lifestyle. Hardy refers to the novel’s title with “obscure,” a
on Sue’s new freedom, but Sue feels that her freedom was word that appears several times and can mean inscrutable,
unfairly got – the divorce would not have been approved if the unknown, and covered in darkness.
authorities knew the real situation. Jude says that this is an
advantage of being “poor obscure people,” that no one cares
too much about them.

Jude and Sue walk about together for a while, and then Jude Marriage is the only respectable option for any kind of relationship
asks Sue if she will marry him after a suitable length of time. in Victorian times, but both Jude and Sue have already had bad
Sue says that she is worried marriage will harm their experiences with the institution. This conversation condenses many
relationship. She would rather go on as unmarried lovers, of Hardy’s critiques of marriage, and returns to the idea of the
considering how badly marriages go in their family. She brings “Fawley curse.”
up her old arguments that the institution means putting a
contract on what should be voluntary love.

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Jude responds that this might do for the “phantasmal, bodiless” Jude wants to marry Sue because he feels she is his true “soulmate,”
Sue, but ordinary folk like him sometimes need marriage. He but he too is wary of the effect of a binding contract on voluntary,
then says that Sue still hasn’t declared her love for him, and he delicate love. Sue is especially sensitive and rebellious against
criticizes her inconsistency. This upsets Sue, but they make up anything that tries to “tame” her, and her romantic feelings are
and agree not to discuss marriage for a while. Jude starts weaker. Sue again shows herself a “modern woman” by working
working at lettering headstones, and Sue helps him by marking alongside Jude as an independent individual.
out and blacking in the letters. This pays less than Jude’s earlier
jobs, but it is the only work where they can both be
independent and work together.

PART 5, CHAPTER 2
One night Jude returns home and Sue tells him a woman came Sue’s feelings of jealousy often seem stronger than her feelings of
to ask for him. Sue thinks that it was Arabella, and she gets very love. Arabella returns again to disrupt Jude’s life. By now she is the
upset. Later that night there is a knock on the door and Sue main “antagonist” of the story, though sometimes a sympathetic
says it is Arabella again. Jude opens his window and asks character as well. Sue and Arabella are now in the same place at the
Arabella what she wants. Arabella says she needs help, and that same time, and so their opposite natures are juxtaposed.
she hasn’t gotten married after all. She wants Jude to come see
her at her lodgings to discuss something important.

Sue begs Jude not to go, but Jude feels his usual sympathy for Jude’s sympathy for wild animals got him into trouble at his crow-
Arabella. They argue for a while, during which Arabella scaring job, and Arabella knows how to exploit this sympathy for her
disappears. Sue grows so upset that she promises to marry own gain. Sue’s love often seems less than genuine, as she agrees to
Jude if he will stay at home. She declares that she loves him, marry Jude only to keep him away from Arabella.
and apologizes for being so “cold-natured” in comparison to the
coarse Arabella. Jude agrees not to go.

The next morning Sue feels guilty for having treated Arabella so Throughout the novel Sue has always been associated with the
badly, and she wants to go find her at her inn. Sue kisses Jude concept of freedom – she rejected the confines of the Training
passionately and then remarks that “the little bird is caught at School and her marriage, and is often referred to as a “bird.” Arabella
last.” Sue goes off and finds Arabella in a room at a public-house. represents all the sordid, unromantic aspects of marriage, the way it
Arabella treats Sue rudely, saying that Jude isn’t really “hers.” functions more as an economic transaction than a conjoining of two
While Sue is there Arabella gets a telegram saying that her loving souls.
second husband will take her back.

Before leaving, Arabella advises Sue to marry Jude, listing all Arabella seems to sense Sue’s aversion to marriage and so she lists
the practical ways that marriage will help her properly ensnare all its legalistic and mundane aspects to try and keep Sue from
him. Sue gets upset at Arabella’s words. Arabella says that she marrying Jude. Arabella and Sue are polar opposites, especially
will write to Jude about the important matter she wanted to regarding their positions on marriage.
discuss, and she leaves.

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PART 5, CHAPTER 3
Sue returns to Jude and tells him that her conversation with Sue is again associated with a pre-Christian, pagan world, and now
Arabella has further convinced her what a “vulgar institution” Jude has given up religion and succumbs to this “dream.” Hardy
marriage is. Jude remarks that Sue seems like a woman of seems to propose this nonreligious, nonlegal monogamy as an
“some grand old civilization.” Sue says that marriage adds a alternative to the institution of marriage, but he will soon show that
sense of compulsion to a relationship that should be inherently such a solution cannot exist in the society of the time.
voluntary. Jude agrees to postpone any thoughts of marriage
for a while, and the couple lives on in a “dreamy paradise.”

One day Jude gets a letter from Arabella, whose last name is Arabella overturns the “dreamy paradise” of Jude and Sue’s
now Cartlett. In the letter Arabella says that she had given relationship with her revelation. This is another example of how
birth to a child by Jude after she moved to Australia. She left Jude is never really free of his first marriage, though he is now legally
the boy with her parents in Australia after she moved back to divorced. Arabella has never cared for her son and now wants to
England, but her parents can’t take care of him any more and shunt him off on Jude.
the boy is “of an intelligent age” now. Arabella asks if Jude and
Sue will take the child in, as Arabella and her new husband
(Cartlett) don’t want him.

Sue is upset by the plight of the unwanted child, and she asks Jude and Sue were both children of divorce and then orphans, so
Jude if they can take him in. Jude agrees, saying it doesn’t they sympathize with the child’s plight. The only way they can
matter whether the child is truly his or not – he is entitled to provide a “respectable” home for the boy is to get married, despite
adopt the unwanted boy. Jude and Sue decide to get married their reasonable misgivings. Hardy adds his idea that all children are
before the child arrives, so as to provide a more stable home the general responsibility of all adults, no matter one’s blood
for him. Jude writes Arabella to send him the child. relation.

The “small, pale child” arrives earlier than expected, so no one is Arabella treats the child with total callousness, using him to add
there to meet him at the train station. Arabella had sent him on discord to Jude and Sue’s relationship. The boy will function less as
to Jude immediately without a kind word at all. The boy looks a character and more as a symbol of his hardships and the faults of
constantly depressed and weighed down by the sorrows of the society. Hardy lends an urgency to his social criticism by showing
world, like “Age masquerading as Juvenility.” The child walks the effects of injustice on the next generation.
mechanically all the way from the station to Jude’s house,
ignoring all his surroundings.

The child reaches the house just as Jude and Sue are going to The boy seems used to being totally unwanted. Sue feels an
bed, and they are surprised to see him. They apologize for not immediate bond with the child, but her strong jealousy again
meeting him at the station, and they immediately take him in. troubles her as the boy reminds her of Jude’s relations with Arabella.
Sue is shocked to see Jude’s likeness in the boy, but is jealous to Jude gets a glimpse of hope and possibility in his son, and he
see Arabella’s as well. Jude wonders if he will be able to pass on immediately returns to his dream of Christminster.
his dream of studying at Christminster through this boy, and if
the boy will have more success if Jude can provide him with a
better life than he himself had.

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The child immediately asks Sue if he can call her “mother,” and Though the child is aged and world-weary in many ways, he still
the two strike up a quick affection for each other. After the boy shows his youth (and the tragic lack of love in his upbringing) by
goes to bed Sue declares that she and Jude must be strong for immediately calling Sue “mother.” The cerebral Sue experiences the
his sake, and go get legally married. sudden appearance of mothering instincts.

PART 5, CHAPTER 4
The next morning they ask the child his name, and he says he Little Father Time will act as a symbol of fate and time itself, as his
has no name, though his nickname is “Little Father Time” depressive character is the inevitable result of the divorce, injustice,
because he seems so aged and world-weary. Jude is disturbed and bad luck of his upbringing. Jude and Sue are again disturbed by
by this, but he decides to christen the boy “Jude” when he and the unromantic, legally binding aspect of the marriage contract, this
Sue are married. Jude and Sue go to the office that day and fill supposed declaration of love.
out the marriage form. They are both upset by the “sordid
business” of describing their relationship in such a way, and Sue
can’t even look at the contract.

Jude asks the Widow Edlin to attend the “ceremony” the next The Widow Edlin becomes a sort of sympathetic replacement to
day, and she comes and spends the night at their house. She Drusilla. We learn more about the “fatal flaw” in the Fawley blood,
tells the couple more about the bad luck in their family, and which now concerns children as well as marriage. In another
about one of their relatives who was hanged near the Brown unhappy coincidence, these tragic occurrences took place at the
House. This man divorced his wife, and she left with their child. Brown House, where Jude first conceived his futile dream of
The child died, and then the husband came to steal the child’s Christminster.
coffin and was arrested for burglary. After this story Little
Father Time advises Sue not to marry.

The next day Sue feels even more of a sense of “tragic doom,” as The succeeding generations of the house of Atreus all experienced
if the Fawleys were like the cursed house of Atreus in Greek horrific tragedies, often through no fault of their own. Both Jude and
mythology. She and Jude are both unhappy about the marriage, Sue are very sensitive, so the foreboding weather and their prosaic
but they go on to the office. It is a dreary day, and the couples in companions in line are enough to scare the couple away from the
front of them include a reluctant soldier with his pregnant marriage.
bride. Sue is so upset by the atmosphere of the place that Jude
agrees to postpone the wedding again, and perhaps try it in a
church instead.

Sue apologizes for her inconsistency, and they go to the parish It is not just the lack of romance and grandiosity that upsets Jude
church where a wedding is already taking place. Jude and Sue and Sue, but the binding nature of the institution itself. They decide
are just as upset by this wedding, as watching the ignorant, (probably rightly) that marriage is not for personality types like
innocent bride repeat her vows reminds them of their earlier theirs, but Victorian society allows for no exception to its rules – any
bad marriages. Jude and Sue decide that they are too relationship outside of marriage is seen as sinful and is punished.
“sensitive” in their natures for marriage, as the institution Sue sees the ceremony as a funeral or sacrifice more than an
always snuffs out the delicate spontaneity of their love. Sue affirmation of love.
compares the flowers in the bride’s hand to a garland
decorating a sacrificial cow.

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Sue and Jude return home, having failed to actually get The Widow Edlin gives voice to another possible solution to Hardy’s
married. The Widow Edlin comments on what a big deal marriage problem – in earlier generations English society was not so
marriage is nowadays – in her time no one thought much of it. oppressive and judgmental of others, and so marriages could be less
They decide not to tell Little Father Time that they didn’t go binding and “eternal.” Jude and Sue’s optimism is tragically naïve.
through with it, and declare that they will put their own
happiness over society’s opinion.

PART 5, CHAPTER 5
For a while Jude and Sue are happy together, though Little Arabella continues to illustrate the negatives of marriage, and her
Father Time remains gloomy and world-weary. One day there discontented, pragmatic marriage to Cartlett is contrasted with
is an agricultural show in the town of Stoke-Barehills, and Jude and Sue’s romantic love. Jude and Sue seem to have found a
Arabella arrives there with her husband Cartlett. She soon lifestyle that suits them, but Little Father Time is a constant
notices Jude and Sue with Little Father Time, though they don’t reminder of their past mistakes and their tragic fates.
see Arabella. Cartlett has clearly grown less enamoured of
Arabella, and he points out how happy Jude’s family looks.

Arabella scornfully says that Little Father Time can’t be Sue’s With her comment Arabella vaguely claims motherhood over Little
child, as Sue and Jude haven’t been married long enough. Father Time, but Cartlett doesn’t notice this. Jude and Sue are
Cartlett still has no idea that Arabella has a child at all, and she affirmed as “twins” who are meant to be together despite the
remains silent about it. Meanwhile Jude and Sue are at the fair obstacles of law and religion.
to try and inspire some curiosity and happiness in Little Father
Time, but the child remains glum. By now Jude and Sue are so
in sync that they can communicate almost without speaking.

Arabella follows the couple, noting that they must not be Arabella seems to agree with Sue about how marriage kills romance,
married because they are still so enamoured of each other. but Arabella is more concerned with personal financial security and
Cartlett grows bored, so Arabella leaves him and keeps comfort than with preserving true love, so she always tries to “trap”
following Jude. She runs into her old friend Anny and then her targets with marriage.
Physician Vilbert, and they all discuss Sue and Jude.

Arabella watches Sue and Jude observing a model of Vilbert returns, and his “love potion” will lead to him taking
Christminster that they themselves built, and Arabella mocks advantage of a powerless Jude later. Hardy’s statement about
Jude’s love for that town. Anny and Vilbert comment on Arabella and Cartlett is heavy-handed and supremely sarcastic, but
Arabella’s renewed interest in Jude, and Vilbert offers her a is a good summation of his criticism that marriage prohibits
love potion. After a while Arabella, now in a bad mood, leaves to voluntary love and leads to stagnation.
find Cartlett. The narrator calls Arabella and Cartlett “the
average husband and wife of Christendom.”

Meanwhile Jude and Sue keep admiring things at the Though Jude and Sue seem to have found true joy, they also seem to
agricultural show and commenting on their own happiness. Sue comment on or look forward to their own happiness rather than
is reluctant to say that she is happy because she and Jude are a simply experience it. Their “Greek joyousness” is only temporary, as
couple now, but Jude declares that he feels they have “returned all the legalistic, life-denying aspects of Christianity (and little else)
to Greek joyousness” and have forgotten all the gloom of reign supreme in Victorian society. Little Father Time now offers a
Christianity. The only stain on their happiness is Little Father voice for Hardy’s moments of extreme pessimism.
Time, who apologizes for his pessimism – he likes the flowers at
the fair, but can only think of how they will soon wither.

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PART 5, CHAPTER 6
Jude and Sue’s private life becomes more of a subject for The couple’s “dreamy paradise” finally comes up against the harsh
gossip, and soon everyone in town knows that they aren’t really reality of a cruel, judgmental society, and the delicate and sensitive
married. The couple pretends to go off to London and get Jude and Sue cannot stand up against their neighbors’
married, but people still want the scandal to continue so they condemnation.
disbelieve it. An “oppressive atmosphere” develops around the
couple and they feel unwelcome and condemned.

One day Jude is hired to reletter the Ten Commandments at a Hardy now delves into more specific, heart-rending tragedies – he
nearby church, and Sue comes along to help him. While they has shown how innocent and justified Jude and Sue are in living the
are working Little Father Time comes in, crying that other way they do, and now he will illustrate how society unjustly
children mocked Sue in front of him. Jude and Sue then tramples over them for daring to live in an unorthodox way. The
overhear some church members discussing their marital status cruelty of others is especially hurtful to Little Father Time, who is a
and telling condemning stories. Sue finally breaks down, as she blank canvas being filled with unfairness.
cannot understand why people hate them for choosing to “live
their own way.” Soon afterward the contractor fires the couple,
wishing to avoid a scandal.

Later Jude is nudged out of a workers’ union, and the couple Though sexuality is never mentioned in “respectable” society, it is
decides to move away. They sell all their furniture at auction, everywhere under the surface. Judgment runs so deep that
and Jude and Sue remain upstairs with Little Father Time. seemingly secular activities like a workers’ union are affected by
They overhear all the townspeople discussing their personal someone’s harmless personal decisions.
lives. Jude and Sue decide where to move next, recognizing that
Jude will now be unable to find church-related work.

Jude and Sue leave the house just as the auctioneer is selling Sue is again associated with freedom and birds, as she takes this
two pigeons Sue kept as pets. A poulterer buys them to use for small action against the injustice of her surroundings. She also
pies, which greatly upsets Sue. Later that evening Sue passes shows her affinity with Jude in her sympathy for animals.
the poulterer’s shop and sets the pigeons free.

Afterwards Sue feels guilty and confesses to Jude, and she Sue repeats Jude’s childhood revelation (while doing his job scaring
laments aloud that the law of Nature is “mutual butchery.” crows) as the couple grows more depressed and pessimistic. This
Little Father Time asks if this is true, and Sue affirms it. Jude last statement is a sort of thesis for the novel – people should not be
lists all the towns where they cannot go, as they are known and punished or condemned for living in an unorthodox manner, as long
condemned there, though they have “wronged no man” but as they cause no harm to anyone.
only “done that which was right in our own eyes.”

PART 5, CHAPTER 7
After leaving Aldbrickham Jude and Sue lead an almost In contrast to the extended settings of earlier sections, Jude and Sue
nomadic lifestyle, moving from town to town and working. are now forced to wander about in search of places that will accept
Almost three years pass by in this way. Jude comes to reject them. As soon as someone learns of their “sinful” lifestyle they are
any church-related work, as he recognizes that it would be unwelcome in that town. Jude has now fully reconciled his religious
hypocritical considering his current situation, and he wants beliefs with his actions by giving up his Christian belief.
nothing to do with those who condemn him. By now he has lost
all religious faith.

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One day Arabella arrives at the Kennetbridge spring fair Arabella has lost her husband now, so she is a free agent who can
dressed in mourning. She sees Sue there selling cakes with return to antagonize Jude. Though Jude and Sue have continued in
Little Father Time, and Arabella approaches them, saying that their convictions, their “Greek joyousness” has been crushed by
she is mourning her husband Cartlett. Arabella questions Sue Victorian society to the point that they are pessimistic about
about Jude, and Sue reveals that they are still living together. bringing children into such a cruel, judgmental world.
They have two children and Sue is pregnant with another,
though she feels almost guilty for this, as it is a “terribly tragic
thing to bring beings into the world.”

Sue says that Jude became ill doing stonework, so now he Jude still has not escaped his fascination with Christminster, though
makes cakes in the shape of colleges – which they call he has returned to Drusilla’s occupation of baking. Sue speaks of the
Christminster cakes – and Sue sells them. Arabella comments couple’s happiness, but never seems to have fully experienced it.
that Jude can never let go of Christminster. Sue says that Hardy now starts to show how religion can be used for less-than-
though they are scorned by society, their lives were happy until holy purposes – in Arabella’s case, it is a quick balm for her grief.
Jude’s illness. Arabella says that she has started going to
church, and has found comfort in religion.

PART 5, CHAPTER 8
That afternoon Arabella sings in the choir at a church and then Arabella gives up religion like Jude and Sue did, but her reasons have
leaves with Anny. On the way back to Alfredston Arabella to do with lust and greed instead of love and intellectual doubt.
reveals that her talk with Sue has made her very jealous. After Arabella now fully accepts her role as an antagonist to Jude and
passing the house where she lived with Jude, Arabella quickly Sue’s romance, primarily because she is jealous of their seeming
convinces herself to give up religion and try to win Jude back. happiness.
She flings her religious pamphlets out into a hedge.

Later in the journey Arabella comes across Mr. Phillotson in the Phillotson is far more compassionate and sympathetic than
road. She recognizes him and introduces herself. Phillotson Arabella is, but he is capable of doing just as much damage to the
reveals that he has been disgraced because of the protagonists’ relationship. Arabella sows the seeds of discord. She is
circumstances of his divorce, but he still thinks he did the right a condensation of the worst things Victorians thought about
thing. He says he is the schoolmaster at Marygreen again. women, and she also seems to support the sexism of her society.
Arabella tells him about her meeting with Sue, and she says that
Sue is unhappy and that he never should have let her go.
Arabella advises using harsh discipline to tame a wife, and then
she and Phillotson part ways.

Meanwhile Sue goes home, where the Widow Edlin is tending Jude and Sue might have somehow been successful in their
to the sick Jude. Sue tells Jude that she sold all the unorthodox romance, but fate strikes them again through Jude’s
Christminster cakes, which excites him, but then she describes sickness. Meanwhile, idealism and ambition are part of Jude’s
her meeting with Arabella. Jude decides that they should move nature, so he can never truly give up the dream of Christminster, no
again, and he requests that they return to Christminster. He matter how its “defective real” has disappointed him.
knows that the town has rejected and despised him, but he still
can’t let go of his old dream, and he hopes at least to die there if
possible.

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PART 6, CHAPTER 1
Three weeks later Jude and Sue arrive at Christminster with Sue’s two children are never given names or personalities. Jude
their two children and Little Father Time, who has been purposefully returns on Remembrance Day, hoping that the
officially christened “Jude” but still goes by his nickname. They festivities will be hopeful, but they only remind him that men less
arrive on Remembrance Day, a day when honorary degrees are worthy than he is have gotten the advantage of education simply
given to benefactors of the colleges, and they go to see the through their wealth and class.
procession before looking for lodgings. The procession
depresses Jude, reminding him of his failed dreams.

In the large crowd Jude sees his old companions Tinker Taylor Jude has given up hope, but he is still drawn inevitably to
and Uncle Joe. They ask him if he ever became a scholar, and Christminster, if only to make a spectacle of his failure there. His
Jude delivers a speech to a gathering crowd about how he speech condenses much of Hardy’s criticisms – in a fair society, Jude
failed. He tried to do in one generation what society only allows should have been able to raise his social position through work and
to be done in several – raise his social class by his own hard intelligence.
work and intelligence.

Jude confesses that his desires were too strong and distracted Jude recognizes his own “fatal flaws.” He is not wholly innocent, but
him from his dream, but he is still worthy of pity. He hopes that he still doesn’t deserve the cruel fate society has condemned him to.
he can serve as an example of how not to live, as his ambitions Like Jude, Hardy clearly recognizes the many flaws in society, but he
were too high and now he is only a sick, poor, unhappy man. can find few clear solutions to its complex and far-reaching
Jude perceives “that there is something wrong somewhere in problems. Jude achieves a kind of fame as a melodramatic failure.
our social formulas” for him to be rewarded like this, but he
doesn’t know where. The crowd applauds Jude’s speech.

It starts to rain and Sue, who has grown emotional at Jude’s The novel’s climax approaches as all the protagonists’ misfortunes
words, wants them to go look for lodgings. Jude wants to keep start to converge. Jude and Sue are now both being physically
watching the processing Doctors and Heads of Houses. He haunted by their bad first marriages, and they are experiencing the
declares that he is still an outsider, and then finally agrees to judgment of the society at the same place where Jude was already
leave with Sue. Sue says that she saw Phillotson in the crowd rejected long ago.
opposite them.

Jude and Sue wander about looking for lodging, but they are Little Father Time immediately rejects Christminster and claims he
turned away. Little Father Time declares that he doesn’t like doesn’t want to study there. In a way this means Jude has failed at
Christminster, and he doesn’t want to ever go to a college his dream yet again, as he can’t even succeed through his son.
there. Finally the family finds a woman who will rent them a
room if Jude stays elsewhere.

After Sue and the children enter, the landlady asks Sue about Sue remains honest and idealistic – even after so much
her marital situation. Sue admits that she and Jude are not discrimination, she still naively reveals her “sinful” situation and
officially married, but that they live together as husband and gives the landlord an excuse to kick her out. Little Father Time starts
wife. The landlady immediately tells her husband this, and he to echo Jude and Drusilla’s sentiments at the beginning of the novel.
says to kick them out, as he didn’t want any children staying He has been unwanted for most of his life, and now that he has
there anyway. The landlady tells Sue that they can only stay for experienced the cruelty of the world he wishes he had never entered
a week. Sue and Little Father Time wander about looking for a it.
different room, but they are unsuccessful. Little Father Time
says that he should never have been born.

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PART 6, CHAPTER 2
They return to their room and Sue is in a deep depression, Hardy unsubtly names one of his fictional colleges “Sarcophagus” –
looking out the window at Sarcophagus College and wondering a stone coffin. This alludes to the earlier Biblical quote about
at the strength of Jude’s dream that he should have brought “whited sepulchres,” as Hardy is basically saying Christminster is a
them to dreary, unfriendly Christminster. Little Father Time is pretty place filled with dead ideas.
also upset, and he worries about where they will stay the next
day.

Little Father Time questions Sue about life, and she affirms In her own depression Sue talks to Little Father Time as if he was an
that everything is trouble and suffering. She says it would adult. She gives voice to all of Hardy’s most pessimistic, depressed
almost be better to not be born than to live in such a cruel sentiments and Little Father Time absorbs them without any age or
world. Little Father Time asks if they can’t find a room because wisdom to put them in perspective. The theme of fate seems to
of the children’s presence, and Sue doesn’t object. Sue tells him culminate here, as the novel’s climax is set up by such a dreary
that she is pregnant, and Little Father time grows angry and worldview.
distressed, as the family is in such dire straits already. Before
going to bed Little Father Time says “If we children was gone
there’d be no trouble at all!”

Sue wakes up early the next morning and goes to find Jude, Little Father Time’s hanging of the children and then himself is the
who has found a passable inn. They have a quick breakfast novel’s terrible climax, and takes the story’s tragedy to a new level.
together and then return to Sue’s lodgings. They make Jude and Sue have been so wrapped up in their own problems that
breakfast for the children, who seem to still be sleeping, and they didn’t realize how their depression and society’s injustice was
then Sue goes to wake them. Jude hears her shriek and he affecting their children. It is significant that because of Victorian
rushes in. Sue has fainted and the children are gone. Jude morals Hardy can describe such a gruesome death in the novel but
opens the closet door and finds all three children dead, hanging cannot ever explicitly mention sex or pregnancy.
from clothes hooks. An overturned chair is near Little Father
Time’s feet.

Jude immediately cuts the children down and lays them on the This disaster is the turning point for Jude and Sue. Before this they
bed, and then he runs off to find a doctor. When he returns he still had potential to make their way in the world and find a place for
finds Sue and the landlady trying to revive the children, but themselves, but now Sue will be emotionally broken by the tragedy
they are all dead. On the floor they find a note from Little and lose all faith in her own judgment.
Father Time saying “Done because we are too menny.” Sue
feels that this is her fault and she breaks down into “convulsive
agony.” They put her to bed and the landlady tries to comfort
her.

Jude talks to the doctor and then informs Sue that there is no Hardy clearly doesn’t have much hope for the next generation. By
hope for the children. The doctor had said that it was in Little portraying Little Father Time’s murder-suicide as inevitable, Hardy
Father Time’s “nature” to commit this act, and acts like this shows how the injustices of the present lead to horror in the future.
have been springing up among the next generation. He said it is
the “beginning of the coming universal wish not to live.” Then
Jude too breaks down.

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They go to see the children’s bodies, and on Little Father Time’s In this tragic, dramatic scene Little Father Time truly becomes the
face they seem to see the expression and condensation of all symbol of all the hardships and bad luck the protagonists have
Jude’s bad luck and failures. They hear an organ in a nearby faced. There is even a church playing a joyful song nearby to
church playing “Truly God is loving unto Israel.” Sue breaks heighten the melodrama and show how religion is no comfort in
down again and declares that there seems to be an external such grief.
force punishing them for trying to live in their own way.

Sue weeps and tells Jude about her conversation with Little The nature of the tragedy would be enough to make anyone break
Father Time the night before. She feels that her relationship down, but Hardy has already made Sue into an emotional, sensitive
with Jude is now “stained with blood,” and she regrets all her character, so her grief totally breaks her intellect and judgment.
rebellious thoughts of the past. She remembers how they With the childrens’ death Hardy shows how Sue and Jude’s
sought to “make a virtue of joy” and follow only Nature’s law, experiment in unmarried love also failed – until society changes,
but surely they are now being punished for that. Jude quotes there is no good solution to the problem of marriage. Agamemnon
from the play Agamemnon
Agamemnon, by Aeschylus: “Things are as they concerns a cursed family (part of the house of Atreus).
are.”

Sue stays in bed while the children are buried, but she appears Hardy keeps adding on more tragedy, burying the characters in
at the burial’s end and frantically tries to uncover the coffins. death and grief. Sue and Jude harmed no one and tried only to “live
Sue weeps, begging to see her children one last time, but Jude in their own way,” but they have been punished for this with horror
shepherds her home. That night Sue gives birth to a premature, upon horror.
stillborn baby.

PART 6, CHAPTER 3
Jude and Sue find lodgings in the Beersheba district, and Jude Hardy seems to want us to see the children’s deaths as a result of
finds some stonemasonry work. They spend much of their time society’s failures, but Sue sees the tragedy as punishment from an
sitting silently together, both in anguish. Sue declares that they angry, legalistic God whom she had denied. Jude indulges some
“must conform,” as they have tried to fight God and have failed. Victorian sexism in putting Sue back on a pedestal, claiming all the
Jude accuses himself of being a “seducer,” a man who corrupted agency in their fate for himself.
Sue’s inherently pure nature.

Sue is fixated on the idea that they are being punished, and she When the couple was strong they could stand up against society’s
decides that she still rightfully belongs to Phillotson, as she and insistence that their relationship was invalid without marriage, but
Jude never really married. She feels that she has sinned against Sue has been weakened and broken by tragedy, and she starts
God by leaving Phillotson, and her children’s death was the believing the condemnation she has received. The tragic close now
result. In the following weeks Sue grows more obsessively begins to fall into place.
religious and concerned with “mortifying the flesh,” while Jude
remains agnostic, feeling he is battling only humanity and blind
chance.

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Sue says she wishes she could take back all her unorthodox Sue’s loss of spirit and intelligence is as heartbreaking as any tragedy
views and formidable intellect. Jude is upset by this, and he the couple has experienced. Sue turns to religion like Jude turns to
asks Sue to marry him if that will satisfy her new fear of the law. alcohol, in a spirit of depression and shame. Sue’s extreme, legalistic
Sue refuses. She says that she has started going to church in version of Christianity shows how even if a religion is correct or
secret, and she thinks she must leave Jude and return to useful, it can still be used for negative reasons.
Phillotson. Jude realizes that he and Sue are switching places in
terms of religious belief.

A few days later Arabella visits the couple. She says she visited The couple now lacks the strength to stand up to Arabella’s tricks.
the children’s graves but didn’t feel comfortable coming to the Jude and Sue both got legal divorces from their spouses, but it is
funeral. Arabella offhandedly describes Sue as Jude’s wife, but now clear that they can never escape their bad first marriages. Sue
Sue denies this and leaves. Arabella tells Jude that her father was once proud to be unmarried, but now as her guilt pushes her
has returned from Australia and she is living with him now. She back toward religion she sees her “pagan” relationship as sinful.
departs after a respectable amount of time.

Meanwhile Sue has disappeared, and Jude goes to look for her Little Father Time did act as a symbol of bad marriage and foolish
at the church, though it is nighttime. He finds Sue there sobbing decisions (Jude and Arabella) killing true love and brilliant idealism
and prostrating herself. Sue rebukes Jude for coming, but tells (Jude and Sue). Sue becomes obsessed with the idea of punishment
him that she sees the children’s tragedy as a sign and and strict religious rules, as she needs some order in her world after
punishment from God – Arabella’s child, who was born in all the horror (and perhaps to punish herself for her previous ideas
wedlock, killed Sue’s children, who were born out of wedlock. by now believing their opposite).

Jude responds by lamenting that the once brilliant, wise Sue Jude and Sue have switched places in terms of religious belief, and
has so degraded herself, and he tells her that she is making him now it is Jude who speaks with Hardy’s skeptical voice. Jude and
hate religion. Jude asks Sue to come home with him, as they are Sue were indeed “pioneers” not just in the novel but also as
husband and wife according to “Nature’s law.” Sue refuses, characters, as Hardy was almost universally attacked for their
saying that they are not married under “Heaven’s law.” Later unorthodox actions and especially Sue’s ideas.
she laments that the world was not ready for such “pioneers” as
they tried to be, but that she is now totally broken and ready to
submit to society.

Jude accuses Sue of never having really loved him. She says she Sue now admits that even their pure love began for her as jealousy
does love him, but she started out merely desiring to be loved and vanity. Jude still speaks in Biblical language and now compares
by him. She begs Jude to leave her, as she is now convinced that both himself and Sue to Christ – when Jesus was crucified, the veil
she must return to Phillotson. Jude pleads with Sue but finally of the temple was torn in two. Sue clearly still loves Jude and has no
relents, saying that their “highest and purest love” is now feelings for Phillotson, but she has now chosen law over emotion.
ruined, and declaring “let the veil of our temple be rent in two.”
Jude kisses Sue’s face as she weeps, and then he departs in
silence.

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PART 6, CHAPTER 4
Meanwhile Phillotson is at Marygreen ruminating on his Phillotson is still a kind, sympathetic character, but he will continue
encounter with Arabella. He reads about the deaths of Jude to cause more accidental torment to Sue. Arabella acts as a true
and Sue’s children in the newspaper. Later he meets Arabella antagonist and hurries the innocent Phillotson along this path.
again, as she has moved back to Alfredston. Arabella tells Arabella returns to her old dimple-making practice, a sign of her
Phillotson that Sue has left Jude and become religious as a way artificiality and also a foreshadowing that she intends to seduce
of dealing with the tragedy. She says that Sue now considers Jude again.
herself belonging only to Phillotson. Arabella gives Phillotson
Sue’s address and then leaves, practicing making dimples in her
cheeks as she walks.

Phillotson writes to Sue and asks her to come to Marygreen. Phillotson’s statement is a good thesis for Hardy’s social critique –
He also writes that he has suffered for his decision to divorce the rigid laws concerning marriage (among other things) can often
her, as their society does not allow one to act according to one’s run contrary to personal morality and individual situations. Hardy
own moral compass, but then he removes this paragraph. in general advocates for flexibility over rigidity, for the complexity of
life over the cruel simplicity of rules.

One day Sue comes to Jude’s lodgings and asks him to come Hardy again creates a situation where what is legally and religiously
out and meet her. They go to the cemetery together and Sue “right” is ethically very wrong. The church will see Sue’s remarriage
tells Jude that Phillotson has agreed to take her back and marry of Phillotson as a correction of past errors, when in reality she is
her again. Jude begs her to reconsider, again citing their own marrying him as a kind of self-punishment for disasters forced upon
love, but finally he weeps that Sue’s “once keen vision was her by society.
dimmed.” He calls her return to Phillotson a “fanatic
prostitution.” Sue admits that she doesn’t love Phillotson, but
she feels this is her duty.

They reach the graves of their children, and Sue says that they Sue’s mental decline is evident not just in her new religious
died to show her the error of her ways. She tells Jude that she fanaticism but also in her paranoid self-centeredness, making even
will marry Phillotson at Marygreen, and asks him to send her her childrens’ deaths about her. In their parting words the couple
her belongings. Then she bids Jude farewell, calling him her seems to acknowledge that they were meant for each other, but
“fellow-sinner, and kindest friend,” and Jude calls her his they could never be happy together in such a cruel, unjust world.
“mistaken wife.”

PART 6, CHAPTER 5
The next day Christminster is covered in fog and Jude is too Sue is still physically repulsed by Phillotson, but now she embraces
depressed to go to work. Meanwhile Sue takes the train to her unhappiness as a punishment for her past “sins.” The vicar
Marygreen and arrives like a supplicant at Phillotson’s house. knows nothing of Sue’s real feelings, so he delivers the verdict of the
Phillotson welcomes her, but when he tries to kiss her Sue religious status quo – marriage is always the best path. As the whole
shrinks back. She pretends this is because of the cold, and asks novel is a rebuttal to this mindset, the vicar’s statement is
about the marriage. Phillotson says that the vicar said this unwittingly ironic.
second marriage would undo all their previous sins, and they
can be married tomorrow morning.

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Sue catches sight of the marriage contract on a desk, and she Sue panicked at the sight of the marriage license even with Jude, her
inadvertently cries out in panic. She tries to laugh this away too. true love, so she is all the more horrified by the sight of the
Sue goes off to stay at the Widow Edlin’s house, and as she document linking her name back with Phillotson’s. The Widow Edlin
unpacks her things Sue finds a nightgown she had bought to takes on a larger role now as the voice of reason.
impress Jude. She burns it, despite Mrs. Edlin’s protests. Mrs.
Edlin begs Sue not to marry Phillotson, as she is still clearly in
love with Jude.

Meanwhile Gillingham congratulates Phillotson on winning Sue Gillingham is again the voice of society and Hardy’s critics, rejoicing
back. Phillotson has second thoughts, recognizing Sue’s in the failure of Jude and Sue’s “experiment.” Hardy has clearly
reluctance, but then he decides that he too ought to submit to condemned many of the aspects of traditional marriage, but he also
society’s will and go through with the marriage, and then be showed how Jude and Sue’s relationship was not an ideal solution.
more strict with Sue afterwards. Mrs. Edlin comes to visit He now seems to lean more towards Mrs. Edlin’s laxity regarding the
Phillotson that night and begs him not to marry Sue. She institution, and regarding laws and rules in general.
laments the state of marriage these days, saying it was more
“careless” in her time.

The next morning Sue looks small and tired, but she goes with Phillotson felt sure in his decision to let Sue leave him, even though
Phillotson to the church. They go through with the marriage, it went against society and religion. Now he is following the status
but Phillotson feels like he is doing something immoral. After quo but his personal morality is troubled. Hardy ramps up the irony,
the contract is signed the vicar says “all’s well that ends well,” as Sue has “saved” herself from a theoretical Hell punishing her for
and tells the couple that they have undone their past sins and following her heart, but she is about to return to the living Hell of a
saved themselves from Hell. Phillotson and Sue return home, destructive marriage.
and Phillotson tells her that he doesn’t intend to intrude on her
– this marriage was mostly for society’s sake – which lessens
Sue’s worries.

PART 6, CHAPTER 6
Meanwhile Arabella comes to Jude’s lodgings, telling him that Arabella now returns to her old tricks, and she knows Jude has no
her father has kicked her out and she has no money or shelter. strength to stand up against her. She begins by playing to his natural
Jude is unable to be cruel to her, so he takes her in and his sympathy for the downtrodden and unwanted, and rubbing salt in
landlord lets her stay in the attic. Arabella tells Jude that Sue the wound of his break with Sue.
went through with her marriage to Phillotson. A few days later
Jude is still depressed, and Arabella offers to go visit Anny at
Alfredston and get any news about Sue.

Arabella goes and returns that same day, practicing making Arabella is single again, and she decides (with a total lack of love or
dimples on the train ride. She tells Jude that Sue went through anything other than jealousy and greed) that she wants Jude back,
with the marriage, though part of her seemed against it. so she piggybacks on Sue’s new theory about returning to their first
Arabella admits to a similar feeling to Sue’s – Arabella says she marriage.
feels like she is still Jude’s wife. Jude brushes this off, but then
he goes to a tavern for the first time in many months.

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Jude stays out late, and Arabella goes to her father’s house and Arabella’s father (Donn) is just as callous as she is, and he is willing
tells him to leave the door unlocked that night, as she has a to indulge her tricks if it will get Arabella out of his house. Arabella is
chance to win Jude back again. Arabella then finds Jude drunk once again associated with alcohol and all the worst parts of Jude’s
at a tavern, and she buys him more drinks. Jude laments his loss nature. In his despair he is an easy target, as he feels he has nothing
of Sue, and says that no one understands him like she did, left to live for.
though she has now ruined his soul to save her own. Arabella
takes the drunk Jude back to her father’s house and leads him
upstairs.

PART 6, CHAPTER 7
The next morning Arabella’s father, Mr. Donn, goes to work at Sue was worried that marriage might wound her delicate feelings,
his pork-shop and Arabella tells him that she has “a prize but Arabella uses marriage as a weapon to hunt down a husband.
upstairs” – Jude. She says that they must keep Jude in the Hardy alludes to the portrait of Samson and Delilah at the inn on
house for a while until they are married again. Arabella goes Jude and Arabella’s first date. Jude has truly been shorn of any
upstairs and wakes Jude, “her shorn Samson.” He gives her power he had by now.
money to pay for his lodgings, and she returns bringing all his
possessions.

Jude is sick with a bad hangover. Arabella tells Donn that he Jude turns to alcoholism again in his despair, and Arabella is willing
must provide a steady flow of liquor for a while, and that she to take advantage of even this. Donn is just as greedy and amoral as
will pay him back. Arabella and Donn keep Jude drunk for a few his daughter.
days, and they have a continuous party with guests like Uncle
Joe and Tinker Taylor.

Finally one early morning Arabella convinces Jude that he Jude’s last weakness is his sense of honor – Arabella guilted him into
promised to marry her in his drunken state. Jude denies this, marrying her the first time by pretending she was pregnant, and
but Donn calls his honor into question and Jude is unwilling to now she guilts him again by pretending he made a promise of
sacrifice his honor, no matter what. Arabella, Jude, and Donn marriage. Sue feared the wedding license, but Arabella gladly uses it
head off to the church, as Arabella has already prepared the as a tool.
wedding license.

Arabella returns victorious, and tells her guests that the parson Once again the church finds this return to a bad marriage to be a
found this marriage to be an amendment of past errors. The great virtue and forgiveness of past “sins.” Jude (and the reader,
parson said that “the Church don’t recognize divorce in her Hardy hopes) recognizes that these new marriages are
dogma,” so now all was right with their relationship. Meanwhile abominations and forms of spiritual adultery.
Jude asks for more alcohol, laughing bitterly at the sacrifices he
has made for his honor, and noting that he has done just as Sue
requested in her new “true religion.”

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PART 6, CHAPTER 8
Jude and Arabella get their own lodgings, but Jude soon grows In the last few chapters Arabella has thought of marriage as a kind
sick with a respiratory illness. Arabella feels she has gotten a of hunt, a game, and now a business transaction. Hardy offers
bad bargain in the marriage, as Jude now gets a free nurse another bitingly sarcastic comment on “traditional” marriage, which
instead of herself getting a husband to make money for her. he defines by a sense of discontent and discord between the man
Jude says he wishes he could be mercifully killed, just as he and woman.
killed that pig long ago. Their landlord, who had doubted that
the couple was really married, hears their arguing and
recognizes “the note of genuine wedlock.”

Jude’s condition worsens, and he asks Arabella to write Sue After all her lowly tricks and total lack of love and scruples, Arabella
about his illness. Arabella protests that this is a disrespecting of still has the law and supposed “sanctity” of marriage on her side.
the “rights and duties” of marriage, but Jude declares that he Hardy has led us to such an extreme situation to show just how
has no shame anymore. He tells Arabella that he loves Sue, and empty and cruel the legal and religious “rights and duties” of
he recognizes that he is about to die so he wants to see her. marriage can be. All that Jude has left is his hopeless love for Sue.
Arabella calls Sue a “strumpet” and Jude threatens to kill her if
she insults Sue again. He immediately admits that he couldn’t
go through with this, though.

Arabella estimates Jude’s life “with an appraiser’s eye” and Arabella seems to grow even more cold and cruel as she rejects
agrees to write to Sue. After a few days without Sue appearing, Jude’s dying wish and looks at him like a piece of livestock. Jude is
Jude suspects that Arabella never sent her a letter (which is basically committing suicide by traveling in the rain, but he has
true). One day when Arabella is away Jude goes himself to nothing else to live for.
Marygreen, despite his illness and the fact that it is raining
hard.

Jude grows weaker on his journey, but he reaches Sue’s school Hardy references the novel’s epigraph, which is half of a Biblical
and sends for her. She meets him in the church. Jude begs her quote: “The letter killeth, but the spirit giveth light.” Sue and Jude’s
to stay, as he is dying. He says “we are acting by the letter; and love was “the spirit,” but it ultimately failed and “the letter” – the
‘the letter killeth’.” Sue agrees to talk to him, and she strict rules of society, religion, and fate – were victorious. In a way
congratulates Jude on doing the right thing in marrying Hardy is arguing that Victorian Christianity has strayed from true
Arabella. Jude is enraged by this, and calls his marriage to Christianity, that it has shifted from a focus on the “spirit” to a focus
Arabella “degrading, immoral,” and “unnatural.” on the “letter.”

They argue again, but suddenly Sue asks Jude to kiss her and Jude, like Hardy, associates Sue’s newfound “religion” with the lack
they kiss passionately. Sue declares that she does love Jude of judgment brought about by drunkenness. Sue at least has this
still, but then she immediately draws back and feels she has last glimmer of her old self before she succumbs to her fanatical
sinned. Jude tells her that in these new marriages he was “gin- guilt and self-punishment. This is the couple’s heartbreaking final
drunk” and she was “creed-drunk,” so they should ignore them goodbye, and the ultimate victory of the harsh world over idealism
and run away together. Sue refuses and begs Jude not to tempt and innocent love.
her. She kneels and puts her hands over her ears until Jude
leaves.

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Jude walks back to Alfredston, freezing in the wind and rain. He The objects of Jude’s past go by, haunting him in succession. They
passes the Brown House, and the stone where he had carved remind him both of his failure and of how he was fated to fail
the finger pointing to Christminster, and the gibbet where his because of the “curse” in his Fawley blood.
and Sue’s ancestor was hanged. Then he takes the train back to
Christminster.

PART 6, CHAPTER 9
Arabella meets Jude at the platform, and he admits both that Hardy drives home the tragedy by reminding us how brilliant and
he has seen Sue and has basically committed suicide by well-read Sue was, and how she was the only one who truly
traveling in the wind and rain. He is now ready and eager to die. understood Jude and vice versa – as compared to Arabella, who
As they walk home Jude sees the spectres of the philosophers doesn’t even want to hear the philosophers’ names.
and writers he saw on his first night in Christminster, but now
they seem to be mocking him. He lists their names to Arabella,
but she is bored by them and asks him to stop.

That night in Marygreen the Widow Edlin goes to Sue’s house Sue is still trying to suppress and kill her true self, and she has
to help her with her domestic duties. Sue confesses that she moved beyond sanity and the Widow Edlin’s reasonable arguments.
saw Jude and still loves him “grossly.” Sue has decided to do a This tragic situation is one of the few times that Sue actually admits
“penance” for this act by making herself sleep with Phillotson, a passionate, sexual love for Jude.
though he hasn’t asked her. Mrs. Edlin tries to dissuade her, but
Sue declares that she must do her duty.

When Mrs. Edlin is about to leave to go to bed Sue seems This horrifying scene is the last we see of Sue. Phillotson remains
terrified, but then she steels herself and goes to Phillotson’s generally sympathetic, but Sue’s innate nature and her terrible guilt
room. Sue tells Phillotson about her meeting with Jude and make him seem a monster to her, and, in his ignorance, a monster in
their kiss. Phillotson is slightly upset and makes her promise action. The Widow Edlin’s final sentiment is a pithy summary of
not to do it again. Sue then offers to share his bed. Sue is still Hardy’s condemnation of Victorian marriage.
physically repulsed by Phillotson’s touch, but she submits to his
kiss. Meanwhile Mrs. Edlin muses that “Weddings be funerals”
nowadays.

PART 6, CHAPTER 10
Months pass and Jude’s illness decreases but then returns. He Jude has some closure with Sue and is ready to die, but his suffering
muses on his old dream of Christminster, and says that he is drawn out by this reprieve in his illness. Hardy sees the beginnings
hears the universities are growing more accepting of lower- of educational reform, but it clearly isn’t enough yet.
class students now. Arabella says she will allow Sue to come see
him, but Jude says he doesn’t want to see Sue again.

One day the Widow Edlin visits Jude, and she tells him that Sue Hardy is lamenting his own situation through Jude – he feels that he
and Phillotson have consummated their marriage, though Sue is progressive and prophetic, but the world is not ready for his ideas
only made herself do it as a punishment. Jude laments how far yet and so critics attack him. Hardy is mostly right about all of this,
Sue has fallen, and he praises her former genius. He says that which only heightens the tragedy of his, Jude’s, and Sue’s plight.
their “ideas were fifty years too soon,” and that because society
was not ready for such truth and love as theirs it ruined them.

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Physician Vilbert arrives and Arabella flirts with him The quack physician Vilbert finally returns to take advantage of a
downstairs, offering him some wine and pretending to slip him helpless Jude again, just as he did when Jude was a naïve child.
the love potion he sold her long ago. Vilbert kisses Arabella and Arabella continues to reach new levels of callousness.
she coyly sends him away, thinking that “weak women must
provide for a rainy day,” and she needs a new husband if Jude
dies.

PART 6, CHAPTER 11
More months pass and summer arrives, and Jude nears death. Hardy builds up the melodrama, as Jude spends his dying day
One afternoon he falls asleep as Arabella is getting ready to go listening to those lucky, conventional, upper-class men celebrate the
out. She hears a festival outside, and she leaves Jude even university education that Jude deserved but was denied.
though Donn hasn’t arrived to watch him yet. It is
Remembrance Week again, and all the college dons and
undergraduates are being celebrated. Arabella joins the
festivities.

Jude wakes up alone and asks for some water. He calls for both Jude is associated again with the Biblical Job, who is an archetypal
Arabella and Sue, but no one comes. He hears the festival figure of an innocent man who suffers for no reason. Jude has been
outside and recognizes that it is Remembrance Week, and abandoned by his wife and his true love, rejected by his dream
remembers that “Sue is defiled.” He quotes from the book of university, and left alone to die.
Job in the Bible, lamenting that he was ever born, and then
Jude dies.

Meanwhile Arabella flirts with men, and tells Jude’s fellow Hardy reaches new levels of pessimism with the situation of Jude’s
stoneworkers that he is at home sleeping. They ask her to come death. For Arabella, who is supposed to be eternally and sacredly
with them to see the boat races. Before going Arabella hurries bonded with Jude through marriage, Jude’s death is nothing but an
home to check on Jude, and she sees that he is dead. She curses inconvenience to her on a fun day.
his bad timing, and decides to go enjoy the festival before
raising the alarm of his death.

Arabella goes back out and tells the men that Jude is still Arabella still has a small bit of guilt amid all her heartless actions of
asleep. They go and watch the boat races, and Physician Vilbert late, and she at least leaves Vilbert until she has dealt with Jude.
approaches her and puts his arm around her waist. After a Note how she is trapped by the crowds as she tried to do what’s
while Arabella feels awkward and decides to leave, though she right; Jude and Sue also were metaphorically trapped by the “crowd”
is trapped by the crowds for a while. She informs an undertaker of society. The festivities of Remembrance Week go happily on, blind
of Jude’s death before even going home. to the tragedy unfolding nearby.

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Jude’s funeral is two days later, and it takes place as distant Arabella is clearly an unreliable source, but she does seem to speak
crowds cheer for illustrious men receiving honorary degrees. the truth here – Sue might have punished herself enough to satisfy
Arabella asks the Widow Edlin (the only other attendee) if Sue her sense of guilt, but she still has to live the rest of her life with a
is coming. Mrs. Edlin says that Sue swore to never see Jude man she can’t stand. Hardy melodramatically juxtaposes the
again, and that Sue looks “tired and miserable” all the time now cheering crowds of Christminster with Jude’s lonely funeral. Hardy
and still can’t stand Phillotson’s company. Mrs. Edlin says she seems to advocate struggling against the “evil star” of fate, but with
hopes Sue has found some forgiveness and peace, but Arabella such an ending he shows how futile the struggle usually is. He finds
declares that Sue won’t know peace until she has joined Jude in few answers to the novel’s large questions and critiques, and the
death. only conclusion he can offer is the peace of death.

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To cite any of the quotes from Jude the Obscure covered in the
HOW T
TO
O CITE Quotes section of this LitChart:
To cite this LitChart: MLA
MLA Hardy, Thomas. Jude the Obscure. Penguin Classics. 1998.
Cosby, Matt. "Jude the Obscure." LitCharts. LitCharts LLC, 24 Jul CHICA
CHICAGO
GO MANU
MANUAL
AL
2014. Web. 21 Apr 2020.
Hardy, Thomas. Jude the Obscure. New York: Penguin Classics.
CHICA
CHICAGO
GO MANU
MANUAL
AL 1998.
Cosby, Matt. "Jude the Obscure." LitCharts LLC, July 24, 2014.
Retrieved April 21, 2020. https://www.litcharts.com/lit/jude-the-
obscure.

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