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Jude the Obscure
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Jude the Obscure: Week 1 - Part First
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Maybe he doesn't feel guilty about the premarital sex because he then did the right thing by marrying her?
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"Oh yes, once those around them knew they have had sex or once a pregnancy was discovered marriage was a must:Well put, Madge, and what a quotation. I actually went back and read that chapter again, and that last sentence is powerful and very ironic! This is another of those seminal moments that occur in the novel that you kind of want to remember and reconsider as the plot jogs along. Well done!'"I have next to no wages as yet, you know; or perhaps I should have thought of this before...But, of course if that's the case, we must marry! What other thing do you think I could dream of doing?"This passage from chapter 9 says it all with great irony:-'Those who guessed the probable state of affairs, Arabella's parents being among them, declared that it was the sort of conduct they would have expected of such an honest young man as Jude in reparation of the wrong he had done his innocent sweetheart. The parson who married them seemed to think it satisfactory too. And so, standing before the aforesaid officiator, the two swore that at every other time of their lives till death took them, they would assuredly believe, feel, and desire precisely as they had believed, felt, and desired during the few preceding weeks. What was as remarkable as the undertaking itself was the fact that nobody seemed at all surprised at what they swore.'"
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Edited - my machine froze when I was in the middle of this post!
We do not know that he was '..."
I have to agree with Madge. For reasons I won't go into, I was an extremely isolated child. So shy that I literally would get sick when we had to go to a new place for any reason. I also had been told at a very early age that I was unlovable and unwanted. I took my comfort in books which isolated me further. To make a long, boring story shorter, if we look at me and my siblings, I don't fit. I have a love of literature and the arts. It's almost as if I belonged to a different family.
This created a lack of self-esteem in me and lead to a unhappy brief first marriage because that might be my only chance to have a family. I guess I can see a lot of me in Jude and creates a question for me. How do you create a character that has more depth when you are trying to portray such complete isolation? I'm not sure I could.
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I think Hardy empathizes with you, just as you do with Jude. I have to think that Jude really rose from Hardy's heart and soul. This is, in my opinion, some of the most powerful prose that he crafted, and there's more to it than that 'it simply paid the bills.' It was important to him to write this story!
Jude is an extraordinary character, with aspects and characteristics that I believe we can all relate to and empathize with. Just as Jude read the ancient classical Greek texts, I truly believe that Aeschylus and Sophocles would dig this tale too.
Silver wrote: "I do not think that Arabella's leaving Jude is really so much about Jude not being her "type" but I think it is becasue she discovered Jude's inability to truly provide for her in the way in which she hoped. "I think it is partly that, but also that he wasn't "fun" and wasn't going to be any fun to live with, with his nose always in a book -- hey wait, doesn't that describe most of us? [g]
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So true, so true! I hear this from my wife, Susan, all of the time!
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Everyman wrote: Well, then, you're disagreeing with a lot of critics who say exactly that. But I realize that that involves referring to background information, and maybe you don't think that's a worthwhile way to go. ..."I would be happy to see your background material about this, especially with reference to Hardy and Dickens.
Denae wrote: "His interest in a divinity degree seems to have more to do with prestige than strong religious belief. "I think this interest is more due to Pillotson's remark to the 11 year old Jude in Chapter 1: 'You know what a university is, and a university degree? It is the necessary hallmark of a man who wants to do anything in teaching. My scheme, or dream, is to be a university graduate, and then to be ordained. By going to live at Christminster, or near it, I shall be at headquarters, so to speak...' Christminster became a goal for Jude, especially when he climbed the hill to look at 'Jerusalem' again and felt the breeze 'caress' him, the breeze which had '[touched] Mr. Phillotson's face, being breathed by him; and now you are here, breathed by me--you, the very same. Suddenly there came along this wind something towards him--a message from the place--from some soul residing there, it seemed. Surely it was the sound of bells, the voice of the city, faint and musical, calling to him, "We are happy here!"' (Chap 2)
BTW Hardy's personality has been described as 'grim', and as having a 'perverse morbidity' with a 'pathological habit of falling in love', although he was 'morally scrupulous'. He was 'painfully shy and incapable of communicating in day to day relationships'. Like Jude he 'was an overly sensitive child; he despised being touched and found the sound of music cacophonous'. Again, like Jude, Hardy attempted to learn Latin and Greek, while entertaining thoughts of studying at university (which his mother discouraged). The 'tenacious maternal stranglehold' of his mother so hampered his emotional maturity that he claimed he was 'a child till he was sixteen, a youth till he was five-and-twenty, and a young man till he was nearly fifty'. As Chris posted earlier, Hardy denied that Jude was autobiographical but reading the comments of his contemporaries it is hard to believe that there is not a lot of himself in the character. Jude's isolation in Christminster mirrored the feelings which Hardy had when he moved as a young man from Dorchester to be an apprentice architect in London. His 'high minded, High Church' approach to life when in Dorchester was more difficult to sustain in 'carefree' London amongst the young men there who were 'more concerned with celebrity gossip and upper class scandal'. (Plus ça change ....!) His 'laughable accent' and 'out of place tidiness' made him feel set apart as well as alone. He began to lead a double life, he strictly divided office from home thereby becoming more isolated. His notebooks at this time show that a sexual awakening was taking place. 'It would not have been unusual for someone of Hardy's age and class to visit prostitutes; still less for lovers to become sexual partners. It was not quite respectable - it could ruin a girl - yet it was known to go on all the time. Hardy does seem to have had girl friends when in London and it is possible that he slept with them, possible but in his case unlikely....He had been exposed to a promiscuous environment even if he had not participated in it...Hardy had imbibed an adherence to sexual purity' so 'sexuality became a focus of guilt and anxiety..' (Extracts from Thomas Hardy : the guarded life by Ralph Pite.)
Is Jude's liaison with Arabella one which Hardy would have liked to have had?
Sorry Bill. Re your post 148 I accidentally deleted the post to which you refer! Yes, Hardy is specifically making the point that such a vow was unrealistic for any marriage and he makes other adverse comments at the end of Part first (and later): 'Their lives were ruined, [Jude] thought; ruined by the fundamental error of their matrimonial union: that of having based a permanent contract on a temporary feeling...' Hardy is criticising the institution of marriage here in the context of Jude's marriage to Arabella. As Widow Edlin said (Chap 5) 'Matrimony have growed to be that serious in these days that one really do feel afeard to move in it at all. In my time we took it more careless; and I don't know that we were any the worse for it.' She is reflecting on marriage, particularly rural marriage, in earlier, perhaps Georgian, times when, for instance, handfasting was still common.
http://www.handfasting.info/histhand....
When Jude was published it was interpreted in many quarters as Hardy's contribution to the growing contemporary debate on 'the marriage question' and the hostile reception it received was partly for that reason. As in our society (cf our discussion in the Cafe) the question of divorce and of marriage v. cohabitation was a 'hot potato'. :)
Bill wrote: "MadgeUK wrote: "Is Jude's liaison with Arabella one which Hardy would have liked to have had? .."Thats funny Madge. I can only express my heartfelt sympathies for the poor man if thats the case."
:) I wasn't thinking of Arabella per se but of a premarital relationship with one of his many girl friends, or even with a prostitute. Hardy also had several relationships, not thought to be sexual, with older women.
In Chapter 11 at the end of Part the First we learn more about Jude's background when Arabella accuses him of ill-treating her: "Going to ill-use me on principle, as your father ill-used your mother, and your father's sister ill-used her husband?" she asked. "All you be a queer lot as husbands and wives!" Jude was surprised at this and went to ask his aunt what she meant and we hear a different tale to that in Chapter 1: 'Your father and mother couldn't get on together, and they parted. It was coming home from Alfredston market, when you were a baby--on the hill by the Brown House barn--that they had their last difference, and took leave of one another for the last time. Your mother soon afterwards died--she drowned herself, in short, and your father went away with you to South Wessex, and never came here any more."...Jude recalled his father's silence about North Wessex and Jude's mother, never speaking of either till his dying day.'After returning from a drunken night out Jude discovers that Arabella has left him but later he went to the place where his parents had parted and where he had once chiselled 'Thither J.F.' on a milestone pointing towards Christminster. He 'feels as he did when as boy'. His ambition is renewed when he again sees the glow of the town in the distance and he resolves to go there when his apprenticeship is finished: 'He might battle with his evil star, and follow out his original intention.' In the final sentence of Part First he says his prayers.
So is there now hope for our protaganist who, when thinking of his earlier dreams said to himself:: "Yet I am a man," he said. "I have a wife. More, I have arrived at the still riper stage of having disagreed with her, disliked her, had a scuffle with her, and parted from her." Will the Fates forgive him, does Chapter 11 augur good or ill?
(BTW the Brown House near Great Fawley is where Hardy's beloved grandmother lived - there is an illustration of it in my Background post 3.)
I was encouraged by this glimmer of self-awareness. It seems to bode well for him developing a genuine personality. That's my hope at least.
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I have to agree with Chris. I don't see Jude that way either. Having grown up isolated, I can tell you I'm neither and people in my life would tell you I'm the first one to want to help somebody or everybody some times to my own detriment. I don't think we know enough about Jude to make these statements.
I think he has been deliberately made less than 3 dimensional by the author to try to get the true sense of loneliness and isolation in the magnitude that Jude experiences. Re his tunnel vision, most kids who grow up in this type of environment don't learn to see the options around them. I actually had to learn that as an adult. Plus they never understand what is normal or the norm for society because they've not been exposed to them. It has nothing to do with them wanting it to be this way, it has everything to do with what they group up with.
Rajat wrote: "MadgeUK wrote: "..the rich complexion of a Cochin hen's'..."Madge -- you peaked my curiosity! For any one else who cares about a "Cochin hen":
http://www.google.com/images?q=Cochin...
There is also a Wikipedia entry, but it was the pictures I enjoyed. The following is from the Wiki entry (bold added):
"This chicken was originally bred in China and later exported to Britain and America in the mid 19th century. As a very distinctive breed of chicken, it apparently created a bit of a craze among poultry lovers in the English-speaking world, effectively launching poultry fancy as we know it today. Not only was this breed one of the largest seen, with cocks weighing up to 11 pounds (5 kg), but also the soft and plentiful plumage makes the bird quite conspicuous by exaggerating its already large size. Once in the United States, the breed underwent considerable development into its current state. There is also a bantam version, which is often called the 'Pekin bantam', but should not be confused with the separate true Pekin bantam."
Thanks Lily - I had intended adding some more info about the Cochin hen but I forgot. It was an egg 'of a very rare sort' that Arabella put in her bosom and the reference to her having a 'rich complexion' like a cochin hen makes me think it was a red cochin bantam egg. They were once very popular hens over here and kept as pets. http://sites.google.com/site/shayssho...
That seduction scene with the egg in Chapter 8 must be one of the most ingenious in literary history! Poor Jude didn't stand a chance against such a Delilah!
(Edited.)
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Deborah wrote: "I think it leaves him vulnerable because of the society in which he lives. He already feels unwanted plus he doesn't fit in because of his love of books and learning. Now add the empathy/sensitivity that a man isn't supposed to have with complete unworldliness. Leaves him vulnerable to cons because he'll trust when he shouldn't."Deborah -- I suspect your use of the word "empathy" is different than the one I have been trained to use -- for me, "empathy" retains an element of distance even while alert to the circumstances of the life journeys of others.
I'm also not certain I agree that men "weren't supposed to" have empathy. I suspect it has always been a trait of many of the truly great, even when they have had to take actions that might have seemed contrary.
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You are so right, Madge! The Temptress made her move, and the poor besotted fool went for it, hook, line, and sinker! ;-)
Now I've got the chorus of this song going through my head Chris!:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sI5LWw...
Bill wrote: "...with zero or very little feeling that one has ever been loved or considered as anything other then an imposition and a nuisance. Look at the way Jude turns his face away as if he is slapped when he hears himself being referred to in this way, then he is further castigated for that. He goes outside and thinks of what an ugly world this is."I know I am not addressing the first part of your comments, but this section sounds like reasonable response to abuse to me. Abuse has certainly not always led to being a sociopath, although I don't know where this story will lead.
Some of the stuff I have been looking at in parallel with reading Jude has commented on the many short scenes Hardy uses to move his story along, sometimes with considerable facility, other times quite awkwardly. So far (Chapter 8), these comments have made me aware of technique, but have not struck me as awkward. Others of you? (Chapter 5 is referred to a transitional chapter, used to accomplish the passage of time from when Jude is a child until he becomes an adolescent/adult.)("Adolescent" probably wasn't widely used in Hardy's day?)
I do think it interesting to consider that Hardy did not yet have access to the vocabularies associated with sexual development and significance to human life that were given wide proliferation with the work of Freud and his successors. Yet, as we are aware, much of the human knowledge of sexual significance and power was long embedded in myth and sacred, as well as profane, writings and other art. So, it is fun to me to consider where what Hardy is doing fits in that "Western Conversation."
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empathy |ˈempəθē| noun
the ability to understand and share the feelings of another.
From Wickipedia:
Empathy is the capacity to recognize and, to some extent, share feelings (such as sadness or happiness) that are being experienced by another semi-sentient being. Someone may need to have a certain amount of empathy before they are able to feel compassion.
Personally I don't think you share while keeping a distance. Just my opinion so I would have to agree Lily that we see the word differently.
Deborah wrote: "From the Oxford American Dictionary:empathy |ˈempəθē| noun
the ability to understand and share the feelings of another.
From Wikipedia:
Empathy is the capacity to recognize and, to some extent..."
Okay -- went and dug out my training texts:
"Carl Rogers's Definition of Empathy: Empathy is the ability 'to sense the client's private world as if it were your own, but without ever losing the "as if" quality.'
"Definition of empathy: Empathy is feeling another's problems as if they were your own without actually taking them on yourself."
I think what you cite about empathy being needed for compassion is particularly useful as well. But, as our training impressed upon us, if you lose yourself in another person's problems, you risk losing your ability to be either compassionate or supportive.
Sorry if I come across as rather passionate on the topic. Perhaps I think too strongly that empathy is a highly desirable human trait, but I also think losing self in another can too easily be harmful to all concerned. So, I like a word that seems to carry those distinctions, implying healthy boundaries. Yet, I also recognize that language is a variable thing and definitions and their examples vary, even among reputable sources.
Silver wrote: "Christopher wrote: "Poor Jude--I note that at the end of Chapter Seven, we see Jude, the 'Saint', meeting Arabella, this earthy woman who seems to be the exact opposite of Jude--dare I say, alm..."
This is it I think. Arabella is simply more worldly in every way. She is more practical, "poor people must eat pigs must be killed" and much less attached to or attracted by ideas or idealism. As are her friends who noted "she got a husband out of it."
Lily wrote: "Carl Rogers's Definition of Empathy"I think this may be one of those cases where the lay, ordinary dictionary definition of a word differs from the technical meaning used in a particular profession. This happens a lot with language, of course.
Michael wrote: "Arabella is simply more worldly in every way. She is more practical, "poor people must eat pigs must be killed" and much less attached to are attracted by ideas or idealism. As are her friends who noted "she got a husband out of it." "I agree. She isn't concerned about what the pig feels; it's food, and that's that. I'm frankly a bit surprised that a boy raised in a country village would be so squeamish. City raised boys, yes, but not country boys.
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empathy |ˈempəθē| noun
the ability to understand and share the feelings of another.
From Wikipedia:
Empathy is the capacity to recognize and,..."
Lily - No apology is needed. Your post was absolutely fine. I think it's good to have diverse views and input in these things. If nothing else, it makes both of take a moment and see it from a different perspective. I agree that people need healthy boundaries, but when you grow up like Jude, you don't even know what boundaries are let alone how to have them.
I probably am too passionate about it because I basically was Jude when I was younger. Completely isolated, didn't understand boundaries or what is healthy, didn't understand what was normal. Was teased constantly because I was different (basically very tiny and a bookworm). Was not accepted within my own family. That gives me a whole other understanding of Jude because I've been in his shoes. It was weird reading it because I saw so much of the younger me in him.
This is going to be a stupid question after all this discussion, but is/where is "empathy" used in the text relative to Jude?That is probably what I/we should be addressing here, rather than some abstract concepts of the term.
Ben -- I will look for the film 'Blue.' I don't know it at all. As I use the term, I would argue that empathy does not necessarily lead one to act entirely in the interests of the person evoking that empathy -- but it should call forth compassion and justice. (That is why I have said elsewhere that empathy is not incompatible with consequences.)
Eman -- Although I quote Carl Rogers, the training to which I refer was for lay persons relating to fellow lay persons. One of the colloquial expressions used was, if you fall in the pit yourself, it's awfully hard to find the leverage to help anyone else out.
Lily wrote: But, as our training impressed upon us, if you lose yourself in another person's problems, you risk losing your ability to be either compassionate or supportive...."I doubt that Deborah or any of us here are 'in training' in any psychological sense Lily and we are therefore much more likely to understand/use the word empathy as defined in an ordinary dictionary, as Everyman suggests. My OEED says:
Psychol: The power of identifying oneself mentally with (and so fully comprehending) a person or object of contemplation.
My search did not find the word in Jude, although 'sympathy' is used on a number of occasions, which has the same Greek root, the German one being Einfuhlung 'in feeling'.
Benjamin wrote: Something I find quite interesting in these 19th century novels is the general lack of anxiety around sex, especially for males. I wonder whether this was due to censorship...You might like to read my Background post No 5 re Victorians and sexuality wherein I quote Sally Mitchell:-
'The average twentieth-century reader is apt to miss the passages which so incensed the late Victorians because Hardy dealt with delicate matters obliquely' (So look out for them! M.)
There are several passages in Jude which indicate his worries about sexuality and masculinity, especially later in the novel, which will help to address your comment: 'I think that what this event really suggests is the immergance of the more effeminate, idealistic (and, perhaps, vain) man.'
The huge controversy surrounding the novel was largely about the way it dealt with gender, cohabitation and marriage but Hardy is also commenting on something else which you picked up, the problems caused by 'the fast expansion of cities, or maybe the emergence of the middle classes as a bridge between intellect and practicality.' Jude intellectual ambition is not, as you suggest, an 'isolated case' but was indeed 'becoming something more sought after in the rural classes throughout Western Europe', and particularly in Britain, which was at the forefront of the Industrial Revolution.
And although Jude's squeamishness about the slaughter of the pig seems odd in a country boy, it serves to highlight the fact that he was trying to break away from his rural background to become an intellectual and that he was different to those around him, more like Pillotson, who had told him to be 'kind to animals', than like Arabella. It also indicates the coming end of Part the First and a new beginning in Christminster.
MadgeUK wrote: "My OEED says:...The power of identifying oneself mentally with (and so fully comprehending) a person or object of contemplation."Sounds pretty down-to-earth to me. I hope most military brass, civilian leaders, judges, managers, ..., are capable of at least some level of this skill, even as they must make tough decisions that may impact the very life of that person and the lives of others. Furthermore, I suspect most of us must do similarly in our everyday lives and interactions with those we love and with those whose actions we despise. In some cases, empathy may influence reason and action, but it need not overrule either.
This comment may seem tangential to Jude, but I don't intend it as such. A lecturer, a specialist on the Middle East affairs, commented this week to a local audience that the uprising in Egypt was led by generally well educated, literate youths (primarily young men) without economic opportunities. When we speak of "natural", are "intelligence" and "learning" natural or unnatural for humans? In what ways and what contexts? What "belongs" to the individual and what to society and its institutions?
I don't see Jude as any more "vain" than the father who took upon himself "the right to" beat his wife. Or Arabella, in setting out to seduce Jude.
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That is probably what I/we should be addressing here, rather than some..."
I don't remember the word itself being used in the text (but haven't reviewed for it). I know I chose the word in my original post to describe his feelings about the rooks and the pig.
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I don't agree that him not wanting the pig to suffer makes him vain. I just see it as another way he is sensitive. A friend of mine recently changed her eating habits because she could not longer stomach (no pun intended) how the animals are slaughtered. And she was what you would call a foodie before that.
Being sensitive makes you see things in different ways. Ever wonder what happens to the birds or animals during a storm? Where do they go? How do they stay safe? Do they stay safe?
I also think we shouldn't get stuck on one word. Is it empathy, sympathy, charity, love? Does it matter truly which word we use in our discussion or does Hardy's intent matter? Just my opinion. Not trying to offend.
What "belongs" to the individual and what to society and its institutions?The old nature or nurture arguments Lily:). As we begin to learn more about genetics we may find out more about this question. In Hardy's time Eugenics (via Darwin's half cousin Francis Galton) was beginning to influence Victorian thinking, as was phrenology. Hardy took an interest in both these pseudo-scientific developments and I think we see some of his thinking with regard to, say, family hereditary traits in Jude.
http://www.indiana.edu/~intell/galton...
http://www.phrenology.org/intro.html
Perhaps Jude is more egocentric than sociopathic or vain. It is a common trait in young people and somewhere he says that he doesn't want to become an adult.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egocentr...
MadgeUK wrote: "Benjamin wrote: Something I find quite interesting in these 19th century novels is the general lack of anxiety around sex, especially for males. I wonder whether this was due to censorship...You ..."
I don't really think of Jude as a country boy. He lived in an extremely small village in the country, but aside from the failed venture in scaring off rooks we do not see him engaged in any aspects of farm life. Rather, it is Arabella who has lived that life and had those experiences. This could explain both the people who gossiped that they were surprised Jude would settle for a girl like her and Jude's extreme discomfort with killing the pig, not to mention the manner in which it should be done.
Danae wrote: I don't really think of Jude as a country boy. He lived in an extremely small village in the country...Yes he lived in a hamlet but was nevertheless from the country and his aunt was a countrywoman with a country dialect. I agree that he isn't portrayed as being like a country boy which is why I think his squeamishness about the slaughter of the pig is significant.
Lily: Is the scene of the pig slaughter in one of the transitory chapters you wrote about earlier?
MadgeUK wrote: "What "belongs" to the individual and what to society and its institutions?The old nature or nurture arguments Lily :)."
I didn't intend those arguments, particularly, Madge. More the economic ones that were moving England from a rural to an industrial economy at the time that Hardy wrote and more like the ones of industrial leaders (at least in the U.S.) today who are claiming an inadequately educated work force for manning, let alone creating, the jobs of the century ahead.
Jude was born into a particular community. He would probably have been okay if he had channeled his intelligence in particular ways:
...his great mass of black curly hair, was some trouble to him in combing and washing out the stone-dust that settled on it in the pursuit of his trade. His capabilities in the latter, having been acquired in the country, were of an all-round sort, including monumental stone-cutting, gothic free-stone work for the restoration of churches, and carving of a general kind. In London he would probably have become specialized and have made himself a "moulding mason," a "foliage sculptor" — perhaps a "statuary." Part II.1
My father wanted me to be a schoolteacher -- after I had trained otherwise! I sometimes ask what my life would have been like if I had followed his advice rather than moving through technology and business. (I am glad I did not, but in some ways, it might have been easier.)
I returned it without following the arguments to their conclusion, but I believe The Bell Curve raises questions about what society does when it "channels" its members in certain academic and professional and economic directions, rather than "supporting" a "natural" mix. (Today, the issues are some places the obverse of those Jude faced -- when generous scholarships are available for the disadvantaged.)
MadgeUK wrote: "Lily: Is the scene of the pig slaughter in one of the transitory chapters you wrote about earlier? "It wasn't called out as such, but between I.-xi and II.-i, we do have one of those gaps in time that were named as a characteristic of such chapters. The pig slaughter and its aftermath would seem transitory in another sense, the decisive rent in Arabella and Jude's marriage, (view spoiler).
Suggestion aside, it seems like cities are far more anonymous to me. Don't get me wrong, I love them because you can also express yourself in a rich variety of ways, but I do feel it is easier for a person to live a banal and anonymous life in a city than any sort of small community.
Lily: Oddly enough I was watching something about the history of IQ testing the other night in which The Bell Curve was criticised - if I remember the book rightly, it was very controversial about the intelligence of negroes? http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/...
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sn/tvradio/progr...
I think we have moved on a lot since the Bell Curve was published in 1994 when it comes to assessing intelligence and, in particular, quite a lot of work has been done about mixed race people such as those in Latin America where scientists are beginning to find significantly high IQs amongst mixed race people there coupled with better than average physical health (Mens sana in corpore sano). I don't know whether you can pick some of the series up over there:-
http://raceandscience.channel4.com/
I think this paragraph fro Chapter 4 shows that Hardy means us to look at Jude as an intelligent boy who, as he carries loaves of bread in a cart uses its interior as a 'scene of ... education by "private study." As soon as the horse had learnt the road and the houses at which he was to pause awhile, the boy, seated in front, would slip the reins over his arm, ingeniously fix open, by means of a strap attached to the tilt, the volume he was reading, spread the dictionary on his knees, and plunge into the simpler passages from Caesar, Virgil, or Horace, as the case might be, in his purblind stumbling way, and with an expenditure of labour that would have made a tender-hearted pedagogue shed tears; yet somehow getting at the meaning of what he read...As Jude had to get up at three o'clock in the morning to heat the oven, and mix and set in the bread that he distributed later in the day, he was obliged to go to bed at night immediately after laying the sponge; so that if he could not read his classics on the highways he could hardly study at all.'
In chapter 6 we learn that He had joined an 'Artizans Mutual Improvement Society established in the town about the time of his arrival there; its members being young men of all creeds and denominations' which had 'led to his being placed on the committee' - from which he was later dismissed by the Church committee because of his (immoral) 'CONDUCT'.
I think Hardy is showing us what difficulties working people had in trying to get an education and also how the moralistic attitudes of society could work against them.
We do not know if Jude's aunt paid for him to go to school but his relationship with Pillotson seems to indicate that he may have had some schooling. This school website gives some information about Victorian education:-
http://www.woodlands-junior.kent.sch....
MadgeUK wrote: "Lily: Oddly enough I was watching something about the history of IQ testing the other night in which The Bell Curve was criticised - if I remember the book rightly, it was very controversial about..."My reason for looking at it, and for eventually returning, is its look at what happens when intelligence is used to pull large numbers of the population into select jobs, leaving other parts of the economy bereft of those skills. The book was definitely controversial (in the parts I skimmed, race was not the primary issue), but it was seeing it recently in a university bookstore that prompted me to have a look see.
...before I forget, may I just mention that I'm probably off meat for a while now.Much as I like my meat, and have tried not to be a humbug by trying to face the fact that we kill creatures for that meat that I enjoy, there's no denying that we make the animals that we consume suffer a great deal- not just in how they are killed, but also in how they live, these days.
I realise that bleeding an animal to death for 10 minutes was probably not such a big thing for a country person in general who was brought up with that kind of thing, but since poor Jude was a sensitive sort who even used to imagine that trees felt pain when being cut down...(which apparently, according to research, they to some extent do)
Anyway, I suppose I am more squeamish than most, but I hate seeing creatures suffer, and in being so, I think I feel a certain kinship with Jude.
Pigs nowadays are generally stunned before they are slaughtered and bled. The external jugular vein is pierced ('stuck'), which usually results in a quick death and a large pig used to be laid head down in a trough or tub with a hole in it, through which the blood flowed out to be caught in a bucket. A smaller pig could be held or hoisted up, head downwards whilst it was bled. The body 'twitches' for some time after death. The carcase was then de-haired, skinned and brined (I won't go into details!) The blood of a pig is used to make a delicacy known as black pudding which used to be a very popular dish and is still eaten in he UK. It was also used as a garden fertiliser. http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/black_pudding
I was surprised to read that Arabella thought the pig had to bleed slowly for the blood to be good because my understanding is that it has to be done quickly so that the blood does not have time to coagulate. My grandmother kept two pigs during the war and once got them very drunk by feeding them with the yeast 'must' of a rhubarb wine she had been making - that was a comical sight, unlike the 'sticking'!
I wonder if the scene of the pig killing in Jude was to illustrate not only that Jude was 'sensitive' but that country people were getting out of touch with the proper, humane way to deal with animals, out of touch with 'nature'?
I think there is a balance, it has to bleed quickly enough to be avoid coagulation but also bleed slowly enough for all of the blood to be drained before it is blocked by clotting. My grandfather grew up on a pig farm and used to talk about how his dad was really good at slaughtering hogs, so there must be something complicated.
MadgeUK wrote: "I wonder if the scene of the pig killing in Jude was to illustrate not only that Jude was 'sensitive' but that country people were getting out of touch with the proper, humane way to deal with animals, out of touch with 'nature'? .."I do not know enough to know if in fact Arabella's dealing with the pig would have been considered incorrect, or inhumane at that period of time, but while Jude may be over sensitive to the suffering and plight of animals, I do not see himself as really being so much a "child of nature." I do not think Jude himself is in fact really that close, or in touch with the natural world around. But rather his own ambitions and aspirations would be to take him farther away from the natural world. As well it is his own goal to leave the country life in which he lives in to seek out Christminsiter which I am not sure if it is considered a city, is a more "civilized" or more populated location than that of Merrygreen.
So I do not know if we can really say that Jude represents the people of the country loosing touch with nature, because he himself wishes to rise above it in his quest for higher intellect.
Silver wrote: "while Jude may be ostensive to the suffering and plight of animals, I do not see himself as really being so much a "child of nature.""I agree, Silver. He seems to be more of a child of books; given a choice for an afternoon between reading a book or getting out into nature for a walk or gardening or some such, it seems to me he would choose the book.
The Readers Review: Literature from 1714 to 1910
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The Bell Curve: Intelligence and Class Structure in American Life (other topics)Lark Rise to Candleford (other topics)
Cranford (other topics)
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I have to keep this brief, as the alarm clock will go off far too early in the morning.
I think we have a different definition of morality. To me a sense of social expectation, even a deeply ingrained one, does not necessarily indicate morality. True, he didn't have to marry her, but he also has the type of character who is very likely to go along with that sort of thing, specifically because, at that point, he was very caught up in his image of the situation, less so in reality.
Second, his statement that he was leaving and wished they had never had sex was before she claimed to be pregnant.
@Everyman I should know better than to try to speak with brevity rather than clarity with lawyers around. :)