The Readers Review: Literature from 1714 to 1910 discussion
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Jude the Obscure
Thomas Hardy Collection
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Jude the Obscure: Week 2 - Part Second
In some ways I think it is just a beginning. There are both good and bad aspects. While beginnings are important, what follows is probably moreso. In this case, what follows seems to be very up and down, or perhaps split is a better way to put it.I would write more, but it's hard typing large amounts on a phone. Hopefully I can chime in with small comments throughout the day though. :)
Mod
I am planning to spend some time later this morning reading your last postings in the "Part First" folder and then coming back here and leave my observations on the initial portion of "Part Second".
Again, thank you, Madge, for creating the folder! ;-) Cheers! Chris
Both the beginning of Part First and of Part Second give quite a lot of architectural detail and here we learn that Jude is now a qualified stonemason, 'a handy man at his trade, an all-round man, as artizans in country-towns are apt to be', who specialised in 'Gothic moulding'. At the beginning of both Parts I & II there are references to the 'gothic' and Jude is later referred to as a 'gothic mason'. Are we being told something about Jude's character here? Is he solid and dependable like stone, impenetrable - obscure? We also learn that he is 'earnest' and of 'dark complexion, with dark harmonizing eyes, and he wore a closely trimmed black beard of more advanced growth than is usual at his age; this, with [a] great mass of black curly hair'. This description seems to me to be rather like that of a gothic hero (or villain?) from Radcliffe or Walpole - a Heathcliffe even. Is Hardy capitalising on the fondness for gothic literature amongst Victorian ladies or does he have something else in mind? BTW 'Gothic architecture' does not imply the architecture of the historical Goths. It has a much wider application. The term originated as a pejorative description and came to be used to describe culture that was considered rude and barbaric. Is Jude being described as rude and barbaric?
I have mentioned 'gothic revival' architecture with regard to churches in my Background material and this fashion swept away many old Anglo-Saxon and Norman churches. It was another instance of the old giving way to the new, the modern which Jude aspired to but which he did not observe amongst the university buildings where he thought it 'impossible that modern thought could house itself in such decrepit and superseded chambers'.
I wonder what Hardy is saying to us in these descriptions and what bearing they have upon the rest of the novel, and upon his burgeoning relationship with Sue?
I think there is a lot to the differences between the type of architecture and stonemasonry being done in Christminster as opposed to places employing changed techniques. I believe Jude at one point is bothered that repair or recreation of the same is all he sees done, presumably not realizing that the aesthetic in which he was trained is largely dead save for repair or reproduction. It seems like he spends a lot of time towards the end of this part realizing that things are not what he believed.Sorry for the semi-coherence and brevity.
Trivia: When Jude finds himself drawn to Sue he reflects that cousins should not marry and this highlights a contemporary concern: During Victoria's reign scientists had suggested that it was the frequent marriages of cousins within the royal families of Europe - most of whom were related to Victoria - which had caused certain illnesses. The haemophilia which affected Queen Victoria's son Leopold and, of course, Tsar Nicholas' son Alexander. These findings were well publicised in the newspapers of the time.PS: Hardy also had a relationship with his own cousin, Tryphena Sparks, about which there is a lot of speculation:-
http://mysite.verizon.net/hardycountr...
I think he is so completely internalized he does not always see things clearly. He has a habit to read his ideals and preconceptions onto the things and people who surround him. As Bill said, he read all sorts of stuff onto Sue and didn't seem overly worried by the possibility he was wrong. Finding Phillotson in reduced circumstances was a large enough event that he had to take stock, but even then it took a rejection letter for that to truly be done. Basically, jude is in the city he's longed to escape to, but it seems nothing there was what he imagined and that brings him to the crossroads at the end of the section.
Denae wrote:- ...presumably not realizing that the aesthetic in which he was trained is largely dead save for repair or reproduction.Very coherent Denae and well observed. I suppose we might describe Jude as 'old fashioned', despite his longing for a modern education.
'He did not at that time see that mediævalism was as dead as a fern-leaf in a lump of coal; that other developments were shaping in the world around him, in which Gothic architecture and its associations had no place. The deadly animosity of contemporary logic and vision towards so much of what he held in reverence was not yet revealed to him.'
Medievalism was mentioned earlier in II:1 along with 'pinnacles and indented battlements' and this is another possible reference to gothic literature, which was steeped in the romanticism of gothic castles. It occurs to me that Hardy might be obliquely criticising fashionable gothic literature and suggesting that his writing, for which he had been much criticised, especially with regard to sex and sexuality, was now the 'modern'?
Bill wrote:I get the feeling his relationship with Sue really never burgeoned and is over by the end of part 2. Maybe it gets revived somehow in part 3. ..."
There are six parts to the novel Bill! :) Remember the Dick Whittington analogy in II:1.
I am not so interested at this stage in his relationship with Sue but with the scene Hardy is setting at the beginning of this section and with the insights he is giving into Jude's character and why he might behave as he does. As Denae has said, he projects his ideals onto people and surroundings and seems to want to craft them into a 'mould' in his own mind. Is this part of him being a stonemason who crafts pieces of stone into beautiful objects?
I make it because Hardy's first 'craft' was architecture and he worked on the restoration of gothic churches himself. So I don't think his references to such things are likely to be 'off the cuff' but that they probably have deeper significance, within the oblique way he has of expressing himself.
Bill wrote: "In fact, he imagines a lot about all sorts of things..."I thought the same. Just as he was attracted by his idea of Arabella, not the real one, so he is struck at how different Christminster looks by night and by daylight. He hasn't finished to really know the city and off he goes after his idea of Sue.
In contrast to the beginning of the first part, in this second there aren't dialogues till we get to Sue's perspective. In the first part we heard many voices, Philloston's, the aunt's, farmer Troutham's etc. Here there are no voices, we're only told that Jude imagines to talk to the famous authors of his books. If the section of Marygreen starts in real life, this one seems to me to start in a dreamy haze.
If the section of Marygreen starts in real life, this one seems to me to start in a dreamy haze. Great observation testina!
To further the analogy - Arabella was 'earthy' and belonged to the old Anglo Saxon towers of Marygreen but Sue is more ethereal and belongs to the 'dreaming spires' of Christminster. There is perhaps a line being drawn here between not only two women but two ways of life and two areas of England, possibly two ways of looking at religion in '...a city in whose history such men as
Newman, Pusey, Ward, Keble, loom so large!' (Chap.II:4.) (See Background information on the Oxford Movement/Tractarians.)
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If the line is being drawn in that way it strengthens my suspicion that, just as Jude does not realize the architecture of the city is not what he perceives it to be, Sue is not who he perceives her to be. It seems very likely that Sue belongs to a different world than he believes.In short, Jude does not seem to realize that reality does not always match what is in his head.
Yes indeed, there are 'dreaming spires' within his head too! When will he wake up?
MadgeUK wrote: "Trivia: When Jude finds himself drawn to Sue he reflects that cousins should not marry and this highlights a contemporary concern: During Victoria's reign scientists had suggested that it was the ..."Thank you for this information. In another book discussion I was bringing up this issue becasue I am currently reading The Portrait of a Lady, and they make the same sort of statement about how cousins should not marry, so I was wondering if in fact the view upon cousin marriage was changing.
MadgeUK wrote: To further the analogy - Arabella was 'earthy' and belonged to the old..."In the previous discussion there was a passing remark made about Arabella being "Pagan-like" but it was agreed that she is in fact more more "earthy" and "practical" but I think the term Pagan can in fact be adeptly used for describing Sue. She does have that more ethereal, "spiritual" quality about her she does not seem as grounded in the real world in the way in which Arabella is. Like Jude, she is someone more of ideas. But at the same time, as evidenced in her buying of the Pagan idols, there does seem to be something within her that is in rebellion against the Christian religion.
Pagan is much more applicable to Sue Silver and I rather think Hardy is using her to express his dissatisfaction with religion. Like many post-Darwin intellectuals he had a 'crisis of faith' and he seems to use this novel as a form of catharsis (another reason for the uproar it caused). I think Chris has some views on this - come in Chris!
Mod
I didn't even notice the lack of voices in Part II until it was pointed out. Maybe because I've moved great distances all alone several times. You don't know how to get to the grocery, post office, bank, or even work. You are truly even more isolated because you've lost your connections of family (his aunt) and friends (although he doesn't seem to have any everybody in his town knows him). Think of going somewhere and seeing complete strangers in a completely different setting, and in some cases a different culture.
He has learned his craft and is doing repairs to a mode of architecture that is going out of style. Here he has come to better himself and he's already behind the times and becoming obsolete. His reality cannot possibly match his dreams.
I see him as still clinging hopefully to those dreams as he indicates he cannot possible meet the teacher yet because he hasn't accomplished enough. Yet the teacher himself has not accomplished what he set out to do either. For me, this represents the difficulty of the time in working towards a goal that might be different from that which you were born. The teacher has simply done the same thing as before in a different location.
With regard to Sue, he is smitten by the photograph and watches from afar. In some ways, he's watching from afar in the rest of his life too. He tries to do what he thinks is morally correct, by staying away while Sue intervenes with that plan.
The hardest thing for me in this section was the denial letter. Here jude has done what he can for himself by learning from books. His self-education appears to be of high quality, yet working hard against all obstacles is not enough because he must stay in his place (social strata). It must be the Puritan ethic of New England (where I grew up) in me that feels so strongly his hard work should be rewarded. Yet he is summarily denied without so much as an interview and in many cases not even a letter back. Yes we're back to letters here....
I know he's a dreamer but I don't feel he needs to wake up. I feel a lot of this comes from his experience of a small town to a big town and setting ones expectations high. High expectations don't mean to me necessarily unattainable. To me if you don't set them high, you never get to grow and improve.
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Deborah wrote: "In Part I Jude dreams of the city and what it might look like. In his mind he views it as this perfect place of learning. Yet as he looks at all the architecture he seems crumbling stone. I think..."I don't know that Jude being a dreamer is at all a problem. The problem, for me, comes into play with the great divide between what is possible and the things on which he bases his decisions. Ignoring reality is dangerous; merely being a dreamer is not.
Deborah wrote: "With Sue, I think him working to help her is done of out of true caring, and because of his limited experience, it never occurred to him that it might work out differently than he thought."There was also some self-motivation there. It kept her close to him.
I have to say I do find it a bit curious that after his fiasco with Arabella, Jude is willing/wanting, to entangle himself with yet another woman of whom he knows nothing about, while he does hold himself back initially or try to, because of his marriage, you would think that he would be at least a little bit apprehensive about the idea of any sort of possible romantic involvement with another woman after having been so disillusioned by Arabella. This does recall to my mind what someone said in the previous discussion about how Jude did not seem to really learn any lesson from his experince with Arabella, and what a one track mind he has.
Sue in a way seems to have been swept up in his dreams/ambitions for Christminsiter. In the same way in which he saw the city from a distance and dreamed of, so he just happens to see a portrait of Sue, and she is connected to Christminster and thus be builds up this whole little fantasy of his own around her.
Great post 21 Deborah - so many interesting ideas to take up besides the inevitable 'boy meets girl' (again):) I suspect that a lot of us here have experienced the isolation felt in moving from a small town to a big town, from being a provincial to becoming a city dweller, and , of course, the job hunting and rejection:(.
What do you think of the realization of Philotson's own failure. Considering how much of Jude's aspirations, and hopes were placed into his image of Philostson and how much he was influenced by Philoston and his own adventure into Christminster to seek advancement for himself. Jude had followed in Philotson's footsteps on his journey to Christminister, certain to find that his former tutor had met with great success, so now is Jude equally destined to follow Philotson's footsteps into dejection?In this is Hardy conveying the way in which the system was set up to make any attempts for one to try and advance themselves destined to failure, and that the higher education was coveted by the elite allowing no room for others to rise themselves up.
Mod
Him being a dreamer is not a problem for me either. I don't think he's ignoring reality. I just think he's motivate to change his world.
Mod
I think for Jude this was more than from small town to big city. I went for Connecticut to Georgia. Completely different norms. Got a lecture from a friend about a thank you note, because I hadn't placed it in the envelope in the way it was expected. Then moved from Georgia to California. I won't talk about that one. Anyway, to us now it seems like no big deal. I think to Jude it felt like Connecticut to Georgia or California.
Mod
I don't know that I could say one was more important. I think there is equal stressing on both. I think he's showing the challenges in his time that needed to be fixed, and also showing us that through strength of character, that change is possible.
Silver wrote: "In this is Hardy conveying the way in which the system was set up to make any attempts for one to try and advance themselves destined to failure, and that the higher education was coveted by the elite allowing no room for others to rise themselves up. "I'm blowing hot and cold on the "coveted" term. In one sense I see what you mean. But in another sense, I think it's more the basic class concept, that the lower classes can't possibly handle the sophistication and demands of higher education. Just as a ten year old (normal, not genius) asking to go to Harvard would be told that he was just being absurd and to go home, or as I was growing up a woman who thought she should be President of a major US corporation would be looked at as though she just didn't understand life, so the college was so astonished by this mere stonemason thinking he should get inside the walls as a student rather than a repairman was as astonishing as, well, as a dog wanting to run for Congress. (Leaving aside that the dog could hardly do a worse job than many Congresspersons.)
"Coveted" implies some positive protectiveness; I'm not sure it was that so much as just astonishment that the idea would ever have even entered Jude's head.
Everyman wrote: "Coveted" implies some positive protectiveness; I'm not sure it was that so much as just astonishment that the idea would ever have even entered Jude's head..."I understand what you mean, and perhaps that was not the best choice of word to use here. But in some sense the upper classes do not want the lower classes to in face have any even ground with them they don't really want people to have an opportunity to rise up the ranks, becasue so much of class was determined through bloodlines. So on one hand they do view it as being ludacris that a lower class person would seek to enter into the school on the other hand they don't want to even give that person to opportunity to make the attempt to do it, and let them stand or fall upon thier own merit, but by keeping them suppressed in ignorance they can better keep thier own status.
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Silver wrote: In this is Hardy conveying the way in which the system was set up to make any attempts for one to try and advance themselves destined to failure, and that the higher education was coveted by the elite allowing no room for others to rise themselves up.Yes I do think this is the case Silver and Hardy himself was unable to get to university because of the system.
Bill wrote: I have a question for the group. Assuming this novel is both a character study and social commentary, which of these do you think Hardy is most interested in?
I think he was interested in both as Deborah says in post 31 but Jude came immediately after his tussle with his publisher and reading public over Tess and he seemed intent in 'getting his oar in' again via Jude. He gave up novel writing after its bad reception and stuck to poetry.
I would look at it more as Jude coveting that education and status, based on how I have always understood the word.I would say there could have been an amount of jealous guarding on the part of the schools.
I'm intrigued by Jude's desire for education and how that desire is thwarted because of the social, economic, and cultural boundaries riveted in place. That's a perennial question, isn't it, about who merits a place at a university? I've also been wondering why Jude wanted that education. So far, Jude shows that, at times, he chooses to believe in an ideal, rather than what's real. I've been wondering if he's done the same with his longing for an education.
These comments from Victorian Web may be useful when looking at the class problem:-http://www.victorianweb.org/history/C...
John Newman (later Cardinal), a founder member of the Oxford Movement, with which Hardy sympathised, promoted the idea of a liberal university education at this time and he championed the idea of opening up the universities to all who wished to learn. In particular he was against the idea that a university education should be practical or useful, he valued learning for learning's sake. Hardy is, I think exploring his ideas in Jude. Here is Newman's famous treatise on university education if anyone would care to read it:-
http://www.bartleby.com/28/2.html
Mod
I agree and that, of course, would have been true for many working class people of his day and for a long time afterwards, especially women, who were unable to graduate from Oxford until 1920.
Mod
I took that sentence to mean he was moderating his statements based on his audience. I am sure there was also some wounded pride he wanted to hide. Am I alone in this thought?
Mod
I'm interested in what ya'll think the significance of Sue's attraction to the statues of Apollo and Venus might be and what is the significance of her lie to Jude when describing their destruction. I found both of those things quite revelatory of her character. Perhaps Jude is not the only one reading onto the other.
Mod
Okay, now I really need to log off and put my class together for tomorrow (no, not teacher, just fitness instructor).
I think the statues of Apollo and Venus may be a reference to Sue's pagan nature which Silver referenced earlier. And of course they may be a foreshadowing of love since they are the Greek god and goddesa of love...
Mod
Is Apollo the god of love? I don't believe he was to the Greeks and the Romans sort of took him wholesale rather than doing what they did in worshipping Venus who was essentially Aphrodite but renamed. The notes in the copy I am reading referenced Apollo as being god of light, justice, etc.
Denae wrote: "Is Apollo the god of love??"The Greek gods (and goddesses) had multiple roles, which sometimes changed over time.
The Oxford Classical Dictionary, which is my go-to reference for all things Greek and Roman, says that Apollo's most prominent functions included healing and purification, prophecy, care for the young, for poetry, and for music. Love was not among his primary responsibilities. (Those who know the Iliad know that he was the god whose priest Agamemnon offended, and that when the priest's daughter was not returned Apollo sent a plague on the Greeks, using his power as the god of healing and medicine.)
But I think more to the point here is that he was always represented as the most physically splendid of the gods, always presented as young, athletic, beautiful. His nude statutes were of young manliness personified. I'm sure Madge can come up with a number of images of the classical statutes of him.
So for Hardy's purposes, I don't think Apollo is included because of any connection with love per se, but because he was the personification of young manly beauty.
Denae wrote: "I'm interested in what ya'll think the significance of Sue's attraction to the statues of Apollo and Venus might be and what is the significance of her lie to Jude when describing their destruction..."It is interesting that among other things Apollo is the god of intellectual inquiry, while Venus is the goddess associated with love. I think both these things can be associated with Sue's character and her basic nature. Much like Jude, she too is a person who is interesting in learning, she develops her own intellectual ideas, but she is also of a very sensitive nature as well.
The duality of the two figures, the appearance of both the feminine and the masculine I think is also something interesting in her attraction to these two deities. It is also interesting that while Apollo in many ways represents "civilization" Venus prior to being more commonly known as the goddess of love, was formerly the goddess of vegetation, and gardens, which alludes to a more "wild" nature of the goddess.
Perhaps Sue herself is suspended between these two duel aspects.
Mod
Silver - Nicely expressed!
Great post 55 Silver - you have hit some nails on the head there! (Sorry I mixed up Apollo with Eros!)
Bill wrote: "Anyone else get a feeling Jude could end up battling alcoholism? He's turned to alcohol both times he's been disillusioned with women. And at the end of part 2, we get this:The curate, who was ..."
I do not remember being given the impression that Jude drinks regularly. He got drunk once during the trouble with Arabella, and a few times towards the end of Part 2, but I feel like in thise cases he went more to be around what he considered to be the society in which he is not trapped. Basically, I have not as yet seen anything which indicates impending alcoholism, just someone going on drunken jags at times of stress or weakness. Still not health, but not alcoholism either.
Of course, the unfolding of the later parts of the book could prove me wrong.
Mod
The cur..."
I got the same impression you did. I don't see it as a problem for Jude yet as it seems to be truly a rarity. It's not like he's in the pub every evening.
The Readers Review: Literature from 1714 to 1910
Books mentioned in this topic
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Two quotes head Chapter 1, both of which may be pertinent to our discussion:
'Save his own soul he hath no star.' Swinburne.
'Nearness produced gradual acquaintance; Time produced love.' Ovid.
The second paragraph of Chapter 1 sums up the point we are at in Jude's life:
'He had at last found himself clear of Marygreen and Alfredston: he was out of his apprenticeship, and with his tools at his back seemed to be in the way of making a new start--the start to which, barring the interruption involved in his intimacy and married experience with Arabella, he had been looking forward for about ten years.'
Jude is now a stonemason 'of an all round sort' working on 'gothic-free stone work for the restoration of churches', work with which Hardy was familiar (See Background information.) When he reached Christminster (Oxford) he is described as 'a species of Dick Whittington whose spirit was touched to finer issues than a mere material gain. He went along the outlying streets with the cautious tread of an explorer. He saw nothing of the real city in the suburbs on this side.' Dick Whittington was a Gloucestershire man who, when leaving the City of London, disappointed, to return home, is supposed to have heard bells ringing 'Turn again Whittington, three times Lord Mayor of London'. Does this indicate that Jude will be successful in Christminster?
He took lodgings in the suburb of Beersheba, the biblical name of which means 'well of the oath', called so 'from the oath of peace between Abraham and Abimelech, king of the Philistines (Genesis 21:31), else from the seven (sheba' ) ewe lambs slain there: indeed sheba', an oath, is from the custom of binding one's self by seven things, as Abraham made the seven ewe lambs a pledge of his covenant with Abimelech.' No doubt there is some foreshadowing here.
Jude then explored the Christminster colleges. He went down 'obscure alleys and saw 'porticoes, oriels, doorways of enriched and florid middle-age design, their extinct air being accentuated by the rottenness of the stones'. He thought it 'impossible that modern thought could house itself in such decrepit and superseded chambers' and finally 'began to be impressed with the isolation of his own personality, as with a self-spectre, the sensation being that of one who walked but could not make himself seen or heard.'
At home, in a dream, he seems to have visions reminiscent of Dante's Divine Comedy and sees spectres of past poets and politicians, pagans and Christians, all of whom give him conflicting - obscure? - advice.
I wonder, is all this a good beginning to his new life or a bad one?