Jude the obscure is a novel of pessimistic which is essentially one of the defeated hopes and unrealized aspirations of the hero who belongs to the labouring masses.
"Strange that his first aspiration toward academical proficiency had been checked by a woman, and that his second aspiration towards apostleship had also been checked by a woman. " Is it" he said, "that the women are to blame; or is it the artificial system of things, under which the normal sex-impulses are turned into devilish domestic gins and springs to noose and hold back those who want to progress?".
That is what Jude thought when the first kiss with Sue inconsisted for him to pursue the idea of becoming the soldier and servant of a religion. Maybe his failure could be somewhat traced to women, as Arabella and Sue appeared to be the " flesh and spirit" of Jude, but I don't think it is women who should carry all the blames. I search the reasons through three branches:.
I. Social reasons: .
The story was set with the Victorian bourgeois society as its background. Jude is a youth of hopes and dreams. He dreams of studying at the university in Christminster, but his background as an orphan raised by his working-class aunt leads him instead into a career as a stone carver. A person of such a poor family as he is has no hope of success in the bourgeois world. Although the story deals much with the marital and love affairs, the real theme is the social tragedy of a person from the labouring class placed against the moral and religious prejudices as well as the legal and educational systems of a class society. As Sue said, " you are of the very man Christminister was intended for when the colleges were founded; a man with a passion for learning but no money, or opportunities, or friends. But you are elbowed off the pavement by the millionaires' sons." So it is obvious that there is no way for a poor man to climb up the social ladder, even if there is no Arabella the secular or Sue the pagan to be as the direct excuse.
