Jude the Obscure

About the book

Jude Fawley imagines the university city of Christminster as the destination of an intellectual life he tries to prepare for through private study. Earning his living as a stonemason keeps that ambition in contact with material limits. His relationships with Arabella and Sue Bridehead bring another set of hopes into conflict with marriage conventions, religious beliefs, and public judgment. Hardy makes the buildings Jude admires and repairs a pointed image of proximity without admission. The novel follows the pressure exerted by arrangements that appear secure in principle but become painful in particular lives. Jude's persistence is not presented as a simple route to deserved success. The story asks how aspiration and affection fare when poverty narrows the room available for error, reconsideration, or unconventional choices.

• Education and class
• Marriage
• Social exclusion

Why read it

For a searching novel about the distance between institutions' ideals and the possibilities they allow individual lives.

English text