Jude the Obscure, frustrated linguist

Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy (1895)

We'd like to think that the pursuit of happiness is available to all in the United States, even to bakery clerks who want to become college professors. If someone from an economically disadvantaged background works hard, is intelligent and so inclined, that person should be able to go to college and pursue graduate studies. In practice, people often end up doing what their parents and friends do, if for no other reason than that is the path of least resistance. If they do choose to resist though, there are scholarships, loans and work-study programs to help them along the way. In love and marriage people also often take the path of least resistance. This is a story of those who resisted social barriers in both education and love.

There were not a lot educational opportunities for the poor in 19th century England, and there still aren't in many places. Jude Fawley is a young intellectual from a disadvantaged socioeconomic background, who dreams of studying Greek and Latin and joining the hallowed halls of theologie and academe. Cheeky orphan that he is, Jude goes to great lengths to acquire grammars, Virgil, Homer, the Greek New Testament, lectures of the Church fathers and commentaries, and spends all his free time studying and memorizing. There is a poignant scene in a working man's bar where he quotes passionately in Latin and is ridiculed and generally regarded as a freakish, pathetic upstart.

Even most modern attempts at education equity usually only try to get people to a high school level at most. In the developing world a middle school education is considered more than sufficient since working class children are expected to help their parents with work as soon as possible. In the United States, education equity mostly focuses on getting sufficient education for those who are challenged physically, intellectually or emotionally.

Gifted education testing in public schools here requires parent advocacy or teacher recommendation. It costs districts money to test and grade the tests. There is no posse of lawyers threatening to sue districts over not meeting the needs of the gifted child, as there are for those with children diagnosed with autism, ADHD and other conditions requiring a modified learning environment. This is understandable, as well-to-do parents of reasonably intelligent children can pay to avail them of all sorts of opportunities, while poorer and uneducated parents don't even think to have their kids tested. In Jude's environment a similar situation prevailed: the well-to-do could afford the preparation and fees for university, the lower classes couldn't, and so didn't encourage such aspirations. Jude is saddened by his realization that there are people at the university who are ensconced there neither by virtue of hard work nor passion, but rather by privilege expected and conferred. Such examples still exist today, even in the hallowed halls of such institutions as Harvard and Yale.

This begs the question of the meritocracy in general, and whether we are moving towards it as a culture. Growing up in a working class neighborhood in New York City I encountered hardworking (and lazy) people of all levels of intelligence. Living now in an affluent California suburb, I encounter similar distributions. There is no question that people born into affluence have more choices and that they often take for granted what they do have, regardless of their work ethic, intelligence, talent, or educational expectation.

Now Jude isn't just a low-class, frustrated nerd - he's also a super nice guy who doesn't like slaughtering pigs or hurting women. This gets him into real trouble as a local yokel gal manages to wrastle him into a loveless marriage of convenience. It gets him into more trouble when his even nerdier cousin seduces him with her "will to be loved".

Why is Jude so obscure? Is he obscure in the sense that no one can understand why someone of his class would have such lofty academic pretensions? Or is it his radical ideas on marriage, which he mostly inherited from his ironically named cousin Sue Bridehead? This novel outraged many when it was written due to what seemed its vociferous advocacy for no-fault divorce and the destigmatization of unwed motherhood. In the post-sexual-revolution era we take these freedoms for granted, even as we see the downside in a proliferation of broken families. There are good reasons to advocate for a normalization of divorce and parenthood options. Back in mid 19th century England, divorce and unwed motherhood were a black mark on a woman. Even today, women can be legitimately killed for pregnancy outside of marriage (see honor killings). Nature needs stability as well as dynamism, and the satisfied forces for the status quo can always be expected to pipe up and protect their interests. Hence, Jude the Obscure being banned and burned in its day.

"Their lives were ruined,he thought; ruined by the fundamental error of their matrimonial union: that of having based a permanent contract on a temporary feeling."

It's not clear to me that Thomas Hardy was so against marriage though. While his first marriage was a long and stormy one, his second marriage seemed very happy and peaceful. Jude and Sue knew there was a pattern of unhappy marriages in their family and Jude's marriage to Arabella was certainly suboptimal. It is not marriage itself that Hardy decries in the novel, it is the inflexibility of the institution of marriage, and of society's attitude towards those unfortunate enough not to have a good outcome in it.

Admittedly, there were a number of situations in Jude the Obscure which annoyed or disturbed me. The character of Sue Bridehead is especially maddening, an archetype of the neurotic, overly-intellectual woman. Her erudition and free-thinking nature are admirable, but sadly ruined by her frigidity, stubborness, and yes, downright perversity when it comes to dealing with authority figures. She is oppositional, passive-aggressive, hysterical, lachrymose in the extreme and a relentless flirt who doesn't put out. Not a great combo, but her intellect, youth and good looks keep men in her clutches. Arabella, the first wife, is earthy, conniving and ribald, but simpler and somehow less maddening than Sue, although certainly less suited to be Jude's wife.

Jude himself is a gem of a character: earnest, sentient, struggling, sweetly ethereal in his academic pursuits and general morals, sullenly earthy in his undeniable masculine desires. I'm guessing that Hardy chose the fate he did for Jude out of a desire to show the result of society's lack of support for such people. It's confounding though because Jude and Sue certainly made plenty of stupid mistakes themselves - it's very hard to see them purely as victims. Then again, this is what makes the whole story believable. There is no real good guy or bad guy - everyone is perfectly human and responsible for the choices they make in the framework society gives them.

Finally, the language is often very beautiful. Hardy was a poet as well as a novelist, and every once in a while it shines through. Some of the language is in dialect but it's not too hard to figure out.

This was not my favorite Hardy novel, but it was worth reading for the issues it raises, even if I don't agree with everything Hardy's characters say (total truth at all times is certainly not the best recipe for on-going affection). The characters are real and fascinating, the atmophere thick and well-drawn, and there is lots and lots to think and argue about. Regardless of Jude's foibles, we can all agree that he should have been afforded a shot at becoming a university don, or at least a school teacher. Could he have had a shot at true marital happiness? That is less clear.

Rose "Jude the Obscure"