![]() ![]() Have an opinion on anything you’ve read in the Guardian today? Please email us your letter and it will be considered for publication in our letters section. For a Hardy novel, that is an unusually happy ending, and it is one without judgment on her as a woman or as a lowly-born illegitimate child – unusual for Victorian Britain. She retains a sense of wonder that, for one whose broken childhood had taught her “happiness was but the occasional episode in a general drama of pain”, her adult life has become one of “unbroken tranquillity”. First published in 1895, it tells the story of a man working as a stonemason who desperately wants to study at university, but he can’t afford the fees because he’s stuck in a loveless marriage. Elizabeth-Jane, now happily married and comfortable, is “forced to class herself among the fortunate”. Jude the Obscure is a classic novel by Thomas Hardy. Henchard’s journey from disreputable drunk to “man of character” is inextricably linked to his growing appreciation/love of Elizabeth-Jane.īy the end, Henchard is dead. Throughout the novel, we are reminded of her thoughtfulness and intelligence. We see Casterbridge through Elizabeth-Jane’s eyes. Through her and the other women in the novel, Hardy critiques the male worldview. ![]() He is inspired in this dream by his old teacher, Richard Phillotson, who left with similar ambitions when Jude was a child. Jude Fawley is a poor orphan raised by his great-aunt, but he dreams of studying at the university in Christminster, a nearby town. In The Mayor of Casterbridge, he created a strong woman in Henchard’s illegitimate stepdaughter, Elizabeth-Jane, who I believe is the real protagonist. Jude the Obscure takes place in Wessex, England in the Victorian era. ![]()
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