Sue's marriage to Phillotson is another example of a disastrous marriage of rashness and thoughtlessness. But he has married the wrong woman, and the marriage is bound to be a disaster. Naive and trusting, he does the honorable thing and marries her. It had been no vestal who chose that missile for opening her attack on him," (27).Ī few chapters later, the reader is told, "he knew too well in the secret center of his brain that Arabella was not worth a great deal as a specimen of womankind," (39). He recognizes that there is something in her "quite antipathetic to that side of him which had been occupied with literary study and the magnificent Christminster dream. However, Jude is partly aware even before the marriage that Arabella is the wrong type of woman for him.
Marriage is compared to being "caught in a gin, which would cripple him if not her also for the rest of a lifetime," (43). Order custom essay Theme Analysis of Marriage: Jude the Obscure Jude, when married to Arabella, feels trapped in a hopeless situation.
There are no happy marriages or content couples seen in the book. He also illustrates that marriage could victimize both men and women. He treats the subject with sympathy and understanding. Hardy was conscious that women were not treated equally in society, and that the laws of nature were often heavily weighed against women. Hardy tends to view marriage with cynicism, and there are many disapproving comments about the nature of marriage being based on contracts. He also makes it clear that marriage is not necessarily linked to love in any way, so it's obvious that a decent, understanding society would accept Jude and Sue's relationship because they truly love each other, regardless of whether they are married or not. Hardy begins an argument against the institution of marriage, but he does not necessarily suggest that marriage is automatically bad he just makes it clear that he believes people should be able to step away from a marriage if things do get dire. Hardy pushes each of these themes to his audience and challenges everyday ideology by his audacious story about Jude Hawley. The themes of love, marriage, freedom replace the earlier theme of education and idealism. In the second part of the book, Jude abandons his idea of entering Christminster and the focus shifts to Sue. Jude, a working class boy aiming to educate himself, dreams of a high level education at a university, but is pushed away by the cruel and rigid social order. Thomas Hardy, the author of Jude the Obscure, focuses on multiple themes throughout his book including social order and higher learning which is mainly seen in the first part of the book.
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