After years of life in London, he returned to Dorset and decided to be specialized in writing. Hardy had wished to become a poet for long, but he was not able to publish his first collection until 1898. On the reason of making money and his own early life reflection, Hardy started to write novels and initially gained fame as a novelist. His representative novels such as Far from the Madding Crowded, The Mayor of Casterbridge, Tess of the d’Urbervilles, and also Jude the Obscure are ranked as the best novels in British literature and even world literature. Because the main purpose of Hardy’s literary creation is to depict the real life, his portrayal of the characters in the novel follows the principle of realism completely. These novels portray the historical changes of the rural society in the south of England in the nineteenth century and the great changes of the peasants’ life, and reveal the process of the evolution of the patriarchal clan system to the modern capitalist society. He presents the conflict between inpidual and society and conveys his tragic thoughts in these novels. Overall, Hardy is a representative novelist and poet in world literature.

1.2 An Introduction to the Novel Jude the Obscure

Jude the Obscure is one of Hardy’s most impressive novels and is his last completed novel. It began as a magazine serial in December 1894 and it was published in book form in 1895. Hardy has said that the theme of this novel is “a deadly war between flesh and spirit” and “the contrast between the ideal life a young man wished to lead and the squalid real life he was fated to lead” (Hardy, 1895: 4). The novel Jude the Obscure has gained much attention since its publication. Hardy was deeply criticized by those traditional moral defenders. The Bishop of Wakefield claimed that he had thrown the book into the fire and asked the book company to stop publishing it. Hardy responded as “perhaps in his despair not being able to burn me” (Michael Millgate, 1978: 33). Mrs. Oliphant, who spoke highly of Tess, was so outraged by Jude that she was nearly swearing, “There may be books more disgusting,” and, “more impious as regards human nature, more foul in detail, in those dark corners where the amateurs of filth find garbage to their taste” (Michael Millgate, 1978: 33). It is this strong pressure that makes Jude the Obscure Hardy’s last masterpiece on the road of novel creation. Despite those criticisms, now the novel is always regarded as one of the greatest classic works in the history of Victorian literature. Just as Dale Kramer claims that “It is fair and accurate to say that, apart perhaps from Dickens, no novelist writing in English has appealed to so many different readers for so many different reasons” (1979: 23) : Hardy’s novel will remain vital and be appreciated by more and more people.

The novel Jude the Obscure tells a tragic story of a poor young man named Jude Fawley. Jude is a young villager who is poor. Inspired by his schoolmaster Phillotson, Jude is eager to become a scholar at “Christminster” at a very young age, he studies deeply hard, but before he gets to the paradise of knowledge, he is seduced into marriage by a cunning woman called Arabella Donn. The true heroine Sue Bridehead who is a cousin of Jude, is a bright and beautiful woman with an independent personality and thought. But her love with Jude is not allowed by the church and secular circle. And Sue herself swings between two men Jude and Phillotson. As Sue and Jude live together, the happy life goes for no long. Jude’s ambition is not achieved. Family’s life is struggling. In despair, Jude’s eldest son commits suicide and hangs his younger brother and sister together. After suffering this misfortune, Sue eventually chooses to give in to the church, come back to Phillotson’s place and leave the beloved Jude alone. And Jude, who loses all his hope, disconsolately dies at an early age. Jude, a man without power and money, while possesses a great dream. He pursues for his whole life love and success but returns to the original poor-self. Through this novel, Hardy praises the hero and heroine who have the courage to pursue true love. At the same time, the novel also expresses sympathy and reflection on the failure of men and women protagonists to pursue true love under the statute of the social mainstream. More importantly, the novel criticizes the Victorian institution of marriage, class pision and the unreasonable educational system, writes a performance of man’s struggle with society and internal-self.