Jude the Obscure

Abstract

In The Woodlanders and Tess of the d’Urbervilles Hardy establishes universal potentiality for tragedy by different methods, employing forms that are increasingly less mechanical in their influence upon the presentation of the narrative. Jude the Obscure continues this development and traces, like Tess of the d’Urbervilles, the protagonist’s movement through a number of reactions to dilemmas. But the final adequacy of the protagonist’s individual judgments and the true nature of the experiences that mark his course are more of an issue in this novel than they are in Tess. Jude’s perceptions are more directly and more frequently called into question through a confluence of judgments and of evaluations of the experiences.