A great novel by a great writer : Jude the Obscure by Thomas HARDY

Today I am going to shift from moroccan literature to english one. From a great moroccan writer to a great english one ; like Choukri’s For Bread Only Hardy’s Jude the Obscure suffered before reaching its readership. The following is a summary of the events of the novel.

This novel opens with Jude Fawley’s village schoolmaster departure to Christminster city. Jude, the poor young orphan boy, who lives with his great aunt, Miss. Drusilla Fawley, intends to become a scholar like his schoolmaster and father figure, Richard Phillotson. He, so, studied hardly and taught himself both Greek and Latin grammar. However, against his ambitions, Jude encounters Arabella Donn, the daughter of a pig-killer and a well-built woman , who is going to trick upon him to marry her pretending to be pregnant. Now as a house holder and as a husband, Jude puts off his ambitions. Yet, Arabella leaves him , after a break in their marriage caused by Jude’s being a bookish , to go to Australia with her parents.

Arabella’s departure to Australia with her parents renewed Jude’s ambitions in going to Christminster city and being a scholar. He, then , decides to go to the university city of Christminster to find his cousin , Sue Bridehead, to join his friend, Richard Phillotson, and to fullfil his aspirations by attending a college. This latter’s administration rejects him because he belongs to the working class. And while working as a stonemason, Jude meets his cousin ; and he falls in love with her from the first sight. Later on , he arranges a job for her as an assistant to Phillotson.

Being rejected by the college forces Jude to resume his way ; he decides, then, to become a clergyman by attending to the church. However, he discovers the truth that those poeple who work in the church, chiefly a composer, are working merely for money. He goes, then, to see Sue, but find that she is engaged to Mr. Phillotson after she knew about his marriage with Arabella Donn. Their marriage didn’t last long ; Sue leaves Phillotson, her husband, to live with her cousin, her real lover, because her marriage to Phillotson was based on jealousy more than on love. Yet, Sue doesn’t give herself to Jude untill the reappearance of Arabella, after this latter’s return from Australia with her child, Little Father Time, of her brief marriage to Jude, born in Australia. Thus, Jude accepts to keep his son with him.

The Fawleys, Jude, sue, and the child, go to Aldbrickham to find logings and work. During this period, Sue has got two children, and pregnant with an other one. While in Christminster again, Little Father Time, Arabella’s son, sees how bad their situation is ; and hears the conversations between Jude and Sue each night. Then, once he is left alone with Sue’s children, he kills them and commits suicide. Discovering the murder, Jude’s and Sue’s life collapse. They become separate, Sue goes back to her lawful husband , while Jude is tricked into marrying Arabella again. Thus, the novel closes by a tragic ending of Jude’s life, while his wife, Arabella, is flirting with Vilbert out of the house.

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