Introduction:
Among the symbols employed by Hardy in Jude, biblical archetypal character is the most deliberate and intentional. Generally speaking, an archetype is an image that recalls basically psychological events common to all people and all cultures. A character or a pattern of images or events so fundamental that it has never been absent from literature, religion, myth, and dream.
As a literary technique, symbolism in English literature has a great tradition, and it plays an important role in Hardy's Jude the Obscure. This thesis mainly focuses on Hardy's use of symbolism, which includes biblical archetypes and the theme of the quest implied by the context. In this way, the author finds something new in the understanding of the novel. As in Hardy's other novels, symbolism in Jude the Obscure tends to be taken from nature and religion.
Animals:
In the novel, Hardy used some animals’ images to represent the main characters and their destiny. Firstly, Hardy shaped Arabella‘s image associated with a pig. Pig has the meaning "sacrifice" in the novel. Jude for animals’ pity implied his own destiny like a butcher killed a pig. Arabella represented the nature of false and evil. The book also twice showed Arabella as a female tiger. When Sue visited her in the hotel, Arabella shouted out just like a beast. Arabella kills Jude’s hope and aspiration, leaving him with limited material satisfaction. She ignored any type of her husband’s obligation and responsibility.
Meanwhile, falling into the trap of rabbit elude the fate of Jude. Also imply Sue in marriage cage. At the end of his life, Jude hope someone would come to end his life, just like he killed the rabbit. Arabella is representative of sensuality. Sue is representative of spiritual freedom. Sue likes a bird—a wounded bird in Jude’s heart. She is longing for a nest full of love and warm. Sue sets pigeon free impress her desire for freedom.
In Hardy’s works, birds are an inherent symbolic object. Jude’s heart grew sympathetic with the birds’ thwarted desires. They seemed, like himself, to be living in a world which did not want them. So Jude didn’t frighten them away.
"Poor little dears!" said Jude, aloud. "You shall have some dinner—you shall. There is enough for us all. Farmer Trout ham can afford to let you have some. Eat, then, my dear little birdies, and make a good meal!"
Color:
In the novel, color's description plays an important role. Those color descriptions create a gloomy world. "Obscure" is a description of Jude’s personality, destiny and his social position. The word "Obscure" also can be used in the visual image of the description. "Obscure" has many definitions in the English dictionary. Such as, dark, gloomy, dim, fuzzy and sorrowful. In the beginning of the story, young Jude wants to know the Chris minster's location. He saw: Grey—stoned and dun—roofed, it stood within the hail of the Wessex border, and almost with the tip of one small toe within it, at the northernmost point of the crinkled line along which the leisurely Thomas strokes the fields of that ancient kingdom. The buildings now lay quiet in the sunset, a vane here and there on their many spires and domes, giving sparkle to a picture of sober secondary and tertiary hues.
In the beginning of the story, Jude described the natural scene:
The brown surface of the field went right up towards the sky all round, where it was lost by degrees in the mist that shut out the actual verge and accentuated the solitude. The only marks on the uniformity of the scene were a rick of last year’s produce standing in the midst of the arable… his dead family. There are many places using the color "brown", because brown has the meaning of dark, gloomy and depressing. At the same time, Jude is lonely and depressed.
Name of Places:
In the beginning of this novel, Hardy gives a particular description of Mary green, the smallest and most old-fashioned place in the novel. It is described in the most dismal and even sarcastic terms. From his description, we can get some information about the social and historical background of this novel.
First, we see the little village disturbed by the departure of Phillotson, the schoolmaster and abandoned by the rector who is "a man who disliked the sight of changes". Jude, aged eleven, is in tears at his mentor's departure in this foggy morning. His aunt shouts at him to get on with bringing water from the village well and he does so, although the weight is too much for him and he has to walk to her cottage across a "patch of clammy greensward". The village is merely a hamlet, old and decayed. Just look at the following description for it is worthy to be studied carefully.
It was as old-fashioned as it was small, and it rested in the laps of an undulating upland adjoining the North Wessex downs. Old as it was, however, the well-shaft was probably the only relic of the local history that remained absolutely unchanged. Many of the thatched and dormered dwelling-houses had been pulled down in late years, and many trees fell on the green. Above all, the original church, hump-backed, wood-turreted, and quaintly hipped, had been taken down, and either cracked up into heaps of road metal in the lane, or utilized as pig-sty walls, garden seats, guard stones to fences, and rockeries in the flower-beds of neighborhood.
One of the most important symbols in the novel is Christminster. From his very first glimpse of it, sitting on a ladder atop the Brown House, Jude is enchanted with it. It is a symbol of all his dreams and aspirations, an ideal that he longs for. In his mind he calls it the New Jerusalem: "The city acquired tangibility, a permanence, a hold on his life...". Even at the end of the novel, when he is broken and beaten by life, Chris minster continues to exert its fascination over him, and he chooses to return to it to die there. Christminster in the novel is highly symbolic since it consists of two religious words: Christ and minister. Christ refers to Jesus Christ while minister means church. To Jude, Christminster is "a city of light". The word implies Jude's religious pursuits: to enter the university and to be a priest. These two pursuits are given up several times because of two women, Arabella and Sue. In the Bible Judas betrays Jesus for desire of money while in the story of Jude, he betrays Christminster for desire of lust. At last, the same as Judas, Jude gets punished and commits suicide in despair.
Church Architecture:
The image of the old church being pulled down and its original stones used in various ways in the passage is quite meaningful. It foreshadows many of the novel's later images of decay and destruction of churches, thus suggests Hardy's opinion that the Christian religion has become a religion of the past; now it has become unable to perform the spiritual and moral function it was supposed to serve, a somewhat ironic tone can be felt in this passage. It also indicates Hardy's philosophical attitude. The passage first expressed Hardy's belief in the importance of churches as historical buildings and embodiments of the common cultural heritage and local tradition.
This novel is the most direct expression of Hardy's professional experience as an architect and of his fascination with architecture. At the same time, Jude is the most outspoken manifesto of Hardy's views on religion and morality, particularly with regard to questions of sex and marriage. Architectural motifs are frequently used throughout the book. The images about church architecture guide the reader to draw some conclusions of the author's opinions in respect to the fundamental problems of the Christian religion and the Christian Church.
There are numerous architectural symbols and metaphors throughout the novel. These images are associated with the progress of Jude, which reflect the development of his career as a stone-mason and his attitudes towards the Christian religion. Jude's life is in many senses a reflection of Thomas Hardy's own. By the directness of its psychological and emotional insights, the novel suggests to the reader that Jude's perception of reality is strongly related to that of the author
It must be pointed out that young Jude's interest in the history, architectural structure and decoration of churches has little to do with their religious function. He has never had enough enthusiasm to Christian religion in his life, even during the time he was making preparations to work for the church. When he "visited on Sundays all the churches within a walk, and deciphered the Latin inscriptions on fifteenth-century brasses and tombs'' or "obtained some blocks of freestone, metal not being available, and suspending his studies awhile, occupied his spare half-hours in copying the heads and capitals in his parish church", the motivation behind is the wish to share "the romantic charms of the city of light and lore" rather a deep religious or spiritual admiration to the churches. This represents Hardy's interest only in external aspects of the Christian religion and worship. For young Jude, as well as for Hardy, the significance of Christianity lies mainly in its form rather than in its spiritual fundamentals. Jude's ambitions and hopes are in fact a product of his romantic illusions and misunderstanding of the world, thus imply a kind of existential uncertainty and doubt of the author himself.
Church Scenes:
There are many scenes taking place in churches, which are quite significant. We can also see clearly the falseness of Jude's beliefs and assumptions, for example, in the scene describing Jude's first attempt to meet Sue. The setting is Chris Minster Cathedral, the chapel of Cardinal College. Jude initially holds Sue in his idealistic fascination not merely as a personification of the spirit of Christianity ("she was probably a frequenter of this place, and, steeped body and soul in church sentiment as she must be by occupation and habit, and, no doubt, much in common with him" but more a sexually attractive woman. But in the later parts of this chapter he discovers that although Sue is ready to observe the forms and practices of Christian belief and worship, at heart she was an unbeliever, who holds "anything is better than those everlasting church- falls !"It turns out that both Jude and Sue have no genuine religious reasons for their attendance at the church service, which seems so dutiful. The reader may further doubt other members in the cathedral in a similar way. Therefore, the passage connects the church setting with the background of a Christian service with a sense of pretense and even hypocrisy.
Actually the motif of the cathedral remains throughout the novel as the symbol of Jude's obsession with Christminster. For example, Jude and Sue exhibit a model of Cardinal College at the Great Wessex Agricultural Show. And the sound of the bell of Christminster Cathedral is an irony for Jude: he hears it on the very night when he made his first unexpected encounter with Arabella, and Arabella hears it only a moment after she has left. Jude dies in his room, in order to watch the preparations for a ball which is about to take place in Cardinal College. So Jude's tragic death is accompanied by the sound of the Christminster bells. As in some of Hardy's earlier novels, the symbol here conveys the indifference of Christianity to the tragic fate of man
Another church playing an important role in the novel is the church of St. Silas in the suburb of Beersheba. It is the place where Sue makes up her mind to leave Jude and return to Phillotson. It is in this church that she comes to believe she will always remain Phillotson's wife in the eyes of God. Jude has found out that Sue has begun to attend services in the St Silas Church. And Sue declares to Jude that she should not live with any other man except Phillotson.
The reader can feel in this passage the contrast between the power and importance in the huge cross and the insignificance of human suffering. Sue is perceived in this scene as an object rather than a human being, except for the sound of her sobbing. This suggests again Christianity's indifference to the fate of man. Sue's determination to make self-sacrifice in the name of Christian law can be regarded as the most direct protest against the cruelty of the ethical and legal system of Christianity, which contradicts the natural impulses of the human soul. Another contrast is between the emptiness of the church and the intensity of moral torment of Sue and Jude.
Jude:
It is so obvious that "Jude" and "Judas" are two extremely similar words. This may lead to the question whether there are any Hardy's naming his protagonist Jude while constructing the special purposes of the novel with a betrayal plot pattern? They are very common Jewish names. Etymologically, "Judas" and "Jude" are both from the same Greek word "Judah". On account of this, Hardy's naming his protagonist after "Dude" is not merely an arbitrary action but has its own profound meaning. According to Frazer, the primitive man "regards his name not as a mere label but as a distinctive part of his personality". And Frye further illustrates the point that the name of a character might affect his personality by stating:
Knowing the name of a god or element spirit may give the knower some control over it; puns and popular etymologies involved in the naming of people and places affect the character of whatever thing or person is given the name."
Since "the name suggested the story, nor the other way around", Hardy's representation of the archetype of Judas in his novel Jude the Obscure is thus revealed by naming his protagonist "Jude". Hardy is not able to and maybe not willing to name his protagonist Judas directly. Firstly, during the Victorian era, people were strictly religious-minded and the public rebelled against the religious doubts which they regarded as immoral. If Hardy uses the name of Judas openly and explicitly, the novel might never have been published. Secondly, Hardy's antimony in religion as I have mentioned in the second chapter determines that he can never attack Christianity directly because he is not a thorough rebel and atheist. By deconstructing a betrayal of Judas, he creates a forgivable Jude, a new image of Judas.
In the Bible, Judas is presented as a hateful victimizer. However, in Hardy's Jude the Obscure, with the technique of "demonic modulation", he overturns the victimizer image of Judas by declaring that Jude does no harm to Christminster but he himself is the victim of character, of fate, and of society.
Jude the Obscure is one of Hardy's four Character and Environment novels. That is to say, human character and the environment he lives in are the most important elements in the novel. In the novel, human character always contradicts with the environment, and human character is usually suppressed and overcome by the environment. Under the mercy of outside forces including fate and society, Jude as an ordinary human being with his own flaws becomes the victim rather than a victimizer. Judas as a villain is widely accepted in western countries. "When the serious and concerned nature of myth is widely accepted, a poet's freedom of treating it is conditioned by that". Before Hardy, few writers speak for Judas in their literary works.
Christians will never accept a pitiful Judas, as Judas is a deep-rooted devil. With the technique that is called demonic modulation by Frye, Hardy presents a sinful Jude as an unhappy and suffering human being rather than a vice monster or villain. By creating a wretched image of Jude instead of vicious Judas, Hardy leaves us a series of questions on the Judge of God. What enables God to have the right to send a judgement on human beings? Who should be labelled as a sinner while the others are the chosen? God rudely intervenes into human affairs just to show his own power upon human beings. Hardy argues that because "a Judas lives in us and that to live is to betray", it is wrong to condemn people for betraying a no longer merciful God. Hardy's creation of a bleak image of Jude is to arouse the reader's sympathy for the character. The wrongdoers should be treated with compassion.
On the other hand, man's fate is administered by an invisible God. Since God is omniscient, when God created Judas, he definitely knew that Judas would betray him. Therefore Judas's degeneration is predetermined and inevitable. Hardy leads us to think about whether Judas is a real victimizer. Is the villain Judas merely a chessman under the hand of God to complete Jesus Christ's sacrifice for the human origin sin? If God is all-loving, why can Jesus ascend to heaven while Judas should go to hell? Although Hardy does not provide us with the exact answers in the novel, those questions are revolutionary in the conservative Victorian Era.
Last, through the diversion of the betrayal image of Judas, Hardy intends to awaken people that no matter how hard they try it is impossible to please God because fate has already been set ahead. Worshipping the no-mercy God will only result in suffering with despair.
Above all in Jude the Obscure, Hardy despairs of the consolation of Christianity. Applying the tragic plot and converting the betrayal archetype, he shows his religious doubts against the merciful God and religious salvation.
Conclusion:
In this novel, Hardy uses fully the symbols of animals, colors, weather, names of places and the religious images to indicate the fates of the main characters as well as the theme of the novel. In the realistic novel Jude the Obscure, the employment of symbolism helps to reveal the protagonist's spiritual and moral predicament more powerfully. In the poetic dreamland created by symbolic language and a series of images the relationship between man and society, man and man, man and "himself" appears to be estranged and antagonistic which reveals the then increasingly apparent problem of alienation in western society. Symbolism in this novel enables readers to go deep into the inner world of the characters. It also reflects the writer's deep concern for humanity—he appeals for the return of humanity while lamenting the loss of it.
However, a neglected aspect is that few people have studied symbolism in Jude. In fact, the use of symbolism in Jude and in Hardy's other novels is quite deliberate and intentional. Symbolism in Jude and Hardy's other novels differs from that of those symbolists' in the Symbolist Movement. Symbolism in the Symbolist Movement refers to the representative of the author's attitude towards the reality around him. While Hardy's symbolism is permeated with the spirit of realism and the symbolic images in his works come from those universal archetypal patterns in world literature.
Symbolism is one of the outstanding artistic techniques in this novel and is Hardy's chief means of showing the unity of man and his natural and social environment. The use of symbols helps to deepen the characters more vividly, deepen the main theme of the fiction, and reveal Hardy's ideological thought and the essence of his tragic vision. The symbols also enhance the novel to a considerable aesthetic effect and Hardy's maturity in writing skills.
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