英语专业毕业论文37055

Zhou本科毕业论文The Tragic Hero Jude in Jude the Obscure学院外国语学院专业英语年级学号姓名指导教师成绩二一三年五月Zhou iiiOutlineThesis: Jude was once an ambitious man but consequently failed. Introduction A. About Thomas Hardy B. About Jude the Obscure. Ambitions of Jude A. Being a student of university B. Being a Christ-minister C. Having an ideal love . Frustrations of Jude A. Being rejected by university B. Being disillusioned with Christ-minister C. Being a victim of the marriage institution . Conclusion AbstractJude the Obscure was Hardys last and most powerful novel in terms of its relentless criticism of the Victorian society. In this work, Jude was really unique. He wanted to become a university student but he was refused. Then he turned his ambition to Christ-minister. Again he failed. He wanted to own a marital love by his own sense of right and wrong. He did enjoyed love with Sue, but it was not tolerated by the society. So Jude was doomed to be a tragic hero because of his low status, the unreasonable education and marriage system in capitalist society, and the inherent evils in reality. Zhou 10The Tragic Hero Jude in Jude the ObscureThomas Hardy(1840-1928) was born in Dorset, a rural region of southwestern England that was to become the focus of his fiction. In many respects, Hardy was trapped in the middle ground between nineteenth and twentieth century, between Victorian sensibilities and more modern ones, and between tradition and innovation. So he is a cross-century literary giant. Success has masked the Wessex novels and left a profound impression. Hardys work reflected his stoical pessimism and sense of tragedy in human life especially women life and of deep changes of social economy, politics, ethic and custom after the invasion of capitalism into the English countryside and towns. They exposed the hypocrisies of the capitalistic ethics, law and religion, which inherited the excellent tradition of realistic criticism as well as exploited a road for English literature in the 20th century. He developed the understanding of tragedy in his successive writing of novels, including The Return of the Native, Tess of the DUrbervilles, The Mayor of Casterbidge and Far From the Madding Ground. In 1980s Hardy ascertained that human tragedy lay in the contrast between the ideal life man wished to live and squalid life he was fated to lead (Kramer 65). The scenarios, characters and sceneries of Hardys works were so fine, perfect, compact and harmonic that few writers could compete with him. This novel is about a poor boys ambitions. Jude, is a kind-hearted sentimental young man who felt guilty on every hurt of creatures even a earthworm. Ironically, every such a religious man like Jude failed to get the bless from God. Jude, an orphan, is encouraged by Phillotson, a schoolmaster, to apply for Christ-minister (representing Oxford University), but as in every part of his life he is tormented by rejection. Jude choose his own love, but he was also hurt greatly. We learn of the death of Sue and Judes children at the hands of Judes only child by Arabella since the latter believes none of them have the right to live the novel concerns Judes ambition as it is thwarted repeatedly by the squalid nature of a life ruined by poverty and the indecision of others. Jude the Obscure, met with even stronger negative outcries from the Victorian public for its frank treatment of sex, and was often referred to as “Jude the Obscene”. Heavily criticised for its apparent attack on the institution of marriage through the presentation of such concepts as erotolepsy. In his postscript of 1912, Hardy humorously referred to this incident as part of the career of the book: After these hostile verdicts from the press its next misfortune was to be burnt by a bishop probably in his despair at not being able to burn me (Hardy 17). In Jude the Obscure, Hardy shows his views on religion and commitment to the Church which were said to have declined in the latter years of his life. Throughout the book Hardy displays his feeling that religion is something that people use in order to satisfy themselves by giving their lives meaning. One instance in which Hardy clearly displays this is when he writes, “It had been the yearning of his heart to find something to cling to.” (Hardy 94). In order to bring out this point Hardy chooses to create Jude as an orphan and has him come from obscure origins. By doing this, he creates a character who is looking for something to give him an identity. As a result of his relationship with Mr. Phillotson (who leaves for Christ-minster in order to become ordained), he finds religion and feels that he can use it to help him gain an identity. Jude Fawley was a poor and obscure orphan of an uncertain origin, living with his great-aunt at Marygreen a most old-fashioned place, a place of decay and neglect. He endeavored to make his presence tolerable to his crusty maiden aunt by assisting her to the best of his ability. Aged only eleven, he had to do hard labor, fetching water from well and carrying loaves of bread to villagers. As a child, he already felt the prick of life. Poverty and harsh environment did not quench his fervent interest in books. On the contrary they became driving forces for him to work hard at books with an intention to change his humble fate. His primary school master, Phillotson, was his idol. When Philloston left the village, he asked Jude to go to the university of Christ, a holy land of knowledge. So that he could obtain an university degree and become knowledgeable. And he will escape from his living background and have a brand new life,greatly different from what he is now living. From then on, he regarded that university as his dreaming place. Innocently, he made that as his right aim. Stubbornly, his only aim is to be a student of the university. With an ambition to realize this, he engaged himself in reading whatever books were available to him. Jude educated himself by private study. The way was quite funny. As soon as the horse has learnt the road and houses at which he was to pause a while, the boy, seated in front, would slip the reins over his arms, ingeniously fix open, by means of a strap attached to the tilt. At day he snatched every moment possible to read and at night he used to read almost to dawn. He did his best to learn, he could understand the meaning more or less by himself. He became so learnt that he was nicknamed as “Tutor of St . Slums”. His rich knowledge manifested itself in his recital of Latin in public house, which even the students from Christ-minster could not understand. Clearly, he was intellectually superior to those students. He believed that he could make it if he worked hard and tried his best. He was in an enthusiastic mood and seemed to see his way to live comfortably in Christ university in the course of a year or two. I have acquired an average students power to read the common ancient classic Latin in particular(Hardy 29).Finding no way to develop his potential in the unjust educational institution , Jude redirected his aim towards religion. In fact, he longed for church as fervently in childhood as for Christ-minster. It is the focus of all his dreams, a shining ideal of intellectual life. Though he realizes his ambitions may be futile, the Christ-minister is still an obsession with him. Many books that he read involved religion , the books such as “the Greek Testament”. He vowed : I will be D. D. Doctor of Divinity before I have done (Hardy 18)! He had walked alone, far away from Marygreen just to overlook holy appearance of churches. He preached devoutly, desiring to obtain a holy profession in Christian church in future. He visited on Sunday all the churches within a walk and deciphered the Latin inscriptions on fifteenth-century brasses and tombs. He dreamed of becoming a bishop and led a pure and Christian life. He wanted to get some Latin and Greek grammars form a physician and the physician promised him to sell his books to him if Jude could get some orders for him, but at last, the physician broke his promise. But he neve gave up. Instead he regarded all of these as what he had to pay for his holy dream. He thought God would see his efforts and be moved by him. Above all, he knew that before being a Christ-minister, he must learn to make his living. So Jude worked hard and rested little, but he still persevered in doing what he believed right, all of which, he thought, were just necessities to succes. Clearly, he tried his best to make him seen as the same as those children in the noble class. He imagined one day he may get rid of his unhappinesses, sufferings and difficulties,and therefore get an honorable job and live an elegant life. Actually, only concerning Judes efforts, regardless of his low class and poor childhood, Jude is destined to be a great man.Driven by a temporary feeling for Arabella Donn, a butchers daughter, Jude was impelled towards the embrace of her for whom he had no respect and whose life had nothing in common with his own. Arabella seduced him and inveigled him into marriage with her by pretending to be pregnant. Jude was a young man at odds with the marriage system and conventional morality. It became more evident when he met Sue. Sue was intellectual unorthodox, anticlerical, contemptuous of conventions and brilliant in a way that dazzled Jude. Both of them were of high ideals, strongly attracted to each other, possessing abundance of sympathy and many common interests and similar pursuits. Sue would never find an internal peace if she left Jude, nor would Jude. They loved each other. Sue thought it unbearable to be wife of Phillotson. And Jude thought that it was horrible that a man cherished a woman under a government stamp and the woman was licensed to be loved on the premises by the man. The only thing that Jude and Sues matrimonial experiences had taught them was that marriage was a dangerous and potentially sordid business. Leaving their former marital partners, both of them were afraid of the religious and legal marriage. Jude and Sue did make a law for themselves. They lived together in accordance with their own sense of right and wrong without holding any religious ceremony or going through any legal procedure. Their union could be regarded as a perfect one of flesh and spirit. They enjoyed one another in their harmonious cohabitation, regardless of the conventional marriage law and social custom. To Jude Sue was his only comrade and sweetheart. Between them there was a special closeness. It was the closeness of lovers, but more than that. It was the closeness of intellectual companions. Their union was a natural and harmonious one.Just as Judes nickname suggested, however, he was from slums. And his fate was connected only with the hard labors in the shabby slums. Because he was a workman, he was kept far from the students as if they had been at the antipodes. Just as an old carter said to him: “they never look at anything folks like you can understand.”(Hardy 23). Nor did they even take a glimpse of him a young self-taught man, when they passed him. More frankly a villager said to him: “Such placesas Christ-minister was not for such as you-only for them plenty of money”(Hardy 31). Poverty and humble status became tumbling stones in his effort to become a university student. The barriers were as insurmountable as the university wall dividing Jude from those with whom he felt he had so much in common. Hardy was apparently questioning the class prejudice and unjust educational system. In the stratified society, Jude, an orphan from its low part, was unable to develop his potential within the existing educational institution. The letter of rejection from the dean of college shattered his aspiration for being educated. The dean advised him in the letter to “remain in your own sphere, stick to you trade and adopted no other course”(Hardy 43). The rejection seemed to Jude “a hard slap”(Hardy 43). It was not until this moment that Jude perceived how far away he was from the object of that enthusiasm. Only a wall divided him from the students than whom he was even more intellectually qualified to be admitted. “Only a wall, but what a wall”(Hardy 50). A wall Jude never climbed over, a wall that was so great a gulf that no bridge could span it. The wall was obviously constructed by society. Jude came to a bitter realization that it would never possibly cater for the needs of a youth of his class or individuality. What he was hoped to do was to conform to his fate. Society worked at odds with his free will. He hoped to lead an ideal life by entering university, but he was socially doomed to live a squalid one. To his grief he found that there was something wrong somewhere on our social formulas. In such a blighted society, it was inevitable that Jude could not fulfill his aim. Although Jude was hardworking, all his hard work and earnest effort at mastering Greek and Latin come to nothing. Jude became disillusioned with Christ-minster. When he concerns Christ-minister, the city is transformed by and his imagination into a new Jerusalem, a mirage. He unconditionally assumes it to be a site of wisdom and light. If for a boy, such fancy is natural and understandable, but after he returns to the city, after all his disillusioning experiences there, that is an inexcusable childish act. His ideals are just as vulgar as those of small businessman, as revealed by his down-to-earth calculations about his incomes if he could be a bishop (于 12)He is anything but different from other people who are trying climb up the social ladder, as he supposes himself to be. He always floats on the romantic surface and turns a blind eye to his practical riverbed. Apparently, his diligent study about Latin and Greek and subsequent hardworking are designed for his lofty aims in education and religion. His dream of living an ecclesiastic and altruistic life was brought to naught. His liberal relation with Sue without being religiously confirmed conflicted with law. To be sure , their life was most humanistic , yet the happy and humanistic life was unacceptable in religious view. A man so heretical to religion was impossibly admitted by church in spite of his enthusiasm for, and talent in, religion. He was even dismissed from repairing churches. He was as mercilessly rejected by church as by university. His ambition to become a bishop was shattered. He was rejected again. What he once believed to be the only place for him again refused him. He finally gave up. Obviously, Arabella was not the kind of the woman for Jude. He found that he could not arouse his love for her. Arabella, after being sexually satisfied, felt that there was no prospect of his bettering himself or her. It was thus seen that their marriage, though legal and religious, was not a real marriage in any true sense of the word. They were bound to each other who had neither love nor sympathy and who were suited neither by temperament nor by pursuit of life. Yet current moral judgment and marriage system pronounced their alliance proper and virtuous. Indignantly Jude denounced the injustice of marriage law and conventional ethics, saying, “If there is anything more degrading, immoral, unnatural than another in my life , it is this meretricious contract with Arabella , which has been called the right thing !”.Finally Jude found his true love, but the union was not a religious or legal one. It was based on the law of its own rather than on social laws. That is why it was never tolerated by society. They could not settle down in the social framework and were driven to the fringes of society. The public condemned their relationship. Jude was deprived of his employment as a stonemason in the church and forced to leave the Artizans Mutual Improvement Society which he had joined with the purpose of teaching the younger stonemasons in it with his rich experience in this field. He and Sue were kept away and isolated by the public. They began to realize how the world at large regarded them. Jude heavily sighted: “People dont understand us”(Hardy 123). Although they “have wronged no man, corrupted no man, defrauded no man”(Hardy 214), they seemed to be fighting the rest of mankind, who represented those laws Jude and Sue rejected. The split between the private and the public was complete.What they could do was to leave. They were lost souls, finding no place in the world they could cherish or to which they could retreat. There was no way for them to escape from the control of the social tragic forces that were gathering around them. Being frightened, She turned away from her free thinking and back to the arms of the church. For Jude, however, the death of the children was only a bitter confirmation that things were not well with the world and that there was no God in the heaven. He believed that it was man and society that made the tragedy for his rebellion.In face of social condemnation of the evil cohabitation and social punishment, Sue yielded and conformed by returning to Phillotson while Jude refused to submit and to conform. Instead he continued his rebellion against “the world which is not illuminated for such experiments”as he had made with Sue. He believed that it was the defective society that pushed stabs into his and Sues backs. He wanted to fight against man, senseless circumstances and social laws that constructed the individual. However, he was so weak that he could not triumph over the powerful society. He was forced to conform. Arabella got him drunk and put him onto the wedding bed. He was recaptured by marriage bondage.Society again resumed its moral order. His last wife was his first and Sues last husband was her first husband. They were made to return to their former socially accepted marriages where they found no love but repugnance at the respective partner. The marriage institution was again maintained. The rebellion that he had waged ended with failure and with his being fatally punished by society. Left by the masses that were outside shouting with merriment at the boat racing, he died alone in solitude and misery without any human care. Who cared a dying obscure youth? Who cared that he failed to fulfill his ambitions? Who cared that he was driven and down and down? He died as obscurely as he had lived. He died a premature death. He died a victim of the social laws. A social misfit gasped out his life along with his aims unfulfilled.Jude the Obscure was a realistic novel in Victorian period created by Hardy, an outstanding novelist. His opinion towards life was pessimistic and fated, and he thought that on matter what kind of degree human society had developed, human being were unable to get rid of the tricks, coincidences were everywhere, natures tinge suffused around, environment served as a foil to the roles, and the roles characters were mixed up with the environment. Jude the Obscure is an example of that. It was about an ambitious boys tragic story. By exploring Judes ambitions, we knew he dreamed to be as normal as other university students, he wished to work at church as his teacher, and he desired having an ideal love. But from Judes frustrations of his ambitions, and the unhappy ending of his love with Sue, we can see a tragic hero Jude in sight. Tragedy was doomed to happen because of his low status, the unreasonable education and marriage system in capitalist society, and the inherent evils in reality. Works CitedHardy, F. E. The Life of Thomas Hardy, London: Yale University Press, 1933, 289Hardy, Thomas. Jude the Obscure. Hertfordshire: Wordsworth Editions Limited, 1993:301Kramer, Dale, Thomas Hardy. Shanghai: Shanghai Fo