Jude the Obscure - A Dreamer's Nightmare
Jude the Obscure is one of Thomas Hardy's most depressing and controversial literary works of his lifetime. It is one of the extensions of the classical tale of Greek tragedy, where the main protagonist goes through a heroic journey, yet always falls into his demise and suffering towards the end. Jude the Obscure can put a bad taste in a dreamer’s mouth, for it destroys their aspiration and expectations of the future, looking forward to a better life. In the novel, Jude is a dreamer, a working-class man who aspires to be a university student. However, his toxic stoicism philosophy is attributed to his catastrophic life of unfortunate events. Rather than accepting his status quo, he strived for a better life that opposes the hard labor implicated in his people: a farmer with no class. Moreover, the novel sheds the cruelty of social classification, heirlooms, and social norms during the Victorian era.
Understanding Jude - When stoicism becomes toxic
Jude exhibits the qualities of a stoic man, believing that hard work results in a good outcome. He is relentless when it comes to learning, even tackling Latin which is one of the hardest languages to acquire. In addition, he partakes one of the biggest challenges in the Victorian era, which was heading into the big, industrialized city and striving to become a university classical man. However, fate does not go his way, in fact, it goes to the darkest pits of haplessness. Rejects by the school he applies to, rejected by the woman he fell in love with upon meeting her in the city, and even rejected the society that simply does not welcome him. That is just the first half of the story, and we see how everything is working against him, preventing all possibilities of his dream from coming true.
Personal Reflection
As a reader, Jude the Obscure is a cautionary tale that abates fear within me. I consider myself a dreamer, and I always dreamed of a better life aboard. However, due to my family’s financial difficulty and history, I’ve always known that my dream coming true is 1 in a million. A question remains mysterious to me, however. If the multiverse was real, and there are millions and billions of me making different choices and living different lives, where I blinded myself with stoicism, how much pain will I be willing to endure despite the dream not becoming true? We humans rely on hope to keep us moving forward, that is why heroic characters attract us, and often they are rewarded with the same amount of hard work they have put into reaching that goal. However, we also forget that it’s a cruel world, and people live with advantages and disadvantages that set us apart from each other. The starting point for people will never be the same, and there are a lot of inconveniences and tribulations that halt our progression to success or happiness. I know life can be unfair, but knowing where to stop or accept and appreciate what I have can make life a little bearable. This is the mistake Jude has made in the novel. He keeps on going on even though he knows the upper-class society does not respect his existence in their world. From time and time again, he undergoes more pain and suffering, with the worse being his oldest child killing himself and his two younger siblings because they think it was their fault for their parent’s sad life. All could have been prevented if he finally accepted his mundane and appreciated what small happiness can come through it. Overall, it is a distressing story.
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