Notes about T. Hardy's Jude the Oscure (1/6/12)

Thomas Hardy is one of the most important novelists of the Anti-Victorian movement. He writes many novels set in Wessex ("Wessex novels"), today known as Dorset.
One of his most famous novels is Jude the Oscure. The main male character is Jude Fawley, whose life dream is to become a scholar. The main female character is Sue, Jude's cousin. Jude is seduced by a woman, Arabella: he married her but he does not love her, considering her a coarse woman. Here there is the erotolopsy: Jude is aware to have been seduced by Arabella. Unlike C. Dickens novels, here there is no optimism. Also the name of the main character, Jude, recalls something negative: Judes' betrayal of Christ.
The issues that are dealth with is the novel are class, education, religion and marriage. The novel makes understand the crysis of the period: people have anymore points of reference, so they want to die.

Analysis of the Extract from the Second Chapter

Right from the beginning of the extract the reader understands that Jude is a modern man: he is doing what in the Victorian thought a woman should do.
In the first sequence the narrator is simply presenting the scene, so he uses the showing technique. In this way he does not influence the reader, who is utterly free. He is conveying tragedy. The narrator is omniscient and external, who allows the reader to see what is going on. The narrator focuses his attention on details: the narration reaches the effect of drama.
The second sequence presents what Jude does in front of the scene. It is a dynamic scene. In this part there is also a narrator's comment of the reader may not be aware ("half paralyzed").
There is a grotesque description: the narrator in this way obtains a ghostly effect.
The narrator has resorted to reader's senses. It seems the narrator is happy to focus reader's attention on it.
In this part the narrator explains the hypothesis Jude and Sue make on childen's hanging.
The fourth sequence presents the situation from Sue's point of view.
The fifth sequence presents again Jude as the prototype of the modern man. He adoptes the scientific prospect to explain his son's behaviour.