Jude the Obscure and Social Darwinism Essay -- Jude Obscure

Jude the Obscure and Social Darwinism Jude the Obscure is indeed a lesson in cruelty and despair the inevitable by-products of Social Darwinism. The main characters of the apply are controlled by fates compelling arm of extraordinary muscular power(1), weakly resisting the influence of their own sexuality, and of society and nature around them. Judes world is one and only(a) in which only the fittest survive, and he is clearly not equipped to number amongst the fittest. In keeping with the strong Darwinian undercurrents that run through the book, a broad of natural selection ensures that Judes offspring do not survive to procreate either. Their death by murder and suicide is but one of many down in the mouth instances of cruelty in the novel, and there are numerous others (such as the cruel revelation that Latin is not merely decodable into English, which shatters Judes naive pretensions about learning that wrangle and Judes rejected application for university entrance, wit hout even having the opportunity to be tested and Sues reversal of all her ideals and decisions upon the death of her children, which she sees as some sort of divine warning, and her subsequent retrieve to Phillotson, to name but a few). Hardys view of all this cruelty is related with a grim irony that is evident in Judes death scene. While the fiesta celebrations of the world outside continue in oblivious gaiety, Jude himself quotes morbid poetry Let the day perish wherein I was born, and the night in which it was said, There is a man child conceived. (Hurrah)(2) This ironic comment on lifes cruelty continues at Judes funeral Judes aspirations to university education were never realised, yet as ... ...s they are at the mercifulness of the indifferent forces that manipulate their behaviour and their relations with others(5). This manipulation by fate, and the resulting disparity between human goals and what is actually achieved, mean that the lesson taught in Jude the Obs cure is very very much one of the cruelty of nature and society. End Notes (1) Hardy, Thomas, Jude the Obscure, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1985, p. 41 (I.-vii). (2) Ibid., p. 426 (VI.-xi). (3) Ibid., p. 430 (VI.-xi). (4) Ibid., p. 65 (I.-x). (5) Abrams, M. H., ed., The Norton Anthology of English Literature, 6th ed., Vol. 2., Norton, New York, 1993, p. 1692. Bibliography Abrams, M. H., ed., The Norton Anthology of English Literature, 6th ed., Vol. 2., Norton, New York, 1993. Hardy, Thomas, Jude the Obscure, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1985.