Jude the Obscure

“He was a boy who could not himself bear to hurt anything. […] This weakness of character, as it may be called, suggested that he was the sort of man who was born to ache a good deal before the fall of the curtain upon his unnecessary life should signify that all was well with him again. He carefully picked his way on tiptoe among the earthworms, without killing a single one.”

A critical part of Jude’s character is his innate compassion and sensitivity towards all living beings, demonstrated by his reluctance to cause harm to even the smallest creatures. However, the passage also foreshadows the inevitable suffering and adversity that Jude will face, suggesting that his compassionate nature will ultimately lead to his own pain and disillusionment—as well as the judgement of others. Despite his efforts to navigate the world with care and gentleness, Jude’s vulnerability and inability to inflict harm hint at the profound challenges he will endure as he strives for fulfillment and acceptance in a society marked by cruelty and injustice.

“Nature’s logic was too horrid for him to care for. That mercy towards one set of creatures was cruelty towards another sickened his sense of harmony. As you got older, and felt yourself to be at the centre of your time, and not at a point in its circumference, as you had felt when you were little, you were seized with a sort of shuddering, he perceived. All around you there seemed to be something glaring, garish, rattling, and the noises and glares hit upon the little cell called your life, and shook it, and warped it. If he could only prevent himself growing up! He did not want to be a man.”

Jude grapples with “nature’s logic” throughout the narrative, and this quote foreshadows many of the trials he will face. His reluctance to embrace adulthood reflects a deeper struggle with the moral complexities of the world, where the divide between mercy and cruelty only widens with age. Jude predicts his future astutely in this quote, though he, unfortunately, forgets this revelation in later chapters.

“‘It is a city of light,’ he said to himself. ‘The tree of knowledge grows there,’ he added a few steps further on. ‘It is a place that teachers of men spring from and go to.’ ‘It is what you may call a castle, manned by scholarship and religion.’ After this figure he was silent a long while, till he added: ‘It would just suit me.’”

In this passage, Jude’s idealized perception of Christminster reflects his youthful optimism and aspirations for intellectual and social advancement. However, Hardy employs dramatic