Jude the Obscure

His last and most controversial novel, Jude the Obscure provoked such widespread and bitter attacks that Thomas Hardy claimed it caused him to stop writing novels. The primary causes of the uproar involved Hardy's frank treatment of sexual themes and his unconventional portrayal of the pillars of Victorian society: the British university system, marriage, and religion. Today, many consider this to be Hardy's finest work. The story involves the tragic relationship between Jude Fawley, a village stonemason who is thwarted in his aspirations to attend university and become a scholar, and Sue Bridehead, a freethinking cousin who is shunned by society for her social and sexual rebellion. Ostracized by a disapproving society, the two gradually descend into tragedy. Concerned with the annihilation of innocence, Jude the Obscure is powerful in its portrayal of suffering, rich in its evocation of nature, and tragic in its vision of life.