%0 Journal Article
%T The Ideological Questions of Marriage in Thomas Hardy¡¯s Jude the Obscure
%A Abbasi
%A N.
%A P.
%A Salman Saleh
%J -
%D 2015
%R https://doi.org/10.9744/kata.17.2.49-57
%X Abstract As one of the prominent ideologies of the nineteenth-century¡ª in a complex interrelation with other contemporary ideological discourses particularly femininity and marriage¡ªreligion adopts a critical stance in Hardy¡¯s presentation of characters. Breaching the religio-conventional image of femininity as ¡°Angel in the House¡± and ¡°Cow Woman,¡± Hardy¡¯s Jude the Obscure (1895) is indeed deemed to be his milestone in presenting his anti-Christian attitudes towards the contemporary religion. This study aims to present Hardy¡¯s outright hostility towards the nineteenth-century Christianity through his creation of non-conformist characters, necessitating a parallel study with other contemporary discourses regarding marriage and femininity, and conflict with the religion of the time. Hardy¡¯s magnum opus, the work on which he was to stake his final reputation as a novelist, was clearly Jude the Obscure which as a noticeable socio-religious experimentation of the late nineteenth-century, reveals Hardy¡¯s perception of new ideas about femininity and marriage by presenting the hot contemporary issues of ¡°New Woman¡± and ¡°Free Union¡± through the development and presentation of Sue Bridehead and her free union with Jude, respectively. Hardy¡¯s presentation of Sue Bridehead as a ¡°New Woman,¡± and employing the ¡°Free Union¡± in marked contrast with the nineteenth-century convention of marriage as a ¡°Bonded Pair¡± is Hardy¡¯s closing upshot of his final novelistic attempt. The non-conformist Jude and Sue are presented as figures touching the Victorian Christian standards of morality, while, the final tragic destiny of Jude and Sue¡¯s helplessness attest to the writer¡¯s substantial contribution as a Victorian male novelist to the ideologies circulating at the time
%K Thomas Hardy
%K Jude the Obscure
%K Religion
%K ¡°New Woman
%K ¡± Free Union
%U http://kata.petra.ac.id/index.php/ing/article/view/18943