ON LITTLE JUDE OF JUDE THE OBSCURE
著者 Kojima Tohru
journal or
publication title
奈良教育大学紀要. 人文・社会科学
volume 16
number 1
page range 17‑28
year 1968‑02‑29
URL http://hdl.handle.net/10105/3256
ON LITTLE JUDE OF JUDE THE OBSCURE
Tohru Kojima
Department of English and American Literature, Nara University of Education, Nara, Japan
We sometimes see mysterious people appear in the novels of Thomas Hardy. It may be natural that these men should be seen in the stories where fate swaggers, because mystery is intimately related to fate. In The Return of the Native appears
Diggory Venn on the stage, a travelling reddleman whose vocation it is to supply farmers with redding for their sheep. He is completely red-luridly red from head
to foot. This is in good harmony with the occult gloom of Egdon Heath. He is
just like the spirit of Egdon. His rapid movements remind us of 'Ninja', a master of the art of invisibility, in the Edo era. In A Pair of Blue Eyes is the uncanny Mrs.
Jethway, an old widow who leaves nothing undone to do Elf ride an injury; in The
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Woodlanders, John South, a fear-obsessed woodman who annoys Marty and Giles
by constantly saying that the elm will blow down and kill him; in The Withered Arm and Tess, Conjuror Trendle who deals in magic and spells in the remote part of Egdon Waste. These people are all eccentric and different from ordinary men.
Little Jude-Father Time, as they nickname him-is likewise a queer, enigmatical mortal. He is enveloped in a mist of mystery all through life.
In this essay, first I shall observe this poor little child from various stand- points, then speak about his real mother Arabella, and lastly examining the relation
of Hardy to Schopenhauer, consider the Buddhistic ideas in Hardy's books. Prior
to this, let me introduce a brief summary of Jude the Obscure. Jude who has
parted from the unchaste Arabella is living with his cousin Sue who has run from Phillotson, her husband. One day from Arabella comes to Jude a letter saying that she will shortly send a child born of their marriage. The child has arrived. He has strange looks and mysterious personality. Taking the careless words of his stepmother too seriously, he murders his small brother and sister, and hangs himself.
This tragedy results in Sue's remarriage with Phillotson and Jude's with Arabella.
Jude, however, is not happy and soon afterwards dies of illness.
n
It is in the spring of his twentieth year that Jude knew Arabella. After a
while she hints that a baby is coming with the result that he is unwillingly married to her. But soon after the wedding she tells him no baby is coming and that she is quite mistaken. Jude gets angry, but 'married is married'.
Her suggestion may be interpreted as a kind of trick for clutching him. But
when we carefully examine the dialogue between Arabella and Anny, a friend of
Arabella's, it sounds true that she was really mistaken and had no intention to play a trick on Jude.
'O Arabella, Arabella; you be a deep one! Mistaken! well, that's clever-it's a rale stroke of genius! It is a thing I never thought o', wi' all my experience! I never thought beyond the rale thing-not that one could sham it !'
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'Don't you be too quick to cry sham! 'Twasn't sham. I didn't know.'
It is not long before the couple have a quarrel and separate. A considerable length of time elapses from that time. It is not clarified how many years have passed, but in my estimation seven years or so. One day reaches Jude a note to that effect mentioned above. It is a complete surprise to him. It hits him hard.
The irresolute Jude brings himself to take the child on Sue's advice, though some question is on his mind. When the small boy has arrived, Sue cries, 'What
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Arabella says is true-true. I see you in him !' However, when Jude thinks of her loose morals, he feels, in spite of Sue's words, somewhat doubtful if the boy is his own. Is the child really Jude's? It is only God and Arabella herself that know it.
Hardy is a writer who always leaves behind something like a puzzle for the reader to solve.
m
Of all Hardy's children there is none so memorable as Father Time. The
figure of the boy as presented to us on his first appearance in the train is odd and interesting. He is taking a trip to his mother Arabella who treats him as an
encumbrance. A small pale-faced child with large frightened eyes, he wears a
key round his neck and has a half-ticket in his hat-band. He is looking ahead, and never turns his face to the window even when a station is reached andcalled.
A kitten in the carriage causes everyone else to laugh, but the boy only regards it mutely with saucer eyes. He seems to say in his heart: 'All laughing comes
from misapprehension. Rightly looked at there is no laughable thing under the
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sun.'
He is quite different from other children in everything. As for the looks of the boy, they are like those of an aged man-those of an octogenarian. His quaint face is immovable, and his eyes are always resting on things they (6)do not0) see in the substantial world. 'His face is like the tragic mask of Melpomene,' says Sue.
Such a figure makes us think of some phantom. The age of the child remains
unsaid. It. is left to our guess. Supposing seven years have passed since the separation of Jude and Arabella, the child is some six years old. The ages of the persons in Hardy's stories are, for the most part, not clearly told. As to the place-names of his works, they are mostly under fictitious names. Casterbridge which we often come across in his books is a false name. It's real name is Dor- chester. Christminster is Oxford and Melchester is Salisbury. Hardy shrouds in mystery what we should like to know, and is unwilling to make it known. This is the way he always adopts. Mystery exists in obscurity. Concealment will excite our curiosity.
IV
Little Jude is pessimism itself. All his words are pessimistic, and of an iron- ical and epigrammatical nature. They may be worthy of the face of a hard-to-please old man, but unbecoming to the head of a boy of six. We feel a particular interest in respect that the child says what other children can never. On the night of his arrival Sue asks the child if she looks like his father's wife. 'Well, yes; 'cept he
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seems fond of you and you of him,' answers the child. This means that the two
who are fond of each other are not called man and wife. The boy thinks that
husband and wife are those who are always quarrelling and hating each other.
This view of a married couple appears greatly distorted, but is not without some truth. On the following day Sue inquires of the boy about his name. 'I never was christened. Because, if I died in damnation, 'twould save the expense of a Christian
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funeral,' is the answer. It may sound funny at first, and evoke a laugh from us;
but when we consider its meaning well, our laugh will fade away and we shall
feel that a chill comes over us. The most frugal person could not venture such words. His reply means that he is not christened because he is wanted by nobody, and should die early. It has a close connection with what the boy says in the
conversation with his mother Sue which takes place on the night before his
tragedy.
The boy is always lost in thought, and never becomes cheerful. Sue and Jude try in vain to arouse his interest in flowers by taking him to the agricultural
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exhibition. They try every means of making him kindle and laugh like most boys, but soon find it of no use. Theyare quite at a loss how to treat the melancholy child.
On the other hand he knows well what his parents are saying and thinking.
'I am very, very sorry, father and mother. But please don't mind! -- I can't help it.
I should like the flowers very very much, if I didn't keep on thinking they'd be all
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withered in a few days!'
Pessimists take a gloomy view of things, but it is not impossible that they may occasionally beam with a laugh. Our pessimist is widely different. He does
not know what a laugh is. He endeavours to force a smile to please his parents, but it dies before it takes shape. It is a pity that he is a stranger to a smile or laugh.
His talk to his mother on the previous day of his tragedy touches our hearts and gives us the cold shivers.
'You needn't have had meunless you liked. I oughtn't to have come to 'ee-that's the truth I think that whenever children be born that are not wanted they should be killed directly, before their souls come to 'em, and not allowed to grow big and walk
(12) about.'
These å words suggest his coming horrible act. He knows that he is not wanted by anybody. When he has heard from Sue that there is going to be another baby in their family soon, he has decided to get rid of the children including himself.
Little Time tries to look on the dark side of things, and never to see the bright side of them.
The boy seemed to have begun with the generals of life, and never to have concerned himself with the particulars. To him the houses, thewillows, the obscure fields beyond,
were apparently regarded not as brick residences, pollards, meadows ; but as human
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dwellings in the abstract, vegetation, and the wide dark world.
He thinks that life holds much more evil than good, and that it is not worth living. This idea has indirectly lead to his tragic deed. It is commonly said that we can generally judge of a man by his looks. The saying is true of our agedboy.
His sad, meditative countenance of old age betrays the strange thought he has.
What have been written in the novels do not always reveal the ideas and
feelings of the author; but judging from the impression Hardy stated when he
visited the Royal Academy in May 1891, his view of lifeappears tobe set forth, to some degree, by the mouth of Little Jude. What he stated is as follows:
'They were not pictures of this spring and summer, although they seem to be so. All this green grass and fresh leaf age perished yesterday; after withering and falling, it is
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gone like a dream.'
From the above are we able to draw the idea of what they call 'Shogyo mujo' in Buddhism-evanescence of life. It is worthy of note that the aforesaid words of
the aged boy about the flowers and that remark of Hardy's have something in
commonwith each other in meaning.
V
The terrible deed of the boy is presumed to have taken place about half past six on the following morning of Remembrance Day (November llth, the day Jude and his family arrived at Christminster). Hardy described the scene thus :
At the back of the door were fixed two hooks for hanging garments, and from these the forms of the two youngest children were suspended, by a piece of box-cord round each of their necks, while from a nail a fewyards off thebody of Little Jude was hanging in a similar manner. An overturned chair was near the elder boy, and his glazed eyes were staring into the room; but those of the girl and the baby boy were closed. u(15)
This scene arouses the following questions in our minds and at the same time asks a great deal of conjecture of us. First, did the boy suspend the two bodies after murdering them? Or did he trick them into hanging themselves? It is about
three years since theboy came to Jude. Therefore his age is nine or so. For a
small boy of nine these things seem technically difficult in either case.
Next, why did this boy adopt such a method as hanging as a meansofmurder?
About this problem I shall make my imaginative power active from now. In those days (early nineteenth century) crimes such as arson, burglary, horse-stealing deserved capital punishment-hanging. In The Winters and the Palmleys (of A Few Crusted Characters) Jack, son of Mrs. Winters, was sent to the gallows simply because he stole into his lover's house in order to take back the love letters he
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had sent. In The Withered Arm (of Wessex Tales') the only son of Rhoda Brook
å was condemned to death on mere suspicion of having fired the rick. Usually hanging was carried out at the prison, but sometimes publicly done in the open as a warning to others. Such being the case,people who had seen it carriedout often talked about it. It is surmised that Father Time had probably heard such stories, and that conseqently committed that. But he is a boy who thinks deeper than others, and so it is not to be supposed that he did that under a simple idea. I think he
wanted to put an important sense on the ghastly scene; that is, that he desired to make it a caution to women against having many children. When I reflect on his great excitement in his dialogue with his mother on the night before his tragedy, I don't think that I am greatly beside the mark in my guess.
VI
Now I shall consider what part Little Time is acting in this novel. First, he strongly appeal to the public to do away with the conventionalities of human life, and show a warm sympathy with a large family. At the time of Jude it was incon- ceivable that two persons who were not legally married should live together like
man and wife. When a man and a woman lived together underthesame roof, they
had never failed to go through the legal formalities of marriage. Therefore it is no wonder that Jude's life with Sue who has left Phillotson should awaken the in- terest and curiosity of inquisitive people. Besides, at this occasion of trouble a
queer-looking child has arrived from a remote country. This strengthens the
suspicions of men more and more, and at last develops into their persecution of Jude and Sue. As a result, Jude loses his work, and can bear to stay no longer in
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this place (Aldbrickham). In answer to his son's question 'Why must we go,
father?' Jude says sorrowfully, 'Because of a cloud that has gathered over us;
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though we have wronged no man, corrupted no man, defrauded no man!' Jude is
well aware that it is no use struggling against the will of the universe, and seems resigned to evil fate. In his words of grief, however, we find his unlimited
rancour against the mercilessness of Heaven and the hardness of the world.
Selling all his things by auction he and his family go out in search of a place to
live in happily. They can not stop in one place long, but changes quarters
frequently. Finally they come back to Christminster the thought of which has
never left him, awake or asleep. But even in this city the couple can not have lodgings on account of children. This has affected the boy greatly and led to the
tragic event which can be compared with the Greek tragedy. Here we observe a
strong protest against the cold, conventional attitude of the church and the world
which regard a natural marriage or natural child as a sin. And at the same
time we notice an earnest demand for the genial compassion of people on a family with many children.
Secondly, Father Time performs an important part in changing greatly the
course of the story. Hardy often calls back the protagonist staying abroad in
order to try a new devlopment in the situation of the novel. In Tess he takes back Clare from Brazil, and causes Tess to murder Alec. Thus the story enters
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upon a new phase. In A Pair of Blue Eyes Knight comes back from the Continent,
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and Stephen from India. Both hurry to Elf ride for a reconciliation with her. In
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this way the novel approaches its climax. The return of Swithin in Two on the
Tower from Cape Town accelerates the progress of the tale with the result that it soon comes to its end. In the case of Jude the entry of Little Jude who has come from Australia serves to alter Sue's idea of God and make her resolve to get
back to her former husband Phillotson. Sue believed in no God; belittled the
conventions and formalities. She travelled quite the opposite way to Jude's. But since the tragedy in which her children perished her thoughts have completely changed. She begins to fear Heaven; she begins to attach much importance to the traditions. This is a startling change in her. This wonder is entirely due to her stepson. It is the boy that has taught her how horrible is the retribution of Heaven.
The tragic deed of Little Time becomes a turning point in the course of the story.
Soon after this Sue remarries Phillotson; and Jude also weds Arabella again,
though it is against his will. Thus the symmetrical-we may say 'architectual'- frame of the novel is completed. Were it not for the appearance of the boy, his stepmother could have no reason sufficient to return to her former man.
Thirdly, Father Time does his role well in the addition of mystery to the
story. Mystery may be said to be characteristic of Hardy. From birth till death mystery was hanging over the boy. Was he really the child of Jude? As to this there is some room for doubt. A little child with the face of an octogenarian is
supernatural enough. What the boy says are so significant and mystical that
we can not easily catch their meaning. His way of murder makes our hair stand on end. Why did he suspend the three inclusive of himself like that? His motive for this act is mysterious and unknown. In brief, Little Jude is a boy of mystery.
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A strange, hereditary superstition that marriages in the Fawleys all end tragically reigns supreme in Jude the Obscure. It produces an atmosphere of inscrutable mystery over the story. Besides this mystery, thus Little Time annexes another to the novel.
VII
The persons in Hardy's tales are mostly made by the hints Hardy got from
those he had seen, heard or read of. Accordingly I hope I am notwronginsaying
that Little Time is supposed to have been formed by a hint from some one who
was in the memory of the author. David Cecil says in his Hardy the Novelist that the boy is imaginary. I think the child is a product of reality and imagina- tion, to wit, his figure is real and his character imaginary. For I have met with some accounts which seem to be connected with the form of the boy.
In the early summer of 1886 Hardy and his wife met a mansuggestiveofLittle
(24) (25)
Jude at Mr. Gosse's. The man was Dr. Holmes. He was aged seventy-six, and
short of stature like a boy. Hardy describes him as :
His is a little figure, that of an aged boy and I found him a very bright, pleasant,
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juvenile old man.
The doctor was bright and pleasant, according to Hardy. This is the opposite of Little Time. If we say 'dismal and gloomy' in lieu of 'bright and pleasant', the doctor may be the image of our little hero. It is worth noticethatHardy employs the words 'an aged boy' for the doctor which he often uses when he speaks of the
strange boy.
In the autumn of 1891 Hardy was travelling by train with his wife to Durham.
In the carriage he saw a woman reminding us of Father Time. She is described asunder:
In the train there was a woman of various ages-hands old, frame middle-aged, and face young. What her mean age was I had no conception (28)of.
Hardy was considering the plan of Jude from 1891. So I am inclined to think that the strange"figures of these people had some effect upon the idea of the image of the poor boy.
Here I take a third powerful canditate for the aspect of Little Time. It is a
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ghost in Dickens' A Christmas Carol. Dickens wrote the tale in 1843. It is clear
(29) (30) (31)
that Hardys works are somewhat influenced by Dickens. Chew, Brown, Beach
respectively talk about it in their books on Hardy. Especially Chew emphasizes
it in his Thomas Hardy. In the contrasting scenes of comedy and pathos in
Hardy's novels we often find the manner of Dickens. In the First of the Three Spirits of Stave II, A Christmas Carol, appears the Ghost of Christmas Past. It looks like an aged boy. The following is the passage of it:
It was a strange figure-like a child; yet not so like a child as like an old man Its hair, which hung about its neck and down its back, was white as ifwithage; and yet the face had not a wrinkle in it.
It seems to me that this ghost has also some relationto Father Time. I do not know which was the most influential of the above three in giving a hint as to the figure of the boy. On the other hand, it is quite possible that they may have
nothing to do with the boy contrary to my thought. However, I should like to
conjecture that they were fused into one-Little Time. Is it irrelevant and wide of the mark to guess like this?
When Hardy was born, he was thrown aside as dead by his surgeon. But he
was rescued by the proper treatment of his estimable nurse.(32) Such being the case, he "was fragile and late in physical development, though mentally precocious. Here is what he said about himself:
He himself said humorously in later years that he was a child till he was sixteen, a
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youth till he was five-and-twenty, and a young man till he was nearly fifty.
From such a passage Hardy appears to have felt much interest in a figure out of proportion with age. We should take notice of the fact that he was mentally precocious and physically underdeveloped when a boy.
Arabella Donn is the daughter of a small pig-breeder near Marygreen. She is in a marked contrast to Sue. Sue is well-educated, but Arabella uncultured; Sue
is nervous, but Arabella an optimist taking things easy. The former is so
indifferent to sex that one thinks her sexless; while the latter highly sexed and
amorous. It may be the work of Fate that a child like Father Time is born of
such a woman. There is an old saying, 'The sins of the mother are visited on the children.' Arabella's role is important; she is an impellent force of the tragedy ofthisstory. Sheactsas if she werea witch who works according to the direction of the black Fate. She disappears as suddenly as she appears. Whenever she makes
her appearance, she sows the seeds of a new trouble. It is wonderful that
everything should go as she plans. And yet she makes no errors in her scheme.
