Twentieth-Century Literary Criticism | Jude the Obscure Thomas Hardy - Alexander Fischler, (essay date 1981)

Alexander Fischler, (essay date 1981)

SOURCE: "A n Affinity for Birds: Kindness in Hardy's Jude the Obscure," in Studies in the Novel, Vol. XII I No. 3, 1981, pp. 250-65.

[In the following essay, Fischler comments on the bird motif in Jude the Obscure and its relation to the theme and structure of the novel.]

Though the manuscript evidence concerning the first pages of Jude the Obscure is still open to differing interpretations, those who have considered it agree on two points: (1) that the opening of the novel as we have it is not part of Hardy's original draft; and (2) that Hardy composed it, obviously with great care, after deciding that his heroine, Sue, should not be Jude's prime attraction to Christminster. The "deadly war" (p. 23) [all page references are to the New Wessex edition of Jude the Obscure, 1977] that Hardy set out to present, according to his Preface, required that Jude follow...

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