Study Questions

1. How does Jude learn about the University of Christminster?

2. What is Jude’s job at the beginning of the novel? How does he lose it?

3. How does Jude meet Arabella Donn?

4. What are some of the conflicts between Jude and Arabella?

5. What is Aunt Drusilla’s attitude toward Jude?

6. What does Christminster represent to Jude?

7. What circumstances shaped the lives of Jude’s parents?

8. What books does Jude read?

9. What is the attitude of people in Marygreen toward Christminster?

10. What happened to Jude’s parents?

Answers

1. Jude learns of Christminster from the schoolmaster, Richard Phillotson.

2. Jude’s job is to scare birds away from Farmer Troutham’s corn. He loses his job when the farmer catches him talking to the birds and encouraging the birds to eat the corn.

3. Jude meets Arabella near the riverbank, when she throws pig flesh at him.

4. Jude is more interested in ideas, whereas Arabella is more pragmatic.

5. Aunt Drusilla resents having to care for Jude, but is resigned to his presence.

6. Christminster represents a finer world than the one Jude knows.

7. His parents were unhappily married and poor.

8. Jude reads, among others, Caesar, Virgil, Homer, and the Bible.

9. The villagers of Marygreen are suspicious of Christminster.

10. Jude’s parents separated, then died.