The Depiction of Women in Jude the Obscure and Hard Times

In the novels Jude the Obscure, by Thomas Hardy, and Hard Times, by Charles Dickens, the representation of women is based on the societal ideals of the time. Women are depicted as "good" only when they fall in to the Victorian way of life and repress feeling and sexuality.

The depiction of the good girl versus the depiction of the bad girl in these novels works as a tool in displaying the difference between the strict codes of the Victorian way of life for a woman and the alternative, more progressive, liberated way of life for a woman. Inevitably the novels comment on this structure and present their opinions of it through the text, and ultimately track the development of the role of women in society from Hard Times to their position in Jude the Obscure.

In Hard Times the two main women each represent a different type of woman within society; Luisa Gradgrind represents industrialism and the rejection of emotion, and Sissy Jupe represents the fancy and imagination. In the novel Sissy is presented as the one who needs to change how she acts, but it is truly Luisa who, in the end, realizes that she was the one who needed to change.

In Thomas Hardy's Jude the Obscure the main character Jude has relationships with two females throughout the course of the novel, Arabella and his cousin Sue Bridehead. These women serve to display two different types of women in society by presenting the reader with Arabella, who is extremely sexual, and with Sue, who is more intellectual and plain. Unlike Hard Times, these women are being critiqued by the standards of women's sexuality, instead of women's actual role in society.

The Gradgrind method of education produces children who are machine like, reflective of the industrialization that was happening in England during the time the novel was written. The fancy was completely banned from creeping its way in to the minds of the children; this is displayed on p. 56 where it states: "…educating the reason without stooping to the cultivation of the sentiments and affections. Never wonder." (Dickens 56). This quote displays how the fancy portion of life is cut off from nurturing and thriving in the educational setting that Gradgrind has developed for his students and children. Luisa, being his daughter, therefore represents a woman who is cold, emotionless, and rational, being taught to be this way from her father's methods.

Sissy Jupe represents a woman who is free with her affections and fancy due to the fact that she was brought up in the circus, a place which is depicted by Dickens to be a more familial institution, one which fosters imagination and play rather than reason and knowledge. On p.43 it states, "Yet there was a remarkable gentleness and childness about these people…an untiring readiness to help and pity one another, deserving often of as much respect…as the every day virtues of any class of people in the world," (Dickens 43) which displays to the reader that the place where Sissy has come from and has grown up it one of family and heart. Sissy, therefore, is made to represent the ideals of family and sentiments, being juxtaposed with Luisa to make the contrast between fancy and rationality.

In Jude the Obscure the two female characters are also placed against one another in order to comment on the roles of women and women's sexuality in society.

Arabella, who is described on p. 33 as having "…a round and prominent bosom, full lips, perfect teeth, and the rich complexion of a cochin hen's egg." (Hardy 33), is given to the reader to represent a woman who is luscious and sexual. Arabella further fits this ideal by hurling a pig's genitalia at Jude, which demonstrates her agency within the sphere of sexuality taking control of a phallus and hitting a man with it.

Placed up against the sexually charged Arabella is Sue Bridehead, Jude's cousin and eventual wife. Sue represents a more intellectual match for Jude, one who is less physically attractive and less sexual. Kathleen Blake comments on Sue Bridehead's character and states that she recognizes "…the conflict between Sue's desire to be an individual and the "femaleness that breaks her" but sets he struggle in rather narrowly personal terms so that her feminism remains disconnected from a wider Victorian framework." (Blake 704). This quote displays how Sue is a woman who is working against all of the Victorian ideals that were dominant in society at the time that this novel was written, making her a woman who represents what all women should be during this time.

The greater question that the reader must ask themselves is one of purpose. What is each author trying to convey by depicting each of these women in the particular way that they do. To answer this one must look at all of the factors surrounding the novel and its creation. The historical background of a society as well as society's views on the faculties of humanity must be examined in order to create an accurate setting for each of these stories to take place, as well as for the reader to be able to gain incite as to what the author's critique of the society is.

It is therefore important to know that during the Victorian era sex and sexuality was something that was controlled through societal ideals. Women were not able to express their sexual desires and were forced to repress them, as men were also encouraged to try and repress their sexual urges for women.

Another important component to the Victorian era was the industrial movement of England in which machines began to make processes more efficient for factories, and therefore created a new need for people who were efficient and did not waste their time focusing on "fancy" or imagination. Society now needed people who were ready to produce and participate in the newly forming ideal of capitalism, in which one must produce to consume.

In Jude the Obscure I feel that Thomas Hardy is critiquing this Victorian idea of repressing sexuality and limiting the agency of women. By presenting the reader with a woman such as Arabella, Hardy is showing the reader what sexuality would be if there were not a social mandate on it. Arabella is free to express herself freely and does not care what others think of her actions, she possesses the agency to gain power over the Victorian code, and also over Jude.

Arabella however does not end up being Jude's true love in the story, which is suspicious considering that Hardy is depicting her as a woman who is meant to change society's views on sex. My only explanation for this in the plot is that Hardy, while trying to present society with a "new woman" still had the pressures of society to basically "get rid" of Arabella within the context of the story.

This would leave Jude with Sue, while being his cousin, the girl who is more rational and less sexual. This plot would calm the anxiety that society would encounter by the sexually aggressive and revolutionary character of Arabella while placing him with the woman who more suits the Victorian ideal and also fits in to the industrial revolution due to her level of interest in education and work.

The novel does however still promote the idea that marriage itself is an institution that needs to be reformed or done away with all together. William Goetz talks about the novel's view on marriage when he states;
"Hardy suggests…that the institution of marriage is important to the novel but only as a means, not as an end…the novel's theme has to do with marriage laws, and specifically that the novel seeks to call into question the institution of marriage on the grounds of natural morality." (Goetz 190).

This quote displays how the convention of marriage is used within the text as an explanation for man's need for contractual promise within marriage, and not necessarily the type of religious bond that is commonly associated with marriage.
Marriage as an institution is being referenced as exactly that…an institution, one that is created by the governing forces and used to secure a person in to doing a certain act. Marriage is not placed in to the same context as it would be in a religious sense; it is depicted exactly the way that Sue viewed it, a meaningless contract which is more of a curse than a blessing.

In Hard Times there is a different social commentary happening having to do with the industrial revolution, one in which is the basis for the characters of Sissy and Louisa. Monroe Engel states "…he had the same fear of industry; it needs only the terrible looming animal imagery of Coketown to make clear. Dickens had no confidence ever in the healthy supercession of man's conscience by laws or things." (Engel 970) which displays how the novel works as an indicator of Dickens true feeling about industrialization in England.

The novel is indicative of the sentiments that Dickens had about people becoming machine-like such as the Gradgrind method taught, and subsequently how Louisa is raised and comes to represent.

Sissy's character was meant to be juxtaposition for everything that Louisa stood for as a character. Sissy represents femininity, a quality of industrial revolution that was becoming more and more absent from the women.
The final comparison between Sissy and Louisa is that they are almost pitted against one another as a "good" girl versus a "bad" girl. Sissy being considered, within the story, the "bad" girl who is raised outside of society's beliefs and ideals. Louisa is represented through the text as the "good" girl, doing everything that her father wishes of her while learning to be machinelike through the education system she is a victim to.

This was the threat that was posed with the gaining of technology, it made the people who were working in the society act machinelike. Mothers were becoming emotionless, and it was affecting the family adversely. Louisa represented this coldness that was happening to the children due to a lack of a mother in their lives.

The comparison that can be drawn from these two novels is in how each portrays women in the context of the stories. In Jude the Obscure you are given two women who are complete opposites, Arabella and Sue Bridehead. Each woman represents a different set of late Victorian ideals, with Sue being more of a proto-feminist in comparison to Arabella, who is more willing to be submissive to a man. In Hard Times the reader is given Sissy Jupe, who is an abandoned circus girl.

Sissy is considered bad by the society she has been adopted in to, because society wants all of its members, even children, to be productive and machinelike to mirror the changes taking place during this time in England. Louisa Gradgrind, who is considered good by her society, is cold and depictive of the lack and death of femininity during the industrial revolution.

Both sets of women have a woman who represents the bane of the present society, and in both novels that woman is the character that the reader most sympathizes with. The "good" girl in each novel is the woman that readers develop feelings of dislike for, making the reader question if what makes them "good" actually is good. I think that we are meant to believe that the values that the societies hold in each novel are wrong, and therefore that is why the main "good" girl in each novel is ultimately punished through the context of the novel.

WORKS CITED

Blake, Kathleen. "Sue Bridehead, "The Woman of the Feminist Movement"" Studies in English Literature, 1500-1900. Vol. 18, No. 4 Nineteenth Century. (Autumn, 1978), pp. 703-726.
Dickens, Charles. Hard Times. New American Library. New York, New York. 1997.
Engel, Monroe."The Politics of Dickens' Novels." PMLA. Vol. 71, No. 5. (Dec., 1956), pp. 945-974.
Goetz, William R. "The Felicity and Infelicity of Marriage in Jude the Obscure." Nineteenth-Century Fiction, Vol. 38, No. 2. (Sep., 1983), pp. 189-213.
Hardy, Thomas. Jude the Obscure. Oxford University Press. Great Claredon Street, Oxford. 2002.