An Ecocritical Reading of Thomas Hardy’s Jude the Obscure (original) (raw)
Related papers
An Ecocritical Reading of Thomas Hardy’s Far from the Madding Crowd
International Letters of Social and Humanistic Sciences, 2016
This article aims to analyze Thomas Hardy’s novel,Far from the Madding Crowd, from the perspective of ecocriticism and study where Hardy’s ecological consciousness originates from and how it is represented and interwoven in the characters, setting and plot of the novel. It also focuses on such questions as how Gabriel Oak can be the voice of harmony in nature and what does the portrayal of this character tell us about today’s ecological crises? Ecocriticism, a newly found theoretical framework, explores the ways in which how environment is illustrated in literature and, by so doing, examines and proposes possible solutions concerning our contemporary environmental situation. In an era where a long-established rustic order are giving way to the giants of technology and industrial capitalism, there remains no more appealing vision than that of England’s pastoral and green land. In his Wessex, a part real and a part dream country which is the setting for most of his works, Hardy vividl...
An Ecocritical Reading of Thomas Hardy's Far from the Madding Crowd
This article aims to analyze Thomas Hardy's novel, Far from the Madding Crowd, from the perspective of ecocriticism and study where Hardy's ecological consciousness originates from and how it is represented and interwoven in the characters, setting and plot of the novel. It also focuses on such questions as how Gabriel Oak can be the voice of harmony in nature and what does the portrayal of this character tell us about today's ecological crises? Ecocriticism, a newly found theoretical framework, explores the ways in which how the environment is illustrated in literature and, by so doing, examines and proposes possible solutions concerning our contemporary environmental situation. In an era where a long-established rustic order is giving way to the giants of technology and industrial capitalism, there remains no more appealing vision than that of England's pastoral and green land. In his Wessex, a part real and a part dream country which is the setting for most of his works, Hardy vividly and skillfully describes his vision and longs for the rustic nature of England. He lays stress to the intrinsic values of nature where men establish a harmonious relationship with their environments.
'Novels of Character and Environment': Thomas Hardy's Ecological Thought
The fiction of Thomas Hardy has tended to be read in dialogue with second-wave ecocriticism. This essay explores how bringing Hardy’s work into conversation with that of material ecocriticism offers to cast his environmental principles in a new light. Interweaving close readings of two of Hardy’s ‘Novels of Character and Environment’, The Woodlanders (1887) and The Return of the Native (1878), with detailed attention to his notebooks and poetry, I trace how Hardy both adheres to and revises critical accounts of him as a writer with biocentric principles. Beginning by tracing the representation of human-forest relations in The Woodlanders, I posit that Hardy’s exploration of non-human agency and arboreal sentience shapes a biocentric ethic that foregrounds harmonious interactions between human and non-human communities in a biodiverse ecosystem. Turning to The Return of the Native, I then consider how his evocation of geological deep time and prevalent use of anthropomorphism complicate this ethic, before arguing that humans ultimately co-construct the landscape through dwellings and locomotion. Through a discussion of Hardy’s natural imagery and its relation to human experience, a new reading emerges that throws the more established ways of dealing with his environmental principles into doubt; they become more complex and stubbornly contradictory than previous criticism has acknowledged.
Understanding Nature and Humanity: An Ecocritical Study of Thomas Hardy’s The Return of the Native
Bulletin of Advanced English Studies (BAES)
This study aims to investigate the relationship between humans, Nature, and humanity and establish a harmonious coexistence, particularly in the wake of industrialization. This article aims to analyze Thomas Hardy's novel, The Return of the Native, from an ecocritical perspective and shed light on Thomas Hardy's ecological consciousness as reflected through the novel's various characters, settings, and plot. The primary objective of this study is to assess how the novel's characters respond to and engage with environmental concerns. Another aim is to trace the evolution of the concern for Nature and humanity, from the Victorian era to the Present, among writers, artists, and intellectuals. The third and final objective is to underscore the significance of reconnecting with Nature, as depicted in the novel. This study has used the theory of ecocriticism, a relatively recent theoretical framework. It investigates the intersection of literature and the environment from an interdisciplinary viewpoint, exploring potential solutions for our contemporary environmental predicaments. It constitutes a qualitative research endeavor predominantly employing ecocritical theory to investigate the relationship between the novel's characters and the natural world. The study concludes that interconnection between humans, humanity, and the natural world is needed to avoid the consequences of environmental degradation, which is being tolerated by humankind. This paper proposes several recommendations to ameliorate contemporary environmental challenges that hold value for researchers, environmentalists, and all stakeholders committed to environmental conservation. Keywords: Ecocriticism; Ecological Awareness; Industrialization; Thomas Hardy; The Return of the Native
Contemporary Relevance in Hardys Jude the Obscure
ISSN 2278-9529 Galaxy: International Multidisciplinary Research Journal, 2013
The purpose of this paper is to concentrate on the contemporariness of Hardy’s novel, Jude the Obscure and how far it problematizes the elements of Victorian society that has relevance in connection to the context of modern society. The further focus is on Hardy’s effort to stand against the institutionalized notion of ‘Marriage’ and ‘Education’ where the female characters are portrayed as a text that reproduces the history of Victorian society. The paper also questions the strong feeling of Victorian compromise that forces Hardy to stay back. Hardy’s subversive nature is personified in the name of Jude, ultimately submits himself as a scapegoat to the Victorian social construct. Therefore, the paper is dealing with those hidden features that are yet to be explored in hardy.
Trope of Disillusionment in Thomas Hardy’s Jude The Obscure
Abstract Disillusionment is one of the major thematic thrusts of literary enterprise from the time immemorial. This foregrounds the fact that man’s disillusionment is ontological. The study investigates the trope of disillusionment in Thomas Hardy’s Jude the Obscure. The paper reveals different struggles that Jude, the eponymous character, passes through. Through Hardy’s explicit portrayal of life in Victorian society, Hardy condemns human institutions which endlessly perpetuate people in suffering, castration of hopes and limit them sociopolitically. In spite of his legitimate and lofty dreams, Jude dies like a dog. Moreover, social factor responsible for the abortion of Jude’s ambitions and ruination of his destiny are emphasised in the study. The literary relevance of Hardy’s Jude the Obscure is not limited to the Victorian period which was the time when he wrote. This assertion is based on the fact that Hardy has fictionalised the struggle of the common man in the face of helplessness. Thus, the narrative has universal and timeless significance. Disillusioned protagonist is a recurrent figure in much of the twentieth century English fiction. The trope of disillusionment is an attempt to depict the hopelessness, confusion, frustration, alienation, disintegration and estrangement of modern man. Keywords: Disillusionment, Thomas Hardy, Jude the Obscure
Thomas Hardy is considered as one of the best English writers of novels and poems. His melancholy view of man's lot caused him to examine some answers to the problem of man's destiny as he felt that man was always in conflict with the Laws of Nature. Inevitably, he became aware of the dual power of Nature: a Nature of beauty and grace, and a Nature of ugliness and cruelty. Nature in Hardy's novels becomes not only the foe against which man battles all his life, but also the real actor in lie's drama on the stage, while man was only a passive player. In Hardy's novels we find a description of the external world that is hardly rivaled. The beautiful hillside country, the sound of the wind at night, the face of a mountain, the patter of rain against the window during a stormy night etc. are parts of this external world. Hardy uses agents of Nature to spur the characters toward some tragic ending. After studying the concept of Nature in Hardy's novels, we see that Nature becomes a definite instrument-an instrument chosen to mark the sad progress of man's brief stay on earth. It will also be noticed that Nature assumes an impassive, scrutinizing ace when man acts, and that it is an impartial observer to whom man is almost sub-servant. Nature is the outside world of grass, animals, sunlight, flowers etc. It is also the external world of somber majesty-both evil and breathtaking.
Thomas Hardy’nin Jude The Obscure Eserinde Tek Boyutlu İnsan
Uludağ Üniversitesi Fen-Edebiyat Fakültesi Sosyal Bilimler Dergisi, 2018
Thomas Hardy’s Jude the Obscure (1895) successfully represents the conflict between the individuals and the bourgeois industrial society in the late Victorian period. Herbert Marcuse’s criticism of the contemporary industrial society, which is actually a one dimensional society that imposes absolute norms on the individuals who are forced to become one dimensional wo/men, is quite relevant for a critical approach on this conflict. Marcuse’s approach enables a critical analysis of the social hegemony on such characters as Jude Fawley and Sue Bridehead in the novel. The institutionalised form of social oppression on the individuals aims to force these characters to lead one dimensional lives in accordance with dominant social norms. Hence, the protection of social harmony and the established bourgeois social order depends on the subjection of these individuals to the rules of the one dimensional society. So, this article argues that, viewed from Herbert Marcuse’s perspective, social o...
"Mischaracterizing the Environment: Hardy, Darwin, and the Art of Ecological Storytelling"
Texas Studies in Literature and Language, 2020
This article reads Hardy's representation of Egdon Heath in The Return of the Native (1878) against the ecology and environmental history of English heathland to challenge a growing consensus that sees Hardy as an ecological thinker. Hardy's writings fall short of ecological understanding, I argue, because his vision of humans entangled with an animated but deeply inhuman landscape creates affective and scalar tensions that falsely cast interspecies interdependence as ominous and alienating.