An Analysis Of Idealism In Thomas Hardy’s Jude The Obscure

(1)

AN ANALYSIS OF IDEALISM IN THOMAS HARDY’S JUDE THE OBSCURE

A THESIS

BY

ANNA CLOVA SARAGIH REG. NO 070705041

ENGLISH DEPARTMENT FACULTY OF LETTERS

UNIVERSITY OF SUMATERA UTARA MEDAN


(2)

AUTHOR DECLARATION

I, Anna Clova Saragih, declare that I am the sole author of this thesis. Except where

references are made in text of this thesis, this thesis contains no material published else where or extracted in whole or in part from a thesis by which I have qualified for awarded another degree.

No other person’s work has been used without due acknowledgement in the main text of the thesis. This thesis has not been submitted for aware of another degree in any tertiary

education.

Signed : Date :


(3)

COPYRIGHT DECLARATION Name : Anna Clova Saragih

Title of this thesis : An Analysis of Idealism in Thomas Hardy’s Jude the Obscure

Qualification : S-1/ Sarjana Sastra Department : English

I am willing that my thesis should be available for reproduction at the discretion on the librarian of the English Department, Faculty of Letters, University of Sumatera Utara on the understanding that users are made aware of their obligation under law of the Republic of Indonesia.

Signed : Date :


(4)

ABSTRACT

Skripsi ini berjudul An Analysis of Idealism in Thomas Hardy’s Jude the Obscure. Skripsi ini merupakan sebuah studi analisa Idealisme dalam sebuah novel berjudul Jude the Obscure karya Thomas Hardy. Idealisme pada dasarnya adalah sebuah paham yang mengagungkan ide-ide dalam pikiran manusia yang coba diterapkan dalam realitas kehidupan yang senantiasa mengharapkan kesempurnaan dlam hidup. Idealism memiliki banyak ide, cirri khas, konsep atau pemikiran, dan unsure-unsur yang beragam. Dalam skripsi ini, unsur-unsur idealisme yang dikaji adalah unsur-unsur-unsur-unsur idealism yang terdapat pada novel itu sendiri dan juga unsur-unsur idealisme yang terdapat dalam dua karakter utama dalam novel ini yaitu Jude Fawley dan Sue Bridehead melalui cara pikir dan sifat-sifat dari dua karakter ini.

Tujuan dari pembahasan ini adalah untuk mengetahui apakah unsur-unsur idealisme yang terdapat dalam novel Jude the Obscure dan yang terdapat dalam dua karakter utama dalam novel ini. Dan setelah melakuka n pembahasan dengan menggunakan novel Jude the Obscure dan buku-buku lain yang berhubungan dengan idealisme, maka diperoleh hasil bahwa dalam novel tersebut dan pada kedua karakter utama ditemukan beberapa unsur-unsur idealisme seperti penekanan pada imajinasi, kertertarikan pada suatu hal/benda secara berlebihan, dan perasaan cinta romantis yang akhirnya menimbulkan depresi karena tidak bisa menerima kenyataan yang tidak sesuai dengan harapan.


(5)

TABLE OF CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ... vii

AUTHOR’S DECLARATION ... ix

COPYRIGHT DECLARATION ... x

ABSTRACT ... xi

TABLE OF CONTENTS ... xii

CHAPTER I INTODUCTION 1.1 The Background of Analysis ... 1

1.2 The Problem of Analysis ... 3

1.3 The Objective of Analysis ... 4

1.4 The Scope of Analysis ... 4

1.5 The Significance of Analysis ... 4

1.6 Review of Related Literature ... 5

CHAPTER II THEORITICAL REVIEW 2.1 Literature... 6

2.2 The Relation between idea and literature ... 6

2.3 The Historical of Idealism ... 7


(6)

CHAPTER III METHODOLOGY

3.1 Analyzing Data ... 14

3.2 Collecting Data ... 14

3.3 Data and Source of Data ... 15

CHAPTER IV ANALYSIS OF IDEALISM ... 16

CHAPTER V CONCLUSION AND SUGGESTION 5.1 Conclusion ... 52

5.2 Suggestion ... 52

BIBLIOGRAPHY ………... 53

BIOGRAPHY………..54


(7)

ABSTRACT

Skripsi ini berjudul An Analysis of Idealism in Thomas Hardy’s Jude the Obscure. Skripsi ini merupakan sebuah studi analisa Idealisme dalam sebuah novel berjudul Jude the Obscure karya Thomas Hardy. Idealisme pada dasarnya adalah sebuah paham yang mengagungkan ide-ide dalam pikiran manusia yang coba diterapkan dalam realitas kehidupan yang senantiasa mengharapkan kesempurnaan dlam hidup. Idealism memiliki banyak ide, cirri khas, konsep atau pemikiran, dan unsure-unsur yang beragam. Dalam skripsi ini, unsur-unsur idealisme yang dikaji adalah unsur-unsur-unsur-unsur idealism yang terdapat pada novel itu sendiri dan juga unsur-unsur idealisme yang terdapat dalam dua karakter utama dalam novel ini yaitu Jude Fawley dan Sue Bridehead melalui cara pikir dan sifat-sifat dari dua karakter ini.

Tujuan dari pembahasan ini adalah untuk mengetahui apakah unsur-unsur idealisme yang terdapat dalam novel Jude the Obscure dan yang terdapat dalam dua karakter utama dalam novel ini. Dan setelah melakuka n pembahasan dengan menggunakan novel Jude the Obscure dan buku-buku lain yang berhubungan dengan idealisme, maka diperoleh hasil bahwa dalam novel tersebut dan pada kedua karakter utama ditemukan beberapa unsur-unsur idealisme seperti penekanan pada imajinasi, kertertarikan pada suatu hal/benda secara berlebihan, dan perasaan cinta romantis yang akhirnya menimbulkan depresi karena tidak bisa menerima kenyataan yang tidak sesuai dengan harapan.


(8)

CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION

1.1The Background of Analysis

Literature, in general, is life experience which is uttered become a beautiful writing. Its beauty may gives sense to the reader even gives strong effect to the reader. The statement is supported by Taylor in his book Understanding the Element of Literature (1981:1) who says that: Literature, like the other arts, is essentially an imaginative of fact, that is, an act of the writer’s imagination in selection, ordering, and interpreting life- experience. It means that the raw material of literature is experience. Anything that we face in our daily life can be made to be literary works. The problem is how the writer creates it into beautiful words and makes sense to the reader. However, the quality of the experience can be seen from the complex structure of words that the writer creates.

Literary work should have artistic meaning and has good value as the meaning from Oxford Dictionary: ‘Literature is writings valued as works of art, esp. novels, plays and poems’. It means that we should choose the best word in doing literary work. The words are not words that we use in daily life but the words should have artistic meaning that makes the reader is eager to read the literary work. Literary work is hoped can give the reader moral lessons and good effect in daily life.

In writing a literary work, the writer exactly has special purpose. The greatest pleasure and satisfaction to be found in literary occurs where it brings one back to reality of human situations, problems, feelings, and relationship (Moody, 1963:3). It may have meaning that we can see several of human behaviours which are acted out by characters in a literary work. That is why a literary work should provide lesson to the readers how to solve the problems


(9)

There are three genres in literature; they are poetry, drama and prose and this thesis is going to discuss prose as one of the literary works. The word prose is derived from the Latin ‘prosa’, which is literally translated to ‘straightforward’. Roberts (1995:2) classifies prose into two, fiction prose, which is made based on the author’s creation and imagination, and non- fiction prose which describes facts or opinion.

Literature relates to literary movement. One of the literary movement that quite popular is Idealism. In literature, Idealism means the thoughts or the ideas of the writer. Idealism refers to a tradition in thought that represents things of a perfect form. In this way, it represents a human perfect being or circumstance. Philosophical idealism is associated with Plato and this philosophy is also reflected in a novel, Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy.

Thomas Hardy (1840 - 1928) is an idealist writer. His idealism is reflected in the characters of his last novel Jude the Obscure. Certainly, there are other parallels between Hardy’s own life and the portrayal of Jude, though it was far from autobiographical. Hardy himself was apprenticed to an architect, Jude, a stone mason who does church reconstruction, like Hardy’s father. Hardy studied Greek on his own, as Jude does. Finally, at age twenty-six, Hardy was in love with his cousin. It is difficult not to believe that this was the source for the character of Sue Bridehead in this novel. It is clear that Hardy preferred to write about the world of his childhood and adolescence rather than the more sophisticated world in which he moved as an adult. Hardy realizes that his idealism is not good and it makes his life becomes obscure and absurd.

Jude the Obscure is the last novel written by Thomas Hardy because from 1895 to 1928 he devoted himself to poetry. The novel is a story about Jude Fawley who dreams of attending university, spending time discoursing with other scholars about the Classics. However, he is unable to fulfil his dream and becomes a working man but never completely giving up his dream. Jude lived a vision of idealism that couldn’t be manifested, and because


(10)

of that vision, he was not able to accept the world as it was. Part of Jude's tragedy arises from his incurable idealism. As a child he is fascinated with Christminster, a shining ideal of intellectual life. Similarly, he idealizes Sue as the perfect intellectual woman, but here too he is disillusioned and frustrated. Christminster, the intellectual ideal, and Sue, the ideal of womanhood, promise fulfilment, and both frustrate him. All his hard work and earnest effort at mastering Greek and Latin come to nothing, and despite his great patience with Sue and devotion to her, he loses his job, his children and finally even his title as husband.

The way of Hardy applies his idealism in this novel through the two major characters (Jude Fawley and Sue Bridehead) fascinated me to do a research. In this thesis I want to represent an analysis of how the idealism is reflected in the two major characters of the novel Jude the Obscure.

1.2The Problem of Analysis

It is important to make the specification of problems which are going to be analyzed. It helps me to avoid the ambiguity of the analysis and get the clear description about the object of the analysis itself. So in this thesis I decide some problems that should be analyzed. They are:

1. What are the characteristics of Idealism which reflected in the two major characters in Thomas Hardy’s Jude the Obscure?

2. How is Idealism reflected in the two major characters of Thomas Hardy’s Jude the Obscure?


(11)

The objectives of the analysis are:

1. To describe the characteristics of Idealism reflected in two major characters in Thomas Hardy’s Jude the Obscure.

2. To describe the reflection of Idealism in the two major characters of Thomas Hardy’s Jude the Obscure.

1.4The Scope of Analysis

Idealism in general can also be found in many fields of knowledge as philosophy, literary works, religion, and science. In order to avoid wider analysis, I want to focus my attention to idealism in literary works, especially in characters of a novel. In this thesis I would like to analyze the reflection of Idealism in the two major characters of Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy.

1.5The Significance of Analysis

The analysis of this thesis is expected to be able to give significance for the reader, both theoretical and practical. Theoretically, the significance is to enrich the literary idealism studies through novel. Practically, it shows the characteristics of idealism in Thomas Hardy’s novel Jude the Obscure and how idealism is reflected in the major characters of novel. I hope this analysis would be useful for the readers to enrich their knowledge especially for literature students who have interest in this kind of analysis.


(12)

To support the writing of this thesis I use some books as the source data. These sources are:

1. Theory of Literature (1965) by Rene Wellek and Austin Warren. It contains the theory of literature. The book helps me to know more about theory of literature. According to the book, there are two approaches in analyzing literary works; they are intrinsic and extrinsic approach. Intrinsic approach emphasizes its analysis on texts of literary works, while on the other hand, extrinsic approach relates to the literary works and the other subjects such as biography, philosophy, sociology, etc. This book also explains about idea that related to the topic.

2. Literature: An Introducing to Reading and Writing (1955, Fourth Edition) by Edgar Roberts and Henry E. Jacob. This book is about kinds of literature. The book also helps me how to read and write this thesis well.

3. Critical Approaches to the Fiction of Thomas Hardy (1979) by Dale Kramer. This book discusses about the criticism of some Hardy’s novel. From the book I know more about Hardy’s works.

4. Growth of Idea (1965) by Sir Julian Huxley. This book is about kinds of Ideas and its growth. It helps me to understand about Idealism and its characteristics.

5. The Life and Work of Thomas Hardy (1984) by Michael Millgate. This book contains all about Thomas Hardy. It helps me how to understand more about Thomas hardy and his works.


(13)

CHAPTER II

REVIEW OF LITERATURE 2.1 Literature

Literature is derived from to compositions that tell stories, dramatize situation, express emotions, and analyze ideas. The ‘compositions’ is synonymous to fictitious writing which is far from scientific writing. Literature, in general, is life experience which is uttered become a beautiful writing. Its beauty may gives sense to the reader even gives strong effect to the reader. The statement is supported by Taylor in his book Understanding the Element of Literature (1981:1) who says that: Literature, like the other arts, is essentially an imaginative of fact, that is, an act of the writer’s imagination in selection, ordering, and interpreting life- experience. It means that the raw material of literature is experience. Literature is also containing more feeling than reasoning. As what Wellek (1965: 1) has stated that the subject matter of literature is irrational or at least contains strongly irrational elements.

Sometimes there are some literary works that can not be understood simply when we are reading it because the contents are based on the opinion of the writer. We should know who the writer is and the background of the writer. Literature has large insight to see. Its connection to philosophy, sociology and even psychology has made literature full of ideas which are not easy to understand simply.

Roberts (1995: 1) suggests that literature helps us grow, both personally and intellectually. It provides an objective base for knowledge and understanding. It makes a connection between culture, philosophical and religious world which are apart. It enables us to recognize human dreams and struggle in different places and times. It also helps us develop maturity, sensibility and also compassion for the condition of all living things, like human and animals.


(14)

Literature can be also said as a product of mind. It has its own system for its own world. The way literature comes is not like the wind passes by. It may be based on observation through imagination which is shaped systematically. Thus, literature is a kind of knowledge or science at the very base, though it is not objectively arranged. Literature is also like philosophy or history which belongs to humanly social knowledge. For that reason, it is worthless arguing literature whether it is science or not. At least, it offers understanding of what man is. In short, we could say that literature is a kind of mirror to see our own faces in terms of humanity understanding.

Commonly, there are three genres in literature; they are poetry, drama and prose. Poetry is the oldest genre in literary history. Its earliest examples were found in Greek literature. In spite of this long tradition, it is harder to define it than any other genres. Poetry is closely related to the term “lyric” which derived etymologically from the Greek musical instrument “lyra” (‘lyre’ or ‘harp’) and pointed to an origin in the sphere of music. The term “poetry”, however, goes back to the Greek word “poieo” which means “to make” or “to produce” while the poet is the person who makes verse.

Drama is literature designed to be performed by actors. Like fiction, drama may focus on a single character or a small number of characters, and it acts fictional events as if they were happening in the present, to be witnessed by the audience. Although most modern drama use prose dialogue, in the belief that dramatic speech should be as lifelike as possible, many drama from the past, like those of ancient Greek and Renaissance England are in poetic form (Roberts, 1995: 2).

Prose is derived from the Latin ‘prosa’, which is literally translated to ‘straightforward’. Roberts (1995:2) classifies prose into two, fiction prose, which is created, based on the author’s creation and imagination, and non- fiction prose which describes facts


(15)

or opinion and the new form of such kind of prose was then called “novel” (novel means ‘new’).

The word “novel” is derived from Italian word “novella” that used to describe a short, compact, broadly realistic popular tale during the medieval period. By about 1700 is had got something like its present meaning which, as the Oxford Dictionary gives the meaning, ‘a factious prose narrative of considerable length in which characters and actions representative of real life are portrayed in a plot of more or less complexity’. In other word, a novel, as we understand it today, is a larger story, more realistic and more complicated than the Italian novella. Taylor (1981: 460) says novel is a form of literary work. Novel is normally a prose work of quite some length and complexity which attempts to reflect and express something of the quality or value of human experience. Therefore, novel created by author to represent their life experience that they put in written form.

Novel deals with a human character in a social situation, man as a social being. Novel places more emphasis on character, especially one well- rounded character than on plot. Another initial major characteristic of the novel is realism- a full and authentic report of human life. Novel also can be considered as a work of imagination that is grounded in reality. On the other hand, during the middle ages a popular literary form was the romance, a type of tale that describes the adventures, both natural and supernatural, of such figures of legend as the King Arthur and his knights. Thus, the modern novel is rooted in two traditions, the mimetic and the fantastic, or the realistic and the romantic and we should know how to approach it in order to understand the content clearly.

As Wellek says in Theory of Literature (1977: 75-135), literature has two approaches: intrinsic and extrinsic method. The intrinsic approach is the analysis of literary works which focuses merely on the text of literary work. The most common intrinsic elements which are very important in literature or fiction are character, theme, plot and structure.


(16)

All the intrinsic elements have its own function to build a good literary work. It depends on the writers how to combine all the elements in the literary work, and characters as the most important element have many requirements to fulfil by the writers. Hereby, I use character element to analyze this thesis, named characterization.

2.1.1 Characterization

Since the 19th century, the art of creating characters, as practised by actors or writers, has been call conveying speech, or thoughts. Later and more generally, "character" came to mean a distinctive mark by which one thing was distinguished from others, and then primarily to mean the assemblage of qualities that distinguish one individual from another. In modern usage, this emphasis on distinctiveness or individuality tends to merge “character” with “personality.”

The term “character” indicates to the person or the actor of a story. We learn about the characters through dialogue, action and the description from the writer. Characterization is also the fictional or artistic presentation of fictional personage. The term “good character” may have ambiguous meanings. It may mean that the personage is virtuous or it may mean that the character is well –presented whatever his or her characterization or moral qualities.

Characterization is very important for readers and for people who want to write fiction, such as short story, novel and drama. If we want to perform drama in the stage, we have to look for suitable person toward the character. The character should be suited to his or her role. It will make the drama become alive. A proper characterization for each character will give the satisfaction to the audiences.


(17)

There are two ways an 1) Direct or

The author literally tells the audience what a character is like. This may be done via the

2) Indirect or

The audience must deduce for themselves what the character is like through the character’s thoughts, actions, speech (choice of words, way of talking), looks and interaction with other characters, including other characters’ reactions to that particular person.

Characterization in literary fiction has special importance, and authors need to develop their own sense of responsibility for full and effective character development. Character is everything in literary fiction. Not that character replaces plot and setting or theme and meaning, but character intimately relates to all those. Although characters are sometimes categorized as round or flat, every character in fiction must have complexities and uniqueness that may or may not be written on the page. A character that does not need to be fully presented for the story may appear two dimensional, but there should be three dimensions in the creator’s mind.

The character will be adopted by the reader, and the characters will drive the momentum of the plot. The character must be unique, but remain believable. The character must not be stereotypical, yet must feel comfortable to the reader in a familiar way. Stories, to be great, should be significant and meaningful. A major way for an author to achieve these qualities in storytelling is through effective characterization.

There are three fundamental methods of characterization in fiction: (1). The explicit presentations by the author of the character through direct exposition either in an introductory block or more often piecemeal throughout word illustrated by action, (2). The presentation as


(18)

character in action, with little no explicit comment by the author, in the expectation that the reader will able to deduce that attributes of the actor from actions, (3). The presentations of character from within the character without comment on the character by the author, of the impact of actions and emotions upon character’s inner self with the expectations that the reader will come to the clear understanding of the character.

Furthermore, a character may be either static or dynamic. A static character is the flat character that changes without little changes if at all in the progress of the narrative. Static characters are minor characters in a work of fiction that do not undergo substantial change or growth in the course of a story. Things happen to the character without things happening within him. The pattern of action reveals the character rather than showing the character changing in response to the actions. Sometimes a static character gives the appearance of changing simply because our picture of the character is revealed bit by bit. They play a supporting role to the main character, which as the rule should be round or complex. Though we don’t generally strive to write static characters, they are often necessary in a story along with dynamic character. A dynamic character is also called round character. It is a major character in a work of fiction that encounters conflict and is changed by it. Dynamic characters tend to be more fully developed and described than flat or static characters.


(19)

2.1.2 Relation between Literature with Ideas

The analysis of literary works which based on biography, psychology, society, ideas, or the other arts is usually called extrinsic approach (Wellek, 1977: 75-135). The extrinsic element is element of literature that comes not from the literary work, but from the outside of it. They offer some of the oldest prose writings in existence; novels and prose stories earned the names historically have crafted in prose. Philosophy, too, has become an increasingly academic discipline. More of its practitioners lament this situation than occurs with the sciences; nonetheless most new philosophical work appears in through history: as any writers.

In the narrowest sense, an idea is just whatever is before the Very often, ideas are construed as to be feature of

The framework of ideas on which civilization depends grows out of a continuing interaction between, on the one hand, historical events, new social situations, and new discoveries, and, on the other hand, the minds of thinking and imaginative men.

The relation between literature and ideas can be conceived in very diverse way. Rudolf Unger in Wellek, 1976: 115 says that literature is not philosophical translated into imaginary and verse, but that literature expresses a general attitude toward life.

Literature can be treated as document in the history of ideas and philosophy, for literary history, parallels and reflects intellectual history. History of ideas is simply a specific


(20)

approach to general history of thought using literature only as document and illustration. It recognized that though is frequently determined by assumption.

2.2 Historical Perspective of Idealism

Idealism influenced Europe through literature. A major player in this would be Immanuel Kant. He delivered a blow against faith by writing a book entitled Critique of Pure Reason. Idealism was applied when His actions publicly showed that he disregarded the pope. He planned to rule not off faith, but with logical and scientific decision. Another example of idealism was found in Germany with the Burschenschaft. They were educated students who did not support their opinions with religious doctrines, but used rational principles to dictate their decisions. This action was significant to other ideologies because the Carlsbad Decrees were issued by Metternich to stop the idealistic thought of the Burschenschaft. Idealism was direct threat to conservatism.

The nineteenth century movement called German Idealism grew from the highly independent character of the Enlightenment in Germany. The main features of the movement were the mind-dependence of reality, the dominance of thought over sensation, universalized ethics, and natural teleology.

Kant’s idea of inner freedom became the inspiration for creative genius; the resulting aesthetic-ethical idealism manifested in the work of Lessing, Herder, Goethe, Schiller and many others. However, the absolute reality of nature was equally important to these poets; thus, an absolute consciousness from which the individual consciousness could be deduced was posited to eliminate the unknowable real world of the Kantian system.


(21)

Inspired by this turn, German Idealism became Absolute Idealism through the philosophies of with reality as an individual manifestation of the absolute mind. Absolute Idealism reached its peak with the philosophy of Hegel. Hegel makes the impulse of the absolute mind a gradual and self-determined process, by which the Absolute lifts itself from mere possibility and actuality to conscious, free, and necessary possession. For Hegel, the whole process is timeless, and only to a finite mind does it appear as an endless procession in time and space. Schelling, who coined the term “the Absolute,” disagreed with Hegel’s idea that the Absolute was spirit, preferring to say the Absolute is the identity of subject and object. In the late nineteenth century, German Idealism as Absolute Idealism became influential in British philosophy through the works of Bernard Bosanquet and F. H. Bradley, and in the United States through the works of Josiah Royce.

German philosophers of the generation after Kant such as, Friedrich von Schelling and Johann Fichte were all deeply influenced by his teaching. They thought of themselves as Kantians, even when they developed his theories in romantic and idealist ways that he would have condemned. Kant had rejected speculative metaphysics and put forward instead a critical metaphysics, but his successors, starting from his arguments, developed the boldest forms of metaphysics speculation. Kant said that we understand only the phenomenal world on which we impose the categories of our reason; we cannot know reality itself. His successors abandoned this distinction between the phenomenal and the real. They held that reality itself was knowable, and must therefore possess characteristics that correspond to the rational categories of the knowing mind. Reality was thus a form of spirit or idea or “absolute reason.” Hence the name “idealism.”


(22)

The leading champions of this new idealism were trained in theology, but troubled by religious doubts. Whereas Kant had turned to philosophy after a close study of Newtonian physics, his German successors Johann Fichte (1762-1814), Friedrich von Schelling (1775-1854), and Friedrich Schleirmacher (1768-1834) began as theological students. They looked to philosophy for the certainty they had failed to find in religion. Fichte argued that idealism, in which knowledge of reality is built on the idea, or consciousness, was the alternative to “dogmatism,” in which one tried to pass from reality to the idea. He added that philosophical knowledge must be knowledge of being; the possibility of perfect knowledge of being; the possibility of perfect knowledge entailed the existence of a perfect Being, namely God. For Schelling, Absolute Reason was the basis of reality, and the very imperfection of the actual became a ground for believing that God, though not yet fully in being, was in process of becoming. Schleiermacher asserted that religion was based on faith, a disposition to believe without evidence. Fichte, Schelling, and Schliermacher made great demands of philosophy. They turned to it with a passion quite distinct from the calm intellectual curiosity of 18th-century philosophers. They yearned for certainty about the nature of the universe and the meaning of life. Kant as well as Locke and Hume, was content to forego this.

These emotional demands often led to a union of idealism with romanticism. Kant’s critique of rationalistic metaphysics was taken by many of his successors as a critique of all rationalism. If reason could not prove that reality or God or morality existed, then feeling and imagination must take the place of reason. Philosophy, breaking away from the science to which Kant had sought to tie it, was linked instead with poetry, which in turn abandoned the formal rules of prosody upheld in the 18th century to become “the true voice of feeling.”

In its development, idealism became linked with romanticism. Since Kant had convinced men that reason could not reveal reality, they sought it instead from feeling and


(23)

view. He intended his painting of Newton to represent the enemies of imagination – rational philosophy and empirical science. German Idealism has affected many fields other than philosophy including the positive sciences, poetry, art, and theology. The philosophy of Georg Hegel came late to Britain – about 40 years after his death in 1830. In the last quarter of the century, while it was little heeded in Germany, Hegel’s Idealism was the prevailing opinion in Britain.

“ideal” in the dictionary sense. Most interpreters, ancient and modern, hold that Plato does not describe the Forms as being in any mind. Instead, he describes them as having their own independent existence for which the textual evidence is adduced from various translations of the dialogues. Indeed, some anti-idealist commentators say that in the dialogues Socrates often denies the reality of the material world. However, it is clear that the Platonic Socrates merely denies the ideal reality of the non-ideal realm, which he sometimes compares to shadows. An exact interpretation of the dialogues, which are notoriously misrepresented, involves knowledge of linguistics, hermeneutics, philology, semantics, and the philosophy of language, as well as good grounding in classical studies. Athenian Greek philosophical terms, like most English abstract nouns, have more than one meaning. It seems clear that Plato is not, at any rate, a subjective idealist, unlike Berkeley.

Plato's attention to the modern European philosophical problem of knowing external objects—the question that is often attributed to Descartes, Locke, Berkeley, and other early modern philosophers. According to certain materialistic interpretations of Plato, which construe matter as an entirely external reality, the Forms of which the Cave-dwellers are ignorant are not external to them in the way that so-called material objects are for modern thinkers. Again,


(24)

some anti-idealistic readers hold that for Plato the Forms are true realities, but they are not outside of us in a spatial sense like material objects, which some natural scientists call physical bodies. For these interpreters, one might say, the issue that Plato's allegory addresses is the problem of how one can know what is truly real and good theme which apparently is opposed to the so-called modern question of our knowledge of the external world.

It is usual to place in contras denies that intelligible, but that it is immanent in the things of nature, whereas it is put into the products of art. It is more correct, therefore, to call his teaching an immanent idealism as contrasted with the that moral and esthetic idealism which permeated Greek life, thought, and action; but for both, what lies deepest down in their philosophy is the conviction that the first and highest principle of all things is the one perfect spiritual Being which they call they lead back, by means of intermediate principles--essence and form, purpose and law--the multifarious individual beings of the visible world.

In this sense idealism in the genuine meaning of the term. From him comes the definition of archetypes, permanent and incommunicable, which are contained in the Divine intelligence. And though they neither begin to be nor cease, yet upon them are patterned the manifold things of the world that come into being and pass away. Upon these mind and reason (mente ac ratione), a power, as it were, of


(25)

and well adjusted to the things which it would fain behold.

This line of thought the ideology. Their theory is described not as idealism, but as realism; but this does not imply that they are in conflict with the principles possess real validity, that as corresponding to them are called into existence, while, as forms and essences, they really exist in nature and are not really products of our thinking. In this last-named sense, i.e., as subjective constructions, and especially by th This mere names (nomina), which have as their counterparts in the world of reality individual things, but not forms or essences or purposes. This opinion, which robs both moral principles of their universal validity, and which paves the way for century onwards, it had its champions and propagators, notabl untrained mind it was easier to consider individual things as the only realities and to regard forms and essences as purel

So it came to pass that the wor meaning of “representation”, “mental image”, and the like. Hence too, there was gradually introduced the terminology which we find in the writings of Berkeley, and according to which idealism is the


(26)

denies the reality of the physical world. This sort of idealism is just the reverse of that which was held by the the reality of ideal principles by confining them exclusively to the thinking subject; it is a spurious idealism which deserves rather the name “phenomenalism” (phenomenon, “appearance”, as opposed to noumenon, “the object of thought”).

Any man who carries his theoretical even in his everyday experience he is forever reminding himself of the purely subjective character of his perceptions will simply find himself flung out of the natural course and direction of life, stripped of all normal feeling and interest, and sooner or later confronted with the danger of losing his mind completely.

2.3 Definitions and Characteristics of Idealism

In discussing this term and its meaning, reference must be had to the cognate expressions, idealist, idealized, ideal (adjective), and the ideal (noun), all of which are derived from the Greek idéa. This signifies “image”, “figure”, “form”: it can be used in the sense of “likeness”, or “copy” as well as in that of “type”, “model”, or “pattern”: it is this latter sense that finds expression in “ideal”, and “the ideal” and the derivatives are mentioned above. In speaking of “the ideal”, what we have in mind is not a copy of any perceptible object, but a type. The artist is said to “idealize” his subject when he represents it as a fairer, nobler, and more perfect than it is in reality.

Idealism in life is the characteristic of those who regard th influence of


(27)

visible world is simply a copy of a supersensible, intelligible, ideal world, and consequently “things” are but the impress stamped on reality by that which is of a higher, spiritual nature.

Idealism is the metaphysical view that associates reality to ideas in the mind rather than to material objects. It lays emphasis on the mental or spiritual components of experience, and renounces the notion of material existence. Idealism is the philosophical theory which maintains that experience is known for certain are just ideas the ideas of the writer. Idealism sometimes refers to a tradition in thought that represents things of a perfect form, as in the fields of ethics, morality, aesthetics, and value. In this way, it represents a human perfect being or circumstance.

Idealism is a philosophical movement in Western thought, but is not entirely limited to the West, and names a number of philosophical positions with sometimes quite different tendencies and implications in politics and ethics; for instance, at least in popular culture, philosophical idealism is associated with Plato and the school of Platonism.

Idealism consists of eleven types. They are:

1.

between human experience of the external world, and that world itself, in which objects are nothing more than collections (or bundles) of sense data in those who perceive them. Proponents include

2.


(28)

the observer. Proponents include a

3.

‘grounded’ idealism contrasting the Transcendental Idealism of the Absolute idealism of

4.

in the eighteenth century. Kant's doctrine maintains that human experience of things is similar to the way they appear to us — implying a fundamentally subject-based component, rather than being an activity that directly (and therefore without any obvious causal link) comprehends the things as they are in and of themselves.

5.

matter, is the ground of all being. It is a monistic theory because it holds that there is only one type of thing in the universe, and a form of idealism because it holds that one thing to be consciousness. In India this concept is central to Vedanta philosophy. Proponents include

6.

inclusive whole. Hegel asserted that in order for the thinking subject (human reason or consciousness) to be able to know its object (the world) at all, there must be in some sense an identity of thought and being.

7.

that was influential in Britain from the mid-nineteenth century to the early twentieth century. The leading figures in the movement were


(29)

8. Pluralistic Idealism is the view that there are many individual minds which together underlie the existence of the observed world. Unlike absolute idealism, pluralistic idealism does not assume the existence of a single ultimate mental reality or Absolute. According to pluralistic idealism, it is individual minds which make possible the existence of the physical universe. Proponents include

9. Personal Idealism also known as

underlie reality are the minds of persons. Proponents include

10. what one knows about an object exists only in one’s mind. It is opposed to epistemological realism. Proponents include

11. Theistic Idealism was founded by the 19th-century philosopher theory of the world ground, in which all things find their unity; it has been widely accepted by theistic philosophers and Protestant theologians.

12. which at its root emanates from God (Brahman, Purusha or Svayam bhagavan), is the essence or meaning of the phenomenal reality. The presence of idealist concepts in Indian thought has been emphasized b ideas have also been developed b


(30)

The strongest characteristic of Idealism is that nothing is accepted on faith alone, this will help them to make the best decision regardless if it conflicted with the religious doctrine or not. However this is weak because the status quo mechanisms of discovery are not advanced enough to explain everything that seems phenomenal.

Idealists were the major proponents of a liberal economic structure, because they felt that only allowing the world to run its course unhindered by government would ensure the natural flow of events. Idealists also inspired many aristocrats in Europe to take pre-emptive measures to maintain power because they understood that the theory of divine right and inheritance was a flawed one, and would soon not be a mask that would shroud the truth.

The Idealist pictured the world as an all-inclusive absolute mind, of which individual human minds were fragmentary parts. To understand the world was to see it, almost mystically, as a systematic and indivisible whole. It followed from this that the analytic way of looking at things to be found in science must inevitably misrepresent its subject-matter.


(31)

CHAPTER III METHODOLOGY

The word methodology is defined as a science of methods or discussion of methods, to quote a dictionary definition that is Webster New International Dictionary. Principally, methodology restricts the procedure of finding scientific truth by using logic principles through reasoning and acceptable assumption. This entire pattern in order to find the truth must be proved objectively through the existing data.

The method of analysis applied in this thesis is better known as descriptive qualitative analysis. It is said so because the data are analyzed by concept or theory in terms of description. The description is based on the text on the text of the novel in which it is selected by taking quotations as data analysis. So, the data are selected and then interpreted in order to get better analysis objectively.

The kind of this research belongs to library research. It is so because the data analysis are based on books or references that are related to the study of literary works in terms of novel and the characteristics of idealism in the two major characters.

There are two method of analysis that can be applied in doing research; they are inductive and deductive method. Inductive method means a particular fact is taken for general conclusion. Simply to say, example first then comes to the description. The deductive method gives a general conclusion from particular fact which implies description first then makes example.

Based on the two methods above, this thesis applies qualitative method of analysis for the emphasis is focused on inductive reasoning. It is so because theory is very dominant used in describing data. To quote Berg (2004:2) remarks qualitative and quantitative are not


(32)

distinct. Yet in many social sciences, quantitative orientations are often given more respect. This may reflect the tendency of the general public to regard science as relating to numbers and implying precision.

Certainly, qualitative methodologies have not predominated in the social sciences. After all, qualitative research takes much longer, requires greater clarity of goals during design research. Qualitative research method has left its mark conceptually and theoretically on the social sciences. The lasting contributions to social understanding from qualitative research, as well as the sheer number of contributing social thinkers are significant.

To differentiate between quantitative and qualitative approach indicates that the notion of quality is essential to the nature of things. On the other hand, quantity is elementally amount of something. Quality refers to what, when, where and how of a thing. Qualitative research refers to the meanings, concepts, definitions, characteristics and descriptions of things. In contrast, quantitative research refers to counts and measures of things.

As the summary, in analyzing Thomas hardy’s novel entitled Jude the Obscure, I apply descriptive qualitative method. It is said because the data are analyzed by concept or theory in terms of description. The description is based on the text of the novel which selected and interpreted in order to get better analysis objectively. My sources are from the novel (Jude the Obscure, 1993, Hertfordshire: Wordsworth Editions Limited) and some books that related to Idealism.

3.1 Collecting Data

The collecting data is very important. In collecting the data, I do some steps: first, the writer reads the novel (Jude the Obscure); second, I note all important information and


(33)

texts which related to the characteristics of Idealism. The last I collect the data from characters’ conversations, behaviour and attitude toward characteristics of idealism.

3.2 Analyzing Data

Analyzing data is the main point in the research because by analyzing data, we will find the important result for the research. I analyze the data by using qualitative descriptive analysis for the emphasis is focused on inductive reasoning. It is so because theory is very dominant used in describing the data. The data are not analyzed based on population or sampling technique. The relation of each context in the text of the novel is possible to be data analysis; so far they are connected to the topic analyzed. It means that all the texts are possibly accepted to be waiting data before they are made fixed into concrete data in the analysis. Thus, the data are properly considered through reading all without making the sample in making them.

In analyzing the data, I do some steps: First of all, I list and classify all the important information and texts which related to Idealism from the novel. Second, I analyze the Idealism of the two major characters through their behaviours and events related to Idealism. Last, I combine all the related data and describe clearly the analysis.

3.3 Data and Source of Data

Data and Source of Data is also a part of methodology because it includes the framework of way or systemic way in finding scientific truth. Data are the object material research which supports the inquiry upon the truth. Data provide certain phenomena which are found to strengthen the analysis of truth consequence. In other words, data give clue for further understanding of what is being done in the research. Research itself can be classified


(34)

into field research, library research, and experimental research. This thesis belongs to library research because the data are focused on the data in the novel and some books related to the subject. The data of this thesis are the important information or texts from the novel which related to the Idealism.

The source of data may be classified into primary source of data and secondary source of data. The primary source of data in this thesis is the novel (Jude the Obscure, 1993, Hertfordshire: Wordsworth Editions Limited), while the secondary source of data are taken from literary books such as literary criticism and philosophical books which are relevant to the study of this thesis.


(35)

CHAPTER IV

AN ANALYSIS OF IDEALISM IN THE TWO MAJOR CHARACTERS OF JUDE THE OBSCURE

This thesis analyzes the characteristics of idealism in the novel Jude the Obscure through its two major characters. Characters are the people in the literary works who are created by the authors. But characters are not only human kinds but also animals such as in Forster’s novel Animal Farm. There is an opinion that characters can be divided into two major: major and minor characters. Based on that opinion, I decide two characters as the major characters in the novel Jude the Obscure which are going to be analyzed. Actually, there are still may more characters in this novel, but their roles are not very important, they just support the plot of the story.

In this novel we can find some characteristics of idealism in the description of two major characters such as looking at life and things objectively and trying to escape from the reality or truth as the way it is. In other words, the characterization is exaggerated and it is more like fantasy because it is depicted from imagination.

Characters that are going to be analyzed in this thesis are the two major characters who show the characteristics of idealism. They are Jude Fawley and Susanna Bridehead. Most of major characters in this novel have their own nature. They try to do their best in facing their problems. The problems they get are basically caused by their own feeling, sadness and oppression on them.


(36)

The following is the analysis of the two major characters from the novel.

1) The Idealism of Jude Fawley

Jude Fawley is the main character in this novel. We can see it from the title of the novel itself, Jude the Obscure. The story tells us about Jude’s life from his childhood until adult. It can be seen in this text:

A little boy of eleven, who had been thoughtfully assisting in the packing, joined the group of men, and as they rubbed their chins he spoke up, blushing at the sound of his own voice” (p.5).

From the text, we can see that at the time, Jude was eleven year old. He still didn’t know about life and what those men are talking about. He just felt sad when the schoolmaster wants to leave him and moved from their village. At the time, his idealism did not exist because he was still young. He just had dream to visit Christminster to see the schoolmaster but he begins to think it more when the schoolmaster said that it is a place where the success belongs.

Part of Jude's tragedy arises from his incurable idealism. The idealism of Jude can be seen from two aspects: Christminister and woman. As a child he is fascinated with Christminster. It is the focus of all his dreams, a shining ideal of intellectual life. He knows about Christminster from the schoolmaster, Richard Phillotson. It can be seen from this conversation quotation:

“Why do you go, sir?” asked the boy

“Ah – that would be a long story. You wouldn’t understand my reasons, Jude. You will, perhaps, when you are older.”

“I think I should now, sir.”

“Well – don’t speak of this everywhere. You know what a university is, and a university degree? It is the necessary hall- mark of a man who wants to do anything in teaching. My scheme, or dream, is to be a university graduate, and then to be ordained. By going to live at Christminster, or near it, I shall be at headquarters, so to speak, and if my scheme is practicable at all, I consider that being on the spot will afford me a better chance of carrying it out than I should have elsewhere.” (p. 6)


(37)

From the conversation, we can see that that is the first time Jude hears about Christminster. The schoolmaster tells that Christminster is the right place of getting success. But at the time, Jude was still getting confused because he was a child. The schoolmaster is also a hero for Jude and that is the reason why Jude is very sad when the schoolmaster will leave the village. It can be seen from this quotation:

“Tears rose into the boy’s eyes, for he was not among the regular day scholars, who came unromantically close to the schoolmaster’s life, but one who had attended the night school only during the present teacher’s term of office.” (p. 5-6)

After the schoolmaster moved from the village, Jude begins to think about what like Christminster is. He starts to think that he should go there to get success and meet the schoolmaster. It can be seen from this quotation before the schoolmaster left him:

“I shan’t forget you Jude, Jude,’ he said, smiling, as the cart moved off.; Be a good boy, remember; and be kind to animals and birds, and read all you can. And if ever you come to Christminster remember you hunt me out for old acquaintance’s sake.” He said to himself, in the melodramatic tones of a whimsical boy, that the schoolmaster had drawn at that well scores of times on a morning like this, and would never draw there any more. ‘I’ve seen him look down into it, when he was tired with his drawing, just as I do now, and when he rested a bit before carrying the buckets home! But he was too clever to bide here any longer – a small sleepy place like this!’ (p. 6)

Jude has strong willing to go to Christminster because he thinks it is the place of success. Because of that he learns Greek and Latin and he reads many books. Jude’s willing of going to Christminster is stronger when he listens to conversation of his aunt, aunt Drusilla with her friends. It can be seen from this quotation:

“Why didn’t ye get the schoolmaster to take ‘ee to Christminster wi’ un, and make a scholar of ’ee,’ she continued, in frowning pleasantry. ‘I’m sure he couldn’t ha’ took a better one. The boy is crazy for books, that he is. It runs in our family rather. His cousin Sue is just the same – I’ve heard; but I have not seen the child for years, though she was born in this place, within these four walls, as it happened. My niece and her husband, after they were married, didn’t get a house of their own for some year or more; and then they only had one till – Well, I won’t go into that. Jude, my child, don’t you ever marry. ‘Tisn’t for the Fawleys to take that step any more. She,


(38)

their only one, was like a child o’ my own, Belinda, till the split come! Ah, that a little maid should know such changes!” (p. 8-9)

From the conversation, Jude knows that he has a cousin in Christminster too. But he is also reminded that he can’t marry her. Jude doesn’t understand the reason, but he doesn’t care of it because he just wants to go to Christminster and see his cousin. His idea that life is easy is not exist and he begins to hopeless and he can’t accept his world. He cannot accept that birds are just animals. He realizes himself like birds. It can be seen from the quotation below:

He sounded the clacker till his arm ached, and at length his heart grew sympathetic with the birds’ thwarted desires. They seemed, like himself, to be living in a world which did not want them. Why should he frighten them away? They took upon them more and more the aspect of gentle friends and pensioners – the only friends he could claim as being in the least degree interested in him, for his aunt had often told him that she was not. (p.10)

From the quotation we can see that Jude can’t accept the world where he belongs to. This is one of the characteristics of idealism, holding on to a set of beliefs which are a rigid system of the way life is “supposed to be” or “should be”.

Jude’s idea of a happy life affects him that working in the farmer is not a good job. He still thinks that Christminster is the right place. And when he tells it to Farmer Troutham, where he works, and the farmer gets angry and fires him. It can be seen from the text below:

Presently Troutham grew tired of his punitive task, and depositing the quivering boy in his legs, took a sixpence from his pocket and gave it him in payment for his day’s work, telling him to go home and never let him see him in one of those fields again. (p. 11)

Jude is a good boy. His idea about a good world makes him to be kind to other people. It can be seen from the text below:

Though Farmer Troutham had just hurt him, he was a boy who could not himself bear to hurt anything. He had never brought home a nest of young birds without lying


(39)

lopped, from a fancy that it hurt them; and late pruning, when the sap was up and the tree bled profusely, had been a positive grief to him in his infancy. This weakness of character, as it may be called, suggested that he was born to ache a good deal before the fall of the curtain upon his unnecessary life should signify that all was well with him again. He carefully picked his way on tiptoe among the earthworms, without killing a single one. (p. 11-12)

From the text we can see that Jude is really a good boy. He loves people and animals. It proves that he is sensitive to the nature. He still be kind to people who makes him hurt. But this attitude is called as weakness character because he can survive in the world, only the strong will survive and alive and Jude is not. In our daily life we also can find such Jude character. When somebody is kind, some people hurt him/her and people do not appreciate the goodness. And when the ‘good people’ do not want to revenge, we call them a pity and foolish person.

Jude is an idealistic person. It can be seen from his strong will to go to Christminster where the success is, as what Mr. Richard Phillotson told him. He is so fascinated with it even he lost his job with the farmer because he thinks that farmer is nothing than university graduate of Christminster. We can see his journey to the Christminster from some quotations below:

“Where is this beautiful city, aunt – this place where Mr. Phillotson is gone to?” aasked the boy, after meditating in silence.

“Lord! You ought to know where the city of Christminster is. Near a score of miles from here. It is a place much to good for you ever to have much to do with, poor boy, I’m a – thinking.”

“And will Mr Phillotson always be there?” “How can I tell?”

“Couldn’t I go to see them?”

“Lord, no! You didn’t grow up hereabout, or you wouldn’t ask such as that. We’ve never had anything to do with folk in Christminster, nor folk in Christminster with we.” (p. 12)


(40)

From the conversation we can see that Jude has a big ambition to go to Christminster because he believes what Mr Phillotson said before that Christminster that it is the best university for getting success. But Jude is upset because his aunt doesn’t agree with his idea.

The idealism of Jude can be seen when he is rejected in getting his ambition. He can’t accept the fact that his aunt rejects his idea about Christminster and it has strong effect on him. It can be seen from the quotation below:

Jude went out, and, feeling more than ever his existence to be undemanded one, he lay down upon his back on a heap of litter near the pig – sty. (p.12)

If he could only prevent himself growing up! He did not want to be a man. (p.13)

The experience of Jude in finding Christminster is really hard for him. He tries to ask everyone he meet about the university but nobody gives the right direction. We can see from these quotations:

Then, like the natural boy, he forgot his despondency, and sprang up. During the of the morning he helped his aunt, and in the afternoon, when there was nothing more to be done, he went into the village. Here he asked a man whereabouts Christminster lay. (p.13)

‘Christminster? Oh, well, out by there yonder; though I’ve never bin there – not I. I’ve never had any business at such a place.’ (p.13)

The man pointed north- eastward, in the very direction where that field in which Jude had so disgraced himself. There was something unpleasant about the coincidence for the moment, but the fearsomeness of this fact rather increased his curiosity about the city the farmer had said he was never to be seen in that field again; yet Christminster lay across it, and the path was a public one. (p.13)

‘Well, my lad, and what may you want up here?’

‘I wanted to know where the city of Christminster is, if you please.’

‘Christminster is out across there, by that clump. You can see it – at least you can on a clear day. Ah, no, you can’t now.’ (p.14)

The other tiler, glad of any kind of diversion from the monotony of his labour, had also turned to look towards the quarter designated.’You can’t often see itin weather like this,’ he said. ‘The time I’ve noticed it is when the sun is going on down in a blaze of flame, and it looks like – I don’t know what.’ (p.14)


(41)

From those quotations, we can see that all people that he met gave different answer and it makes him become confused. There is no certain place for his direction, but he has strong ambition to find Christminster. We can see it from this text:

He ascended the ladder to have one more look at the point the men has designated, and perched himself on the highest rung, overlying the tiles. He might not be able to come so far as this for many days. Perhaps if he prayed, the wish to see Christminster might be forwarded. People said that, if you prayed, things sometimes came to you, even though they sometimes did not. (p. 15)

Though Jude can’t find the Christminster, but he still has idea that he must find it to find the happiness itself. We can see it from this text:

But his dreams were as gigantic as his surroundings were small. He was always beholding a gorgeous city – the fancied place he had likened to the new Jerusalem, though there was perhaps more of the painter’s imagination and less of the diamond merchant’s in his dreams thereof than in those of the Apocalyptic writer. And the city acquired a tangibility, a permanence, a hold in his life, mainly from the one nucleus of fact that the man for whose knowledge and purposes he had so much reverence was actually living there; not only so, but living among the more thoughtful and mentally shining ones herein. (p.16)

Christminster has made him crazy and his imagination goes beyond the reality. It can be seen from this text:

Suddenly there came along this wind something towards him – a message from the place – from some soul residing there, it seemed. Surely it was the sound of bells, the voice of the city, faint and musical, calling to him, ‘we are happy here!’ (p.17)

‘The place I mean is that one yonder.’ He was getting so romantically attached to Christminster that, like a young lover alluding to his mistress, he felt bashful at mentioning its name again. He pointed to the light in the sky – hardly perceptible to their older eyes.

‘Yes. There do seem a spot a bit brighter in the nor –east than elsewhere, though I shouldn’t ha’ noticed it myself, and no doubt it med be Christminster. (p.18)

‘It is a city of light,’ he said to himself.

‘The tree of knowledge grows there,’ he added a few steps further on. ‘It is what you may call a castle, manned by scholarship religion.’

After this figure he was silent a long while, till he added: ‘It would just suit me.’ (p. 19)


(42)

Jude has really big ambition to go to Christminster, that is why he wants to do everything to achieve his dream, and he must be upset again. We can see from this quotation:

‘I want to learn Latin and Greek myself.’

‘I think you’d better drop behind, my young man. Now I’ll tell you what I’ll do. I’ll get you the grammars, and give you a first lesson, if you’ll remember, at every house in the village, to recommend Physician Vilbert’s golden ointment, life- drops, and female pills.’ (p.21)

Jude controlled himself sufficiently long to make sure of the truth; and he repeated, in a voice of dry misery, ‘You haven’t brought’ em!’ the disappointment was followed by an interval of blankness. (p.22)

Although Jude is upset because he can’t get books to learn about Christminster, but he still continue dreaming of it. He tries to learn by himself because he believes that he must be can go there. We can see from this text:

Ever since his first ecstasy or vision of Christminster and its possibilities, Jude had meditated much and curiously on the probable sort of process that was involved in turning the expression of one language into those of another. (p.23)

What brains they must have in Christminster and the great schools, he presently thought, to learn words one by one up to tens of thousands! (p. 24)

I must save money, and I will; and one of those colleges shall open its doors to me – shall welcome whom now it would spurn, if I wait twenty years for the welcome. (p.29)

And then he continued to dream. (p.29)

‘Yes, Christminster nshall be my Alma Mater; and I’ll be her beloved son, in whom she shall be well pleased.’(p.30)

We can see from the texts that Jude is a diligent and ambitious boy. He wants to study hard to get his dreams, but again and again he must be failed.

In fact, his disappointment at the nature of those tongues had, after a while, been the means of still further glorifying the erudition of Christminster. (p.24)

And though Jude may have had little chance of becoming a scholar by these rough and ready means, he was in the way of getting into the groove he wished to follow. (p. 25)


(43)

hitting him in the head with a pig's genitalia. This heavy-handed symbol demonstrates the effect on Jude’s mind and ambitions that the sexual desire has.

It is scarcely an exaggeration to say that till this moment Jude had never looked at woman to consider her as such, but had vaguely regarded the sex as beings outside his life and purposes. (p. 32)

‘Well, it’s only a bit of fun,’ he said to him self, faintly conscious that to common-sense there was something lacking, and still more obviously something redundant, in the nature of this girl who had drawn him to her, which made it necessary that he should assert mere sportiveness on his part as his reason in seeking – her something in her quite antipathetic to that side of him which had been occupied with literary study and the magnificent Christminster dream. (p.33)

It was better to love a woman thatn to be a graduate, or a parson; or a pope. (p. 39)

After Arabella pretends to be pregnant, Jude marries her. Upon getting home from the wedding, Arabella takes off some fake hair. This is another example of how Jude’s expectations are shown to be false.

‘I’ve got him to care for me: yes! But I want him to more than care for me; I want him to have me – to marry me! I must have him. I can’t do without him. He’s the sort of man I long for. I shall go mad if I can’t give myself to him altogether! I felt I should when I first saw him!’ (p.40)

‘You knew better! Of course I never dreamt six months ago, or even three, of marrying. It is a complete smashing up of my plans – I mean my plans before I knew you, my dear. But what are they, after all! Dreams about books, and degrees, and impossible fellowships, and all that. Certainly we’ll marry: we must!’ (p.46)

He knew well, to well, in the secret centre of his brain that Arabella was not worth a great deal as a specimen of womankind. Yet such being the custom of the rural districts among honourable young men who had drifted so far into intimacy with a woman as he unfortunately had done, he was ready to abide by what he had said, and take the consequences. For his own soothing he kept up a fictitious belief in her. His idea of her was the thing of most consequence, not Arabella herself, he sometimes said laconically. (p. 46)

When Jude awoke the next morning he seemed to see the world with a different eye. As to the point in question he was compelled to accept her word; in the circumstances he could not have acted otherwise while ordinary notions prevailed. But how came they to prevail? (p. 50)


(44)

Jude is not happy with his marrying with Arabella and he still dreams of going to Christminster because he thinks that the happiness is there.

The wayside objects reminded him so much of his courtship of his wife that, to keep them out of his eyes, he read whenever he could as he walked to and from his work. Yet he sometimes felt that by caring for books he was not escaping common place nor gaining rare ideas, every working-man being of that taste now. (p. 54)

Jude was exasperated, and went out to drag her in by main force. Then he suddenly lost his heat. Illuminated with the sense that all was over between them, and that it mattered not what she did, or he, her husband stood still, regarding her. Their lives were ruined, he thought; ruined by the fundamental error of their matrimonial union: that of having based on permanent contract on a temporary feeling which had no necessary connection with affinities that alone render a life-long comradeship tolerable. (p. 57)

He could not realize himself. On the old track he seemed to be a boy still, hardly a day older than when he had stood dreaming at the top of that hill, inwardly fired for the first time with ardours for Christminster and scholarship. Yet I am a man,’ he said. ‘I have a wife. More, I have arrived at the still riper stage of having disagreed with her, disliked her, had a scuffle with her, and parted from her.’ (p. 60)

He would go to Christminster as soon as the term of his apprenticeship expired. (p. 61)

Beautiful city! So venerable, so lovely, so unravaged by the fierce intellectual life of our century, so serene!. . . her ineffable charm keeps ever calling us to the true goal of all of us, to the ideal, to perfection. (p. 69)

Jude’s desire to attend the university continues after Arabella leaves for Australia. He moves to Christminster to be near the university, but there a literal and social wall separates him from his goal. He is simply of the wrong class to attend the university, though his potential may be equal or greater than the students.

Two or three days later he heard that Arabella and her parents had departed. (p.60) The next note worthy move in Jude’s life was that in which he appeared gliding steadily onward through a dusky landscape of some three years’ later leafage than had graced his courtship of Arabella, and the disruption of his coarse conjugal life with her. He was walking towards Christminster City, at a point a mile or two to the south-west of it. (p.65)

Knowing not a human being here, Jude began to be impressed with the isolation of his own personality, as with a self-spectre, the sensation being that of one who walked but could not make himself seen or heard. He drew his breath pensively, and, seeming thus almost his own ghost, gave his thoughts to the other ghostly presences with which the nooks were haunted. (p. 67)


(45)

Finally, Jude arrives at Christminster. There again Jude suffers for being nearer his goal physically while no closer in reality. Jude writes letters to the heads of several colleges, asking advice on how to pursue his goal. He is ignored by all but one, who advises Jude that he will have a much better chance of success in life by remaining in his own sphere and sticking to his trade. In cruel irony, Jude is only seen as fit to work on the walls that limit him. And he is upset again.

For a moment there fell on Jude a true illumination; that here in the stone yard was a centre of effort as worthy as that dignified by the name of scholarly study within the noblest of the colleges. But he lost it under stress of his old idea. (p. 72)

‘Just what we thought! Such places be not for such as you – only for them with plenty o’ money.’ (p. 96)

Nevertheless, he found himself clinging to the hope of some reply as to his one last chance of redemption. He waited day after day, saying that it was perfectly absurd to expect, yet expecting. (p. 97)

But Jude is still optimist that someday he can enter the Christminster, so he works hard and saves his money, but it is hopeless.

For the present, he said to himself, the one thong necessary was to get ready by accumulating money and knowledge, and wait whatever chances were afforded to such an one of becoming a son of the University. ‘For wisdom is a defence; but the excellency of knowledge is, that wisdom giveth life them that have it.’ His desire absorbed him, and left so apart of him to weigh its practicability. (p. 74)

,….to his dismay, that, at the rate at which, with the best of fortune, he would be able to save money, fifteen years must elapse before he could be in position to forward testimonials to the Head of a College and advance to a matriculation examination. The undertaking was hopeless. (p. 98)

From the text we can see that Jude regard money as the power to get the wisdom and happiness, buth he is wrong, and he begins to think about his cousin who lived at Christminster. He thinks that Sue is the ideal woman for him to get success in Christminster, but he is upset because his aunt forces him not to meet Sue.

At this time he received a nervously anxious letter from his poor old aunt, on the subject which had previously distressed her – a fear that Jude would not be strong-minded enough to keep away from his cousin Sue Bridehead and her relations. (p. 74)


(46)

From the text we can see that his aunt is very afraid if Jude meets his cousin, but Jude does not obey it because he has idealized Sue as the right woman for him and he always cares for her.

Thus he kept watch over her, and liked to feel she was there. The conscious of her living presence stimulated him. But she remained more or less an ideal character about whose from he began to were curious and fantastic day dreams. (p. 76)

He could perceive that though she was a country-girl at bottom, a latter girlhood of some years in London, and a womanhood here, had taken all rawness out of her. (p.76)

When she was gone he continued his work, reflecting on her. He had been so caught by her influence that he had taken no count of her general mould and build. He remembered now that she was not a large figure, that she was light and slight, of the type dubbed elegant. She was mobile, living, yet a painter might not have called her handsome or beautiful. But the much that she was surprised him. (p. 76)

Jude has regarded Sue as the ideal woman for and him that is the reason why he still wants to get for Sue, though he knows that it is forced by his aunt and the law in the society.

He affected to think of her quite in a family way, since there were crushing reasons why he should not and could not think of her in any other. (p. 77)

The first reason was that he was married, and it would be wrong. The second was that they were cousins. It was not well for cousins to fall in love even when circumstances seemed to favour the passion. The third: even were he free, in a family like his own where marriage usually meant a tragic sadness, marriage with a blood-relation would duplicate the adverse conditions, and a tragic sadness might be intensified to tragic horror. (p. 77)

Those three enormous reasons why he must not attempt intimate acquaintance with Sue Bridehead now that his interest in her had shown itself to be unmistakably of a sexual stubbornly as ever. But it was also obvious that man could not live by work alone; that the particular man Jude, at any rate, wanted something to love. (p. 83) To be sure she was almost an ideality to him still. Perhaps to know her would be to cure himself of this unexpected and authorized passion. A voice whispered that, though he desired to know her, he id not desire to be cured. (p. 83)

Jude still keeps in his mind that he must be getting Sue, but he suddenly remembers that he also comes to Christminster to meet his schoolmaster, Phillotson, who came first to Christminster. Jude wants to meet him, but he is upset when he knows from his cousin that Phillotson was failed to enter the Christminster.


(47)

Jude’s countenance fell, for how could he succeed in an enterprise wherein the great Phillotson had failed? He would have had a day of despair if the news had not arrived during his sweet Sue’s presence, but even at this moment he had visions of how Phillotson’s failure in the grand University scheme would depress him when she had gone. (p. 86)

That after all these years the meeting with Mr Phillotson should be of this homely complexion destroyed at one stroke the halo which had surrounded the schoolmaster’s figure in Jude’s imagination ever since their parting. It created in him at the same time a sympathy with Phillotson as an obviously much chastened and disappointed man. (p. 86)

Jude feels upset when he knows that his schoolmaster is failed to get his ambition in Christminster and he is also shocked when Sue also tells that she also fails in Christminster. Those make Jude becomes stressed.

‘Why must you leave Christminster?’ he said regretful. ‘How can you do otherwise than cling to a city in whose history such men as Newman, Pusey, Ward, Keble, loom so large!’

‘Yes – they do. Though how large do they loom in the history of the world? . . . what a funny reason for caring to stay! I should never have thought of it!’ she laughed. ‘Well – I must go,’ she continued. ‘Miss Fontover, one of the partners whom I serve, is offended with me, and I with her; and it is best to go.’(p. 87)

Jude is little upset when he knows that Sue is failed in Christminster, but he still thinks Sue is the ideal woman and everything she done is right. Jude becomes careless of Christminster and tries to get Sue.

To keep Sue Bridehead near him was now a desire which operated without regard of consequences,……(p. 88)

,……Jude’s ardour in promoting the arrangement arose from any other feelings towards Sue than the instinct of cooperation common among members of the same family.(p 89)

,……..he knew that he loved her he also knew that he could not be more to her than he was. (p. 93)

Fortunately he had not been allowed to bring his disappointment into his dear Sue’s life by involving her in the collapse. (p. 98)

Jude’s eyes swept all the views in succession, meditatively, mournfully, yet sturdily. Those buildings and their associations and privileges were not fro him. (p. 99)

He looked over the town into the country beyond, to the trees which screened her whose presence had at first been the support his heart, and whose loss was now a maddening torture. But for this blow he might have borne with this fate. With Sue as companion he could have renounced his ambitions with a smile. Without her it was inevitable that the reaction from the long strain to which he had subjected himself should affect him disastrously. (p.99)


(48)

The spirit of Sue seemed to hover round him and prevent his flirting and drinking with the froclicsome girls who made advances – wistful to gain a little joy. (p. 101)

Though Jude had met Sue and tries to reach her but he finds it difficult to reach Sue, he also can’t get rid of his ambition of Christminster. His strong ambition both Sue and Christminster finally make him stress and drinks much.

Deprived of the objects of both intellect and emotion, he could not proceed to his work. Whenever he felt reconciled to his fate as a student, there came to disturb his calm his hopeless relations with Sue. That the one affined soul he had never met was lost to him through his marriage returned upon him with cruel persistency, till, unable to bear it longer, he again rushed for distraction to the real Christminster life. He now sought it out in an obscure and low-ceiled tavern up a court which was well known to certain worthies of the place, and in brighter times would have interested him simply by its quaintness. Here he sat more or less all day, convinced that he was at bottom a vicious character, of whom it was hopeless to expect anything. (p. 101)

‘I am so wicked, Sue – my heart is nearly broken, and I could not bear my life as it was! So I have been drinking, and blaspheming, or next door to it, and saying holy things in disreputable quarter – repeating an idle bravado words which ought never to be uttered but reverently! Oh, do anything with me Sue – kill me- I don’t care! Only don’t hate me and despise me like all the rest of the world!’ (p. 104)

After having the failure both Christminster and Sue Jude feels stressed because his dreams are not found in his reality. He feels regretful has become so idealistic person and finally he commits to back to the religion.

Slowly Jude unfolded to the curate his late plans and movements, by an unconscious bias dwelling less upon the intellectual and ambitious side of his dream, and more upon the theological, though this had, up till now, been merely a portion of the general plan of advancement.

‘Now I know I have been a fool, and that folly is with me,’ added Jude in conclusion. ‘And I don’t regret the collapse of my University hopes one jot. I wouldn’t begin again if I were sure to succeed. I don’t care for social success any more at all. But I do feel I should like to do some good thing; and I bitterly regret the Church, and the loss of my chance of being her ordained minister.’ (p. 106-107)

But in his mind he still thinks of marrying Sue, though it is not good. He still thinks that Sue is the source of happiness for him because he was failed in his first marriage with


(1)

As the conclusion, these are the characteristics of idealism/ idealist: 1. The knowledge of reality is built on the idea, not reality 2. Try to pass from reality to idea

3. A idealist is a perfect being

4. Emphasis on Emotion and Imagination 5. Opposite realism

6. Careless of rules in society 7. Idealist is a dreamer 8. Beyond rationalization 9. Live in fantasy

10. Strong interest of certain things

11. Focus on his passions and inner struggles 12. Belief on freedom of man and the democracy

5.2 Suggestion

Literature study is much less interested for many people nowadays. However, they do not realize a lot of benefits in learning literature. I suggest Jude the Obscure by Tomas Hardy as a worthwhile reading novel as it provides numerous characteristics of idealism that could be found in daily life.

Through this thesis, I intend to have the readers to see the relationship between literature and idea. I hope this thesis may enrich the reader’s knowledge with far more extensive comprehension about the characteristics of idealism which important for our life. There are a great deal of wonderful lessons, waiting to enlarge our knowledge, insight, and wisdom which capable to make us being a better human being in our life.


(2)

BIOGRAPHY

Thomas Hardy was born June 2, 1840 in Higher Bockhampton, Dorset, England. He was the eldest of four children. His father started a successful building and contracting business with an initial stake of only fourteen pounds. His mother was Jemima Hand, who worked as a maidservant and also received pauper relief, a sort of welfare program.

The young Thomas was a delicate child who learned to read at about three years of age. At sixteen, Hardy was apprenticed to a Dorchester architect, John Hicks. In 1862 he left Dorchester for London to work as assistant to the architect Arthur Blomfield. While in London, he developed his intellectual tastes by attending the opera, theatres, and museums, and by reading progressive and skeptical authors such as Charles Darwin, John Stuart Mill, Herbert Spencer, and T.H. Huxley, among others.

He never attended university, but was tutored during his apprenticeship by a Cambridge student named Horace Moule. Moule’s early death caused Hardy great sadness. Hardy’s lack of a degree always caused him some remorse, though it did not particularly limit his life. He was to meet some of the great intellectual figures of his day, including George Meredith, the novelist who would give him advice on publication.

In 1867 Hardy returned to Higher Bockhampton, and though his initial writing attempts were poems, his prolific writing career really began with The Poor Man and the Lady, now lost. The Poor Man and the Lady was rejected by publishers as being too satiric in tone. His second attempt at a novel, Desperate Remedies, was published in 1871 by William Tinsley to mixed reviews.

Hardy soon decided to concentrate in his novels on what he knew and loved best, the social life of rural southern England. After two moderately successful novels, Under the


(3)

Greenwood Tree (1872) and A Pair of Blue Eyes (1873), were published anonymously, Hardy scored a significant success in 1874 with Far from the Madding Crowd. After his triumph, he married Emma Lavinia Gifford, whom he had met several years earlier.

Hardy continued writing novels of “Wessex,” the historical, Anglo-Saxon name he gave in fiction to his native Dorset, from this time until 1895. Tess of the D’Urbervilles, published in 1891, was immediately popular with the reading public. But it also caused controversy: Victorian moralists and ecclesiastics were scandalized by the author’s contention that his heroine was, in the words of the novel’s subtitle, a morally pure woman. Some readers were outraged by the book’s pessimism, by the unrelieved picture of torment and misery Hardy presented. Orthodox believers in God were scandalized by his suggestions that the beneficent warm God of Christianity seemed absent from the world Hardy depicted.

Hardy had no children but his marriages were extremely significant factors in his life and can be seen as having a strong effect on his work. He was in love several times and engaged once to a maid named Eliza Nicholls before meeting his first wife. In 1870, he met Emma Gifford on a trip to Cornwall, and married her in 1874. Her family disapproved of the marriage and considered Hardy beneath Emma. Though Hardy loved Emma, the marriage became unhappy, but continued until her death in 1912. Later, Hardy looked back on her with affection.

In 1898, Thomas Hardy published Wessex Poems. On the whole, his poetry is not nearly so well regarded as his novels, but is still considered to have merit.

After the turn of the century, he worked on The Dynasts, an epic-drama in verse of the Napoleonic wars, published in three volumes from 1903 to 1908. In 1910 he was awarded the


(4)

Order of Merit and in 1912 he finished revising all his novels, rendering them exactly as he wanted them. In November of 1912, Emma Hardy died after a long illness, through which her husband did not give her very much aid.

Hardy’s last two novels, Tess of the D’Urbervilles and Jude the Obscure, were his most controversial. Jude the Obscure, like many novels of the time, was published serially both in England and the United States. The American version was “cleaned up” so as to be suitable for all ages. References to extramarital relations were deleted, as were the gruesome deaths.

Hardy continued to receive honors and degrees in the first decades of the 1900s, including honorary degrees in literature from Cambridge University in 1913 and Oxford University in 1920. On January 11, 1928, Thomas Hardy died. His biography was published posthumously the same year. His ashes were placed in Poets’ Corner of Westminster Abbey. His heart was buried in his first wife’s grave at Stinsford next to the grave of his parents.


(5)

SUMMARY

Jude Fawley dreams of studying at the university in Christminster, but his background as an orphan raised by his working-class aunt leads him instead into a career as a stonemason. He is inspired by the ambitions of the town schoolmaster, Richard Phillotson, who left for Christminster when Jude was a child. However, Jude falls in love with a young woman named Arabella, is tricked into marrying her, and cannot leave his home village. When their marriage goes sour and Arabella moves to Australia, Jude resolves to go to Christminster at last. However, he finds that his attempts to enroll at the university are met with little enthusiasm.

Jude meets his cousin Sue Bridehead and tries not to fall in love with her. He arranges for her to work with Phillotson in order to keep her in Christminster, but is disappointed when he discovers that the two are engaged to be married. Once they marry, Jude is not surprised to find that Sue is not happy with her situation. She can no longer tolerate the relationship and leaves her husband to live with Jude.

Both Jude and Sue get divorced, but Sue does not want to remarry. Arabella reveals to Jude that they have a son in Australia, and Jude asks to take him in. Sue and Jude serve as parents to the little boy and have two children of their own. Jude falls ill, and when he recovers, he decides to return to Christminster with his family. They have trouble finding lodging because they are not married, and Jude stays in an inn separate from Sue and the children. At night Sue takes Jude's son out to look for a room and the little boy decides that they would be better off without so many children. In the morning, Sue goes to Jude's room and eats breakfast with him. They return to the lodging house to find that Jude's son has hanged the other two children and himself. Feeling she has been punished by God for her


(6)

relationship with Jude, Sue goes back to live with Phillotson, and Jude is tricked into living with Arabella again. Jude dies soon after.