Thomas Hardy V

Sue becomes very depressed after the deaths of her children, and begins to get religious scruples. She believes that the children died to punish her for her sins in getting a divorce and living with Jude. She and he separate and to punish herself further, she returns to Philottson and lives with him as his wife though she hates it. Jude returns to Arabella, and she does not care much for him. He goes to get a glimpse of Sue on a cold winter day and becomes ill and dies. Arabella plans to marry a new man. Jude's life has ended in tragedy. The novel is depressing and confusing, with characters changing their minds all the time and moving in and out of marriages. Hardy's vision of life was sad and tragic.... In most of his serious novels, the hero or heroine comes to a sad end...and the more selfish characters do well. Tess of the D'urbervilles has the same kind of chopping and changing of the attitudes of the characters and the heroine Tess ending on the gallows. Jude got a lot of criticism for the anti religous tone and the sexual activities of the characters... and Emma Hardy really hated it. She was afraid that the novel would damage Hardy's reputation and that it might lead to gossip about her marriage to him. By then Hardy was involved with Florence Dugdale who acted as his secretary, and they were having an affair. Emma became more angry and reclusive and her health declined and she died suddenly. Hardy planned to marry Florence, but he was feeling guilty about Emma. He gave up writing novels and concentrated on poetry, and some of his new poems were love poems to Emma, which upset Florence. They were getting married and now her new husband was writing love poems about his dead wife, whom he had neglected and disliked during their marriage.

Thomas Hardy IV

Arabella leaves Jude and goes to Australia with another man, whom she marries bigamously. Jude persuades Sue to leave her husband and come to him. Their relationship is at first sexless because Sue does not like sex, and dislikes it all the more with her husband. Arabella then comes back to England and brings her son by Jude with her. She and Jude get a divorce, but she leaves the child with him...Sue gets a divorce from Phillotson, and she and Jude begin to have a sexual life. They have 2 children but she is reluctant to marry him. She has radical ideas and is less religious than Jude. But the fact that they are not married is a problem... they lead a nomadic life moving from job to job, and not having much money, and when their unmarried status is discovered Jude usually loses his job. Sue is stressed out by this, looking after her 2 children and "Father time" as they call Jude's son by Arabella... Then after Jude has lost another job, they wake up one morning to find that Jude's son has been brooding over their problems and lack of money, and he has killed his 2 siblings and himself. Sue, who is pregnant again, is horrified and has a miscarriage.

Thomas Hardy III

Im not really a big fan of Hardy's novels, though I have read most of them. They are more like fairy stories than realistic novels. Most of his characters are simple people, and not that easy to identify with.. they seem absurdly naive. His last novel, Jude the Obscure, is about a young man who works as a mason. He is clever and would like to go to Oxford, but he is too poor to think of this. He then is seduced by a coarse and earthy girl, Arabella, who tells him she is pregnant, and he ends up marrying her. They havew a son. He is also involved with one of his cousins, Sue Fawley, who like him has ambitions to learn and get on in the world. He is fond of her, but he's tied to Arabella. Sue goes to a teacher training college..and Jude goes on working as a manual worker. Sue is an odd wilful girl who seems to repeatedly do things that turn out badly for herself. Her family believe that marriage does not suit their temperaments and that their marriages usually turn out badly. She marries a school teacher, Phillotson whom she finds repugnant sexually...though she has come to love Jude.

Thomas Hardy II

Hardy was close to his mother, who was rather domineering, and to his sisters and he courted several girls during his youth. He then married Emma Gifford, a girl of a higher class. Her father was a solicitor and she had an uncle who was an archdeacon. However her father retired early and the family were not so well off as they had been and Emma and her sister had to go out as governesses. Hardy was still working as an architect, and was doing a report on a parish church, when he met Emma, who had clerical connextions. She could see his talent, and encouraged him to write. However she was also very class conscious and soon developed the idea that he was of much lower class than her, and that she was his superior. This caused a rift in their marriage. She began to put him down in front of people and she and he grew apart. People found her odd and difficult to get on with and began to think of her as a little mad. His novels were about class differences and tension between the sexes. He began to flirt with other women, and Emma became more reclusive.

Thomas Hardy

I hope to write a blog about Thomas Hardy soon. He was a poet and novelist, born in 1840 in Dorset and coming from a relatively humble background. His father was a builder and he himself trained as an architecht. He wrote about the poor people of his native land. He called the region of Dorset Wessex and wrote about farmers, builders, labourers, milkmaids and the like. He was brought up in the Church of England but as he grew up, he lost his religious faith. He wrote many novels, but as he grew older he began to criticise society, and the church and the Victorian sexual mores.The public and critics were shocked by his increasingly scandalous writing, as they saw it, and after the publication of his last Novel Jude the Obscure, he gave up novels and concentrated on writing poetry. More will follow

Agnes Grey II

Agnes finds Matilda and Rosalie silly and selfish, and she starts to visit the poor in the village. She is friendly with one old lady, Nancy, who is losing her sight and wants someone to read the bible to her. THe local clergyman is haughty and insensitive, but there is a new curate Edward Weston, who is kinder. Agnes begins to see him around the village and likes him. Rosalie is attracted to him and tries to pretend to be nicer than she really is, to win his interest. However she wants to marry a rich gentleman. Agnes talks to Mr Weston and they build up a friendship. Rosalie continues to flirt with him but is looking for a suitable husband in between flirtations. Agnes is hurt that her one friend is being drawn away from her...Then she has a letter from her sister Mary to say that their father is very ill. She leaves and hurries home but her father dies before she gets there. She feels there is nothing to go back for, as Mr Weston has not made any advances towards her, and she dislikes the Murray family. After Mr Grey's death, she and her mother set up a small school and make a modest living that way. Later, she gets an invitation from Rosalie Murray who is now married to a baronet, Sir Thomas Ashby. She goes reluctantly and finds that Rosalie is depressed and wants someone to sympathise with her. She has grown to hate her husband, who is controlling and selfish and who resents her flirting with other men. She has a baby daughter but is not maternal. Agnes tries to cheer her but there is not much she can do for Rosalie-. She leaves Ashby Park and goes home and soon afterwards she finds that Mr Weston is now working in the next parish. She meets him at the seashore and they talk and renew their friendship. Mrs Grey meets him and likes him and they plan to marry. They have a happy life and produce three children. Agnes is based on the young naieve Anne, and Mr Weston on Willie Weightman... Anne gives herself a happy ending...but the novel is slight. Anne had some talent as a writer but she had not developed very much by the time of her early death. Agnes Grey has not much plot, and like Charlotte, Anne tended to have a biased view of the upper classes. Her upper class characters are not such caricatures as Charlotte's Blanche Ingram.. but her strict morality limited her. Charlotte did not really approve of Tenant, believing that the subject matter was sordid and that Anne should not have written it. Again Anne's limitations show up. Gilbert is a clumsy character, like many Bronte men he has a violent streak which does not fit in with his portayal as a respectable gentleman farmer. He loses his temper unreasonably with Frederick Lawrence and attacks him. Like her sisters Anne did not know many men, and apart from Edward Weston, she tended to portray them as very flawed and often violent. Huntingdon and his friends are alcoholics and womanisers and gamblers and fight among themselves. Gilbert is ready to fight with Frederick Lawrence and is jealous and angry at Helen because she refuses his advances. However she does have a talent, even if her strictness makes the novels hard going and she might have improved with maturity.

Agnes Grey By Anne Bronte I

This is the first novel published by Anne Bronte, which is somewhat autobiographical. It is based on her life as a governess. Agnes is the daughter of a clergyman, her mother is from a well to do family but married for love and the family end up in debt. Mr Grey is not very good at investing money. Agnes is naive and childlike, and wants to help her father,mother and sister, telling them that she can go out as a governess. She has a rather foolish idea that she will love the job, and that childen are sweet little things. She gets a job with the Bloomfield family and finds it is nothing like she imagined. The children are spoiled and unmanageable. She is not allowed to discipline them but is blamed for all their flaws. Tom the son is a brattish cruel boy who loves torturing animals and birds and she tries to stop him. She kills a nest of birds to stop him form hurting them... and before long, she is dismissed. She gets another job with a richer family, the Murrays. The children are older and not quite so unteachable but Agnes is ignored by the family to a large extent. Rosalie, the elder daughter is a flirt, and Matilda is a rough tomboy. She does not like them much but it is a degree better than her last job.