abstract

This paper will attempt to examine the class and gender bias in the educational sphere that Hardy has highlighted through his works Jude the Obscure. Education is one of the major themes in this novel, including marriage. Jude, the nineteenth century protagonist struggles throughout the novel to acquire the University education. He is a stone mason aspiring to become a scholar in Christminster. Jude like Cornelius and Joshua of ‘A Tragedy of Two Ambition’ is ambitious but differs in certain aspects. However, economy plays a crucial role to determine the future of protagonists in both works of Hardy. Christminster is the fictional place representing the hub of intellectuals, probably, the Oxford of that period. The teachings of the classics were expensive which a normal student could not afford, as a result, higher education was a distant dream for Jude due to the lack of money, and neither could he compete for scholarship, against properly trained competitors.

The capitalist mode of production helped to establish the rule of male aristocrats and associate the power among them which becomes a reason for the tragedy of Jude as a member of the oppressed class and Sue for her gender that even denies her the right to pursue University. The system of education gave more leverage to the material possessions and social status rather than skill or intelligence. Thus there is a constant struggle between the two classes, in the exclusivity of university admission requirements. No matter how hard Jude works the money is never adequate for him to get into University. Women like Sue were not even provided a chance to pursue higher education, they were allowed to study limitedly, pertaining restricted scope. Women were more of domestic objects, working as procreators of offspring, totally unpaid doing domestic chores. Domestic labour has served the needs of the capitalist economy together with industrial labour. As a result, the power holders acted most stereotypical about the class as well as gender.

Imparting of higher education was the prerogative for bourgeois class only, due to a categorization of social status with the formation of hierarchy. The capitalist oppression with the control of material means has rightly shown by Hardy which was perhaps an indirect impression of Marxist thinking that possibly reflected in his personal life too. The commercialized of University Education is apparent under the bourgeois ideology in dissecting the society in terms of its class and gender, to benefit the ruling class. However, Jude's obscurity to transcend the social bias, in spite of an economic disparity, anticipated the readers of later age to understand the changes brought forth by the government in terms of the higher education. Significantly, the story would have been ended differently if the education facility had been conveniently layout for all classes, providing an equal opportunity which Hardy was sincerely advocating for.