Jude the Obscure: Imagery 5 key examples

Rain is always depressing and heavy in Wessex. When Jude is a child he can't imagine that it ever rains in Christminster—or, if it does, he can't imagine it'd rain as “drearily” as at home. Even the rain, to his naive imagination, must be different when one is a university student.

As Jude grows up, the sensory language of heavy rain in the "sad wet season" of his life shows up more and more frequently. He gets soaked upon first trying to get to Christminster, the rain continually interrupts his work and makes the stone slick and dangerous, and it eventually even portends the downfall of his family. In Part 6, Chapter 1 Little Father Time says the dolorous rain makes their arrival at Christminster seem like "Judgement Day”:

The sky had grown overcast and livid, and thunder rumbled now and then. Father Time shuddered. ‘It do seem like the Judgment Day!’ he whispered. ‘They are only learned Doctors, ’ said Sue. While they waited big drops of rain fell on their heads and shoulders, and the delay grew tedious.

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Although it isn’t actually the biblical day of “Judgement,” this rain does signal a time in which the Fawleys are thoroughly judged and found wanting by everyone in Christminster. Nobody will give them lodging. They are forced to wander the city in the torrent, passing colleges and churches glowing with warmth and safety as the “delay” in finding a place to stay gets more and more “tedious.”

This cruel rain is always associated with the sense of touch: it soaks Jude's clothes, stings his eyes, and makes the stone he works with slippery and unmanageable. It is hard for Jude to get a grip on things in general in this novel: the rain makes it harder. The reader feels the horrible hopelessness of being wet and never seeming to get dry, as Hardy describes Jude's clothes soaking and sticking to him. The motif of rain is also regularly associated with the visual: rain obscures things, blurs Jude’s vision, and makes writing hard to read for the scholar-in-training. Rain plays a role in Jude's death, too, as he eventually dies of exposure after he gets soaked with rain and chilled during his final conversation with Sue.

Pricking out like tiny stars from the misty landscape, Jude sees “points of light” before he sees the shape of buildings. In this quote, the "points" of Christminster's college towers and churches ecstatically reveal themselves to the child Jude. They look like a pile of distant treasure. The visual language of preciousness and of a break in the otherwise heavy darkness is important, here. Hardy is suggesting that Christminster is a treasure and can offer Jude the riches of the world of learning. Its lights break the “darkness” of the night, but they also symbolically promise to do the same with the "obscurity" of Jude's dim (or nonexistent) prospects in Marygreen.

These visual images of brightness, reflection, and sharpness laid out in “shining spots” of stone contrast with the dull, dismal greens, greys, and blacks of the visual imagery of Jude's hometown. It is telling that the boy, upon seeing the city for the first time, notices the stone before he knows what the city is. This early impression foreshadows his actual future, in which he is limited to working with the stones instead of attending the university as a student. He can build and decorate the "treasures" of Christminster, but he cannot do university work inside the illustrious buildings. He will go there, but not to become what he wants to become. Hardy provides a grim portent of the way in which Jude's social position will eventually limit his dreams in this early fragment.

Even though Phillotson is very familiar with the view that this window commands in daylight, in this instance it's covered with "mysterious darkness." Hardy evokes the closeness of the schoolmaster's face to the window with the physical and visual sensory language of the phrase "hard-breathing." Phillotson is pressed so close his breath is misting the glass, obscuring his view even more. He can't see because it's dark, but he also makes it harder for himself with his extreme proximity and "fixity."

Just before this passage, Hardy's narrator tells the reader that Sue at this point is very discontented. She feels she is "the wife of a husband whose person [is] disagreeable to her," and she is considering leaving Phillotson. His future—which should be as predictable as the view from his window for a man in his position—is hence in jeopardy of abruptly changing. He has no idea, but Hardy suggests some upcoming upheavals with this veil of darkness. Phillotson can't see what is coming, both literally and symbolically. In instances like this, the visual imagery of darkness and obscurity reflects the dark and depressing paths Hardy's characters take. It also parallels the unpredictable nature of the future in his novels. If you are born poor and unknown in a Hardy book, you are doomed to stay poor and unimportant (or "obscure").

A clear example of this is the visual imagery surrounding the village of Jude's birth. As a child, he lives in a dingy and "nestling hamlet" called Marygreen. The insides of houses are gloomy and smoky, and the horizon is "not far" from anything, indicating the village's extremely small size. Because of this stifling smallness, the dim landscape often closes in over Jude. It limits how far he can see, just as his poverty "obscures" his ambitions. The first time Jude tries to leave Marygreen to visit the city of Christminster in Part 1, Chapter 3, the night grows "funereally dark" and the "vague city" is "veiled in mist." Though there are lights, even these are "obscured":

No individual light was visible, only a halo or glow-fog overarching the place against the black heavens behind.

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Even at this early point, Hardy foreshadows the failure of Jude's ambition to escape "obscurity." There are no "individual lights" for Jude in Christminster. There's only a vague and unreachable suggestion of light, and the glowering presence of the "black heavens" which eventually consume him. Fittingly, in Part 6 Chapter 11 when Jude dies, the last things he says are Biblical verses calling down darkness, reflecting his own absolute lack of hope and "light":

‘Let the day perish wherein I was born, and the night in which it was said, There is a man child conceived.’

Cite this Quote

(‘Hurrah!’)

‘Let that day be darkness; let not God regard it from above, neither let the light shine upon it [...]

Jude is born into a dark world, struggles to exit "obscurity" his entire life, and dies in darkness so deep even God cannot "regard it from above."

It is unsurprising that bad news from Sue would rock Jude like a gale, since Sue Bridehead is so often associated with the sensory language of air in this novel. Sue’s body is small, thin, and fine, often referred to as birdlike or ghostlike. There is nothing substantial about her, like the wind. But, like a “withering blast,” her invisible presence can shake Jude Fawley’s foundations. As the physical sensory language of such strength “passes” over Jude, the reader gets a real sense of the shock and trauma of this news. Even though Sue is now "gone," he is still battered around by an invisible, spiritual force. Jude and Sue are so connected that even the air invokes her presence for him.

The "blast" literally withers Jude's hopes of making Sue love him at this point in the book. It also “withers” and shrivels his dream of exceeding his circumstances. This is especially evident in this moment, as this passage immediately follows one that discusses Jude's increased understanding of his own desires and of Sue’s character. Although he knows that they might be bad together, “two bitters in one dish,” as Hardy describes it, Jude wants her so much that he's still “withered” by her upcoming nuptials.

Even though Phillotson is very familiar with the view that this window commands in daylight, in this instance it's covered with "mysterious darkness." Hardy evokes the closeness of the schoolmaster's face to the window with the physical and visual sensory language of the phrase "hard-breathing." Phillotson is pressed so close his breath is misting the glass, obscuring his view even more. He can't see because it's dark, but he also makes it harder for himself with his extreme proximity and "fixity."

Just before this passage, Hardy's narrator tells the reader that Sue at this point is very discontented. She feels she is "the wife of a husband whose person [is] disagreeable to her," and she is considering leaving Phillotson. His future—which should be as predictable as the view from his window for a man in his position—is hence in jeopardy of abruptly changing. He has no idea, but Hardy suggests some upcoming upheavals with this veil of darkness. Phillotson can't see what is coming, both literally and symbolically. In instances like this, the visual imagery of darkness and obscurity reflects the dark and depressing paths Hardy's characters take. It also parallels the unpredictable nature of the future in his novels. If you are born poor and unknown in a Hardy book, you are doomed to stay poor and unimportant (or "obscure").

A clear example of this is the visual imagery surrounding the village of Jude's birth. As a child, he lives in a dingy and "nestling hamlet" called Marygreen. The insides of houses are gloomy and smoky, and the horizon is "not far" from anything, indicating the village's extremely small size. Because of this stifling smallness, the dim landscape often closes in over Jude. It limits how far he can see, just as his poverty "obscures" his ambitions. The first time Jude tries to leave Marygreen to visit the city of Christminster in Part 1, Chapter 3, the night grows "funereally dark" and the "vague city" is "veiled in mist." Though there are lights, even these are "obscured":

No individual light was visible, only a halo or glow-fog overarching the place against the black heavens behind.

Cite this Quote

Even at this early point, Hardy foreshadows the failure of Jude's ambition to escape "obscurity." There are no "individual lights" for Jude in Christminster. There's only a vague and unreachable suggestion of light, and the glowering presence of the "black heavens" which eventually consume him. Fittingly, in Part 6 Chapter 11 when Jude dies, the last things he says are Biblical verses calling down darkness, reflecting his own absolute lack of hope and "light":

‘Let the day perish wherein I was born, and the night in which it was said, There is a man child conceived.’

Cite this Quote

(‘Hurrah!’)

‘Let that day be darkness; let not God regard it from above, neither let the light shine upon it [...]

Jude is born into a dark world, struggles to exit "obscurity" his entire life, and dies in darkness so deep even God cannot "regard it from above."

Rain is always depressing and heavy in Wessex. When Jude is a child he can't imagine that it ever rains in Christminster—or, if it does, he can't imagine it'd rain as “drearily” as at home. Even the rain, to his naive imagination, must be different when one is a university student.

As Jude grows up, the sensory language of heavy rain in the "sad wet season" of his life shows up more and more frequently. He gets soaked upon first trying to get to Christminster, the rain continually interrupts his work and makes the stone slick and dangerous, and it eventually even portends the downfall of his family. In Part 6, Chapter 1 Little Father Time says the dolorous rain makes their arrival at Christminster seem like "Judgement Day”:

The sky had grown overcast and livid, and thunder rumbled now and then. Father Time shuddered. ‘It do seem like the Judgment Day!’ he whispered. ‘They are only learned Doctors, ’ said Sue. While they waited big drops of rain fell on their heads and shoulders, and the delay grew tedious.

Cite this Quote

Although it isn’t actually the biblical day of “Judgement,” this rain does signal a time in which the Fawleys are thoroughly judged and found wanting by everyone in Christminster. Nobody will give them lodging. They are forced to wander the city in the torrent, passing colleges and churches glowing with warmth and safety as the “delay” in finding a place to stay gets more and more “tedious.”

This cruel rain is always associated with the sense of touch: it soaks Jude's clothes, stings his eyes, and makes the stone he works with slippery and unmanageable. It is hard for Jude to get a grip on things in general in this novel: the rain makes it harder. The reader feels the horrible hopelessness of being wet and never seeming to get dry, as Hardy describes Jude's clothes soaking and sticking to him. The motif of rain is also regularly associated with the visual: rain obscures things, blurs Jude’s vision, and makes writing hard to read for the scholar-in-training. Rain plays a role in Jude's death, too, as he eventually dies of exposure after he gets soaked with rain and chilled during his final conversation with Sue.

Her glowingly red cheeks indicate Arabella’s drunkenness in this passage, but she attempts to pass it off as the “maiden blush” that one might expect from a bride-to-be. The reader, Jude, and Arabella’s companions all know that Arabella drinks too much and that she has already been a bride a couple of times. Her “modesty” would be natural in a bride-to-be but is totally incongruous in a woman of her experience. This fake shyness doesn’t convince anyone and just makes her blatant machinations to ensnare Jude even more obvious and unpleasant.

Indeed, this false flush might seem familiar to the reader. Arabella’s face and lips are similarly described as “flushed” and “crimson” just before she and Jude begin sleeping together in Part 1. Her flushed face calls her previous sexual manipulations to mind when it recurs again here in Part 6.

In line with her lack of sexual innocence (although she seems determined in this passage to make people think she still has it, saying she and Jude are “waiting for legal hours” to sleep together again), the color red is regularly associated with Arabella in this book to denote her association with "flesh" and embodiment. Fittingly, the "redness" the reader encounters most often with Arabella is that of blood. Arabella’s skin is often literally covered in pig's blood and entrails. She tells Jude in Part 1, Chapter 10 that her pigs have to be “well bled” in order to sell, as no-one wants “red and bloody” pork. When she has trapped Jude into marrying her again, her face fills up with “crimson." This echoes the blood Jude will soon be forced to cover himself in again as they slaughter and “bleed” pigs together. Arabella’s blushes are never “maiden” responses but are instead indicators of her tendency to manipulate and to overindulge.

Even though Phillotson is very familiar with the view that this window commands in daylight, in this instance it's covered with "mysterious darkness." Hardy evokes the closeness of the schoolmaster's face to the window with the physical and visual sensory language of the phrase "hard-breathing." Phillotson is pressed so close his breath is misting the glass, obscuring his view even more. He can't see because it's dark, but he also makes it harder for himself with his extreme proximity and "fixity."

Just before this passage, Hardy's narrator tells the reader that Sue at this point is very discontented. She feels she is "the wife of a husband whose person [is] disagreeable to her," and she is considering leaving Phillotson. His future—which should be as predictable as the view from his window for a man in his position—is hence in jeopardy of abruptly changing. He has no idea, but Hardy suggests some upcoming upheavals with this veil of darkness. Phillotson can't see what is coming, both literally and symbolically. In instances like this, the visual imagery of darkness and obscurity reflects the dark and depressing paths Hardy's characters take. It also parallels the unpredictable nature of the future in his novels. If you are born poor and unknown in a Hardy book, you are doomed to stay poor and unimportant (or "obscure").

A clear example of this is the visual imagery surrounding the village of Jude's birth. As a child, he lives in a dingy and "nestling hamlet" called Marygreen. The insides of houses are gloomy and smoky, and the horizon is "not far" from anything, indicating the village's extremely small size. Because of this stifling smallness, the dim landscape often closes in over Jude. It limits how far he can see, just as his poverty "obscures" his ambitions. The first time Jude tries to leave Marygreen to visit the city of Christminster in Part 1, Chapter 3, the night grows "funereally dark" and the "vague city" is "veiled in mist." Though there are lights, even these are "obscured":

No individual light was visible, only a halo or glow-fog overarching the place against the black heavens behind.

Cite this Quote

Even at this early point, Hardy foreshadows the failure of Jude's ambition to escape "obscurity." There are no "individual lights" for Jude in Christminster. There's only a vague and unreachable suggestion of light, and the glowering presence of the "black heavens" which eventually consume him. Fittingly, in Part 6 Chapter 11 when Jude dies, the last things he says are Biblical verses calling down darkness, reflecting his own absolute lack of hope and "light":

‘Let the day perish wherein I was born, and the night in which it was said, There is a man child conceived.’

Cite this Quote

(‘Hurrah!’)

‘Let that day be darkness; let not God regard it from above, neither let the light shine upon it [...]

Jude is born into a dark world, struggles to exit "obscurity" his entire life, and dies in darkness so deep even God cannot "regard it from above."