Jude the Obscure is the story of an orphaned, intellectually ambitious young man who works as a stonemason at Christminster (a Wessex version of Oxford) rather than attending its classes, as he yearns to do. He is tricked into marrying a girl who claims to be carrying his child and who then deserts him. The heart of the book is Jude’s relationship with an independent-minded cousin, Sue Bridehead, with whom he makes a home and has children despite the fact that both are married to other people. Tragic consequences ensue, as if their love, like Jude’s hunger for learning, is fated to be met with punishment, no matter the nobility of spirit that impels it.
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