To Kill A Mockingbird Essay: Return To Philloton

returns to Phillotson and he tries to kiss her, 'Sue imperceptibly shrank away, her flesh quivering under the touch of his lips'. Nevertheless, they remarry. Sue is more relaxed when Phillotson reassures her that 'I shan't expect to intrude upon your personal privacy any more than I did before. It is for our good socially to do this'. On Jude's side of the story, Arabella calls on Jude, saying that she is penniless after quarrelling with her father, and begs Jude to take her in. Through his kind-heartedness, Jude again feels sorry for her and accommodates her. Arabella tells Jude that Sue and Phillotson are married, as well as the lie that 'Sue was so excited about it that she burnt her best embroidery that she'd worn with you'. Jude is so
She is still flirting with Dr Vilbert, but Hardy does not tell whether he subsequently becomes Arabella's third husband. If Jude and Sue lived in today's society, most of their problems would disappear. Jude might enter Oxford University and Sue and Jude could certainly live without being harassed merely because of their unmarried status. Religion may be another factor. Jude's strict adherence to religious doctrine inhibits him from courting Sue. Sue's belief in divine punishment makes her return to Phillotson against her real wishes. The epigraph of the novel is 'the letter killeth', which comes from 2 Corinthians 3.6 'For the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life'. However, it is obviously Hardy who gives them a hard time. In Hardy's world, external forces which we might call 'fate' rule and they are particularly harsh to women. Such deterministic philosophy reflecting loss of religious faith at the time is quite common amongst writers at the end of the 19th century, and this is particularly true for Hardy. What makes the study of Jude even more tragic than in the classical tragedy Oedipus Rex is that whereas Oedipus gains insight and matures spiritually when he dies,