Introduction & Notes by Norman Vance Professor of English University of Sussex Jude Fawley is a rural stone mason with intellectual aspirations Frustrated by poverty & the indifference of the academic institutions at the University of Christminster his only chance of fulfilment seems to lie in his relationship with his unconventional cousin Sue Bridehead But life as social outcasts proves undermining & when tragedy occurs Sue has no resilience & Jude is left in despair Hardy's portrait of Jude the idealist & dreamer who is a prisoner of his own physical nature is one of the most haunting & desperate of his creations Jude the Obscure is a dark yet compassionate account of the insurmountable frustrations of human existence which reflect Hardy's yearning for the spiritual values of the past & his despair at their decline