SOURCE: "Sexual Ideology and the Narrative Form in Jude the Obscure" in English, Vol. X X X V I I I , Autumn, 1989, pp. 211-24.

In the following essay, Mallett discusses the relation between the confines of language and those of gender ideology in Jude the Obscure; he observes that "through its interruptions, silences, and juxtapositions, the narrative form of the novel dramatises and echoes the predicament of its heroine."

Critical discussion of Jude the Obscure has quite properly concentrated on Sue Bridehead. There have been two main points of departure: the first is Hardy's own account of her in 1912 (teasingly offered as the opinion of an 'experienced reviewer' from Germany) which sees her as the first delineation in fiction of 'a woman of the feminist movement' who represents 'the intellectualized, emancipated bundle of nerves that modern conditions were producing'. The second major departure-point is the pseudopsychological reading offered...