Sue, Jude and the Society that Killed Them

In "Jude the Obscure", Thomas Hardy presents two characters whose dreams and ambitions ultimately end in ignominy and failure. The society around them, and their inability to merge into it, causes this downfall. More specifically, Jude is unable to fulfill his dreams due to his class, and Sue due to her gender. However it can be argued that it is the surmounting these obstacles that is the accurate measurement of success and Jude and Sue seem throughout the novel to be locked in to their own ideas and are unwilling to bend to societies will.
Jude's great aspiration is to be a scholar. …