The opening pages of Jude the Obscure show work in its two aspects: work as a vocation (Phillotson leaving to study in Christminster and join the clergy) and work that is necessary to satisfy one’s immediate material needs (Jude working for the farmer scaring birds in the corn field). Indeed, Raymond Williams says of Hardy that ‘work and desire are very closely connected in his imagination.’ Jude seeks consolation with Sue for his thwarted academic passion but, ultimately, he is rejected by her too. Soon after, when he is rejected by the university, he comes to replace his academic ambitions with a yearning to make a life together with Sue. When he moves to Christminster, his ambition becomes entwined with his growing desire for his cousin, Sue Bridehead. Jude strives to be accepted into an academic career at Christminster University. In Jude Fawley, Hardy creates a character driven by both vocational and emotional ambitions. Instrumental motivation sees the goal as functional and a means to gain some social or economic reward. Integrative motivation is characterised by the individual’s positive attitudes towards the goal and the desire to integrate it into his or her being. Motivation is a key driver too and is present in Jude the Obscure in its two basic forms: integrative and instrumental. Not surprisingly, the word has its root in the language of the church. In this context integration refers to a sense of self that balances work, home and relationship and vocation refers to an inclination or calling that is expressed in one’s career choice. Jude the Obscure demonstrates that work is the primary source of its characters’ self definition, emotional integration and personal fulfilment. But when things become more fraught, their work together becomes a mere satire, the disastrous Christminster cakes being but one example. With Sue, when the relationship is going well they work together in harmony, producing a model of a Christminster college together. Jude and Arabella’s estrangement comes to a head with their differing approaches to the slaughtering of a pig. In a similar manner, work also features in the ending of relationships within Jude. He meets Arabella when she is at work cleaning a pig’s offal and Sue when she is lettering a manuscript in a Christian shop.

The narrative is driven by Jude Fawley’s ambition to be accepted to study at Christminster University and almost all the key encounters between the principal characters involves one or other of them being engaged in work. Work is one of the major themes of Jude the Obscure. Terry Eagleton, The English Novel: An Introduction And in few English novelists is work as central as in Hardy. Work is what transforms the raw stuff of nature into meaning, gathering it into a human project.

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