Well, where to begin? The final parts of Jude The Obscure are so wonderfully replete with issues to discuss that I cannot decide upon which I would like to write. I will first mention that as a sucker for tragic love stories, I could not help recognizing the parallel between Jude and Anna Karenina, but not as the note on the back cover suggests. I find it interesting that the editor should liken Sue to Anna based on the idea that she is "the modern emancipated woman" as was Anna. In the beginning, Sue does seem unconventional and independent; but once tragedy strikes, as the note also tells us, she "proves unequal to the challenge." Anna would have never returned to Karenin, and did not, even after essentially "losing" her child. Here, I find Jude to be much more Anna's equal than Sue. We've talked in class of Sue's inconsistencies, and her final decisions finally prove her to be a quite a capricious woman. Although she vows to love Jude til the end, her actions dispute her claims--especially when she gives in to her conjugal duties to Phillotson. Anyway, back to Jude and Anna Karenina. Just as Anna was left behind by Vronsky, Jude was left by Sue. Anna returns home only to see her son one last time and then throws herself in front of a train. Jude returns to see Sue one last time and then attempts "suicide" by traveling in such a condition. Jude is entirely honest with himself and with others through the story. He wholeheartedly loves Sue and literally lives for her. Everyone--Sue, Arabella, Phillotson, etc.--knows this to be true. But only one person (herself) knows that Sue loves Jude, although others may suspect, because she is continually denying her affections for him. But not to get off onto a completely different novel that we have not read for the class ... I will move onto another topic of interest. Father Time and the other children. I LOVE Father Time. How could you not love such a child in such a story? I really wish there had been more focus on him in the novel because he is the one character who is completely selfless; although suicide is a pretty selfish act, his motives were otherwise. But I was really disturbed by the lack of suffering on behalf of Jude and Sue. Other than Sue's completely justified hysterics at the gravesite, the reader never encounters suffering, depression, madness, anguish, anything in either of the parents. Only remorse for their own sinful ways, viewing it as a punishment for their own behavior. They are still all for themselves. Sue's declaration that she is "glad--almost" because the children "were sin-begotten. They were sacrificed to teach me how to live! -- their death was the first stage of my purification" (363) indicate just how selfish she and Jude are. What matters to them is how they may be affected by a given situation. They cannot help it and I don't dislike them for it, it's simply fact. Perhaps Jude's exclamation to Sue is the reason for her distant approach to the death of her children: "Yours is not a passionate heart--your heart does not burn in a flame! You are, upon the whole, cold,--a sort of fay or sprite--not a woman!" (353). Her dispassionate manner toward Jude extends to her children as well. That she is "not a woman" is likely to most accurate description of Sue. With Phillotson, she feared his touch and would choose death over it. With Jude, her love seems almost platonic. Even though we know she has three children by him, there is not account of her sensuality or physical engagement with Jude. And finally, with her children, she seems to lack a maternal instinct, made apparent with their deaths. It did seem against her nature to accept Father Time so willingly and lovingly when he came to live with them, though. She is indeed an enigma.