[Hardy-l] Father Time

[Rosemarie Morgan]

>This is the crux of it after all -- isn't it? In his inimitable way Hardy 
>steers the whole issue away from genetics and towards social 
>responsibility. You do not "own" your children after all. Hardy's 
>narrator  makes it quite clear that Little Jude's parentage is 
>indeterminate and that his actions are, equally, beyond the law, 
>essentially innocent in intent yet criminal under society's legal 
>jurisdiction.

The surrealism or anti-realism of the character, of Little Jude's role and 
function within the novel, is surely essential to the ghastly "unreality" 
of the social laws which govern the action? (his actions in particular) It 
all strikes me as having a kinship -- remote as it may seem, at first sight 
-- to the student who shot his/her school teacher because s/he "Hated 
Mondays." (I can't remember if the shooter was a girl or a boy) There was 
of course a reason for hating Mondays -- the first day of school -- just as 
there was a reason for Little Jude to kill his siblings. Fear, horror, 
oppression, as motive,  makes sense in both cases.

These days much time, money, professional help and investigation is given 
over to the "Little Jude" cause and the schoolchild/criminal is  *perhaps,* 
better served than in Hardy's days. But one thing is certain: the 
child-killer is still held to be abnormal, aberrant and in many cases 
outside the law. A creature of melodrama--and unreal.  Probably not 
responsible for his/her actions.

I don't feel that Little Jude -- Little Father Time as he is nicknamed -- 
is altogether implausible as a character, although the symbolism of his 
role and function is set fair and square within the structure of the novel. 
I suspect, if I follow Eric Christen's wonderful contribution to the 
discussion correctly, that if the child is to "destroy" the father or if 
the father (Kronos) is intent upon destroying the child that it would all 
be dramatised rather differently in JO.  I do agree though that the 
destruction of the  father's children  must -- surely-- feature in the mind 
of Little Jude ? Somewhere and somehow the ancient Kronos story is hovering 
-- the son must in some way jeopardise the father's  destiny . This much 
Little Jude accomplishes  Melodramatically, mythically or 
simply  psychologically..

Cheers
'R




>"'The beggarly question of parentage--what is it after all?  What does
>it matter, when you come to think of it, whether a child is yours by
>blood or not?  Al the little ones of our time are collectively the
>children of adults of the time, and entitled to our general care.  That
>excessive regard of parents for their own children, and their dislike of
>other people's, is, like class-feeling, patriotism,
>save-your-own-soul-ism and other virtues, a mean exclusiveness at
>bottom.'"  (Jude, OUP, 264)