Jude the Obscure is not only Thomas Hardy’s last but probably also
his bleakest novel. Even the epigram on the frontispiece – “The letter
killeth [but the spirit giveth life]” – can be read as having negative
forebodings; it can, however, also be interpreted as a commentary on
the “nature” of language and on the absolute necessity of understanding its founding mechanisms such as absence, difference and deferral
if one is to lead a happy and meaningful life and if one endeavors to
claim the freedom and the responsibility to construct one’s gender
identity. This essay thus centers on the extent to which Hardy’s protagonist Jude Fawley, a man who desperately clings to the illusion of
a transcendental signified, is able to understand and put into practice
Hardy’s epigram when constructing his masculinity. Therefore, the
focus of inquiry will be the hitherto largely neglected discursive construction of an ill-fated male gender identity in a discursive universe
where “nobody did come, because nobody does” and where taking
words literally has lethal consequences.