Jude the Dark and Social DarwinismJude the Dark is truly a lesson in cruelty and desperation; the inevitable byproducts of social Darwinism. The main characters of the book are controlled by the "irresistible arm of extraordinary muscular strength"(1) of fate, which weakly resists the influence of their own sexuality, as well as the society and nature around them. Jude's world is one in which only the fittest survive, and he is clearly not equipped to be counted among the fittest. In line with the strong Darwinian currents that run through the book, a sort of "natural selection" guarantees that not even Jude's descendants survive to procreate. Their deaths by murder and suicide are but one of many macabre examples of cruelty in the novel, and there are numerous others (such as the cruel revelation that Latin is simply not "decodable" into English, which shatters the naïve Jude's claims to learn that language). and Jude's rejection for admission to university, without even having the opportunity to be tested; and Sue's reversal of all her ideals and decisions upon the death of her children, which she sees as some sort of divine warning, and her subsequent return to Phillotson; , to name just a few). Hardy's point of view on all this cruelty is linked to the dark irony that is evident in Jude's death scene. While the festive celebrations of the outside world continue in unconscious gaiety, Judah himself quotes morbid poems: "Let the day perish in which I was born, and the night in which it was said, A man child is conceived." ("Hurray!")(2)This ironic commentary on the cruelty of life continues at Jude's funeral; Jude's aspirations for a college education were never realized, yet as... middle of paper...; they are at the mercy of indifferent forces that manipulate their behavior and their relationships with others" (5). This manipulation by fate, and the resulting disparity between human goals and what is actually achieved, means that the lesson taught in Jude the Obscure is largely a question of the cruelty of nature and society. Endnotes:(1) Hardy, Thomas, Jude the Obscure, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1985, p (I.-vii).(2) Ibid., p. 426 (VI.-xi).(3) Ibid., p. 430 (VI.-xi).(4) Ibid., p .-x).(5) Abrams, M.H., ed., The Norton Anthology of English Literature, 6th ed., vol. 2., Norton, New York, 1993, p 1692. Bibliography: Abrams, M.H., ed., The Norton Anthology of English Literature, 6th ed., vol. 2., Norton, New York, 1993.Hardy, Thomas, Jude the Obscure, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1985.