The marriage proves ephemeral, and after it implodes, Arabella moves to Australia

where she enters a bigamous marriage, whereas Jude winds up in Christminister at

last, where he meets his cousin Sue Bridehead, whose acquaintance he makes against
his aunt wishes. Jude battles his amatory sentiments towards Sue on account of
three reasons, namely his being married, her being his cousin, and the cancerous
nature of matrimony intrinsic to the Fawley clan. Jude and Sue find mutual grounds
in Mr. Phillotson, whom Sue would marry to Jude’s mortal dejection. Sue, then,
finds the espousal intolerable owing to her, in turn, being in love with Jude.
Subsequently, she leaves Mr. Phillotson for her cousin

goes back to Mr. Phillotson, and Jude gets caught in Arabella’s mesh once more,
after which he soon dies.
The tragic plot of the novel is steered and animated by five main characters; to
wit Jude Fawley who is a protagonist of ordinary, diligent, ambitious, benevolent
and rather sensitive disposition, downtrodden by a despotic social system that
rendered his valiant efforts at ameliorating his social and intellectual status
improbable. As such, Hardy paints his odyssey as a martyrdom of pyrric endeavors.
Second, and akin to Jude to an uncanny extent, comes Richard Phillotson whose moral
constitution