ABSTRACT
Jude has more specific reasons for concern before he and Sue begin living together. Because she and her father are estranged, Sue asks Jude to give her away when she marries Phillotson; and she wants to rehearse the ceremony with him in the church in which she is to be wed. After Jude and Sue begin living together, there is a good deal of tension between them, so that they hardly seem to be two halves of a single being. The relationship between the protagonists is complicated by Jude's marriage to Arabella and Sue's to Phillotson. Jude and Sue's life together has problems from the start. Jude has compensated for the feelings of weakness, worthlessness, and helplessness instilled by his childhood by developing a dream of academic glory that gives his life direction and purpose for about a dozen years. Sue and Jude keep flirting with the idea of marriage but keep pulling back.
