Women in literature have always been struggling for a voice, as men tend to dominate. Women of the Victorian period tend to be unequal in status to men. ... Most Victorian women looked for marriage once they reached a mature age as a way to improve social standing. This is true for Thomas Hardy’s fictional character, Arabella, from Jude the Obscure, and also Oscar Wilde’s fictional characters, Cecily Cardew and Gwendolen Fairfax from The Importance of Being Earnest. ... She is very fickle and manipulative and expresses how important it is for her wellbeing to be married, signifying that women cannot be independent from men. Using whatever tricks she can, she trapped Jude into marrying her more than once. As soon as Jude is sickly ill, she is busy recruiting another husband. ... She tricks Jude into marrying her, but dissatisfied, she leaves for Austrailia and illegally marries another. Once that husband died, she had a longing to be with Jude, who was no longer infatuated by her after all she put Jude through. She is punished for her socially unnacceptable actions by never being truly happy or satisfied with any marriage. ... She takes it as a sign that her unofficial marriage to Jude isn’t meant to be and that her moral duty is to return to a man that she does not love. Even Arabella is aware that Sue is miserable without Jude as she claims “’She’s never found peace since she left his arms, and never will again till she’s as he [Jude] is now! ... Death freed Jude, but Sue is still alive to suffer, as her loveless marriage to Phillotson ages and tires her heavily. ... As a legally married woman, she begged Phillotson to let her live with her lover, Jude. Hardy uses Arabella and Sue, two completely different women, to show how women can use seduction for selfish reasons and manipulate men.
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