Hardy uses the nasty image of a "gin" (a cruel metal trap activated by pressure) as a metaphor for Jude's rushed and early marriage to Arabella Donn. This image also recurs as a motif. In Part 1, Chapter 9, Jude compares the situation he finds himself in to being caught in one of these devices:
There seemed to him, vaguely and dimly, something wrong in a social ritual which made necessary a cancelling of well-formed schemes [...] because of a momentary surprise by a new and transitory instinct which had nothing in it of the nature of vice, and could be only at the most called weakness. He was inclined to inquire what he had done, or she lost, for that matter, that he deserved to be caught in a gin which would cripple him, if not her also, for the rest of a lifetime?
In this passage, Jude tries to understand how something as comparatively small and quick as sleeping with Arabella should mean that both their lives are ruined. He has been conditioned by his upbringing to believe that men have a duty to marry women they impregnate, which is surely why he feels “vaguely and dimly” that it was wrong for him to sleep with Arabella. Still, he doesn't draw a direct connection between this social conditioning and his sense of remorse or guilt, instead wondering why their passing act of intimacy should make it necessary for them to get married. This is one of the first instances in the novel in which Hardy questions the conventions of unbreakable, “eternal” Christian marriage. This later becomes a central theme of Jude the Obscure.
A gin is a metal trap with jaws that spring suddenly shut. Even the slightest weight will trigger it, and it’s often used to catch animals by being hidden in leaves or grass. The jaws are strong and sharp, designed to tear flesh and break bone. Jude and Arabella sleeping together means they're bound for life, as even their brief affair was enough to trigger the "trap." Jude feels that his life has been broken, torn, and “crippled” by the societal and religious expectations of marriage.
Another gin appears when Jude and Sue find an ensnared rabbit in Part 4, Chapter 2. Hardy describes the scene in gory detail:
If it were a ‘bad catch’ by the hind-leg, the animal would tug during the ensuing six hours till the iron teeth of the trap had stripped the leg-bone of its flesh, when, should a weak-springed instrument enable it to escape, it would die in the fields from the mortification of the limb. If it were a ‘good catch, ’ namely, by the fore-leg, the bone would be broken, and the limb nearly torn in two in attempts at an impossible escape.
This horrible description points to Sue's own entrapment in her unhappy marriage with Phillotson. Anyone with real passions and a desire to grow and learn in Jude the Obscure is “crippled” by marriage. They either slowly die while trapped in wedlock or they try to escape it and end up being "nearly torn in two." People without both passion and curiosity (like Arabella and Phillotson) are inconvenienced by the gin, too, but are not destroyed like Jude and Sue are.
Hardy uses the nasty image of a "gin" (a cruel metal trap activated by pressure) as a metaphor for Jude's rushed and early marriage to Arabella Donn. This image also recurs as a motif. In Part 1, Chapter 9, Jude compares the situation he finds himself in to being caught in one of these devices:
There seemed to him, vaguely and dimly, something wrong in a social ritual which made necessary a cancelling of well-formed schemes [...] because of a momentary surprise by a new and transitory instinct which had nothing in it of the nature of vice, and could be only at the most called weakness. He was inclined to inquire what he had done, or she lost, for that matter, that he deserved to be caught in a gin which would cripple him, if not her also, for the rest of a lifetime?
In this passage, Jude tries to understand how something as comparatively small and quick as sleeping with Arabella should mean that both their lives are ruined. He has been conditioned by his upbringing to believe that men have a duty to marry women they impregnate, which is surely why he feels “vaguely and dimly” that it was wrong for him to sleep with Arabella. Still, he doesn't draw a direct connection between this social conditioning and his sense of remorse or guilt, instead wondering why their passing act of intimacy should make it necessary for them to get married. This is one of the first instances in the novel in which Hardy questions the conventions of unbreakable, “eternal” Christian marriage. This later becomes a central theme of Jude the Obscure.
A gin is a metal trap with jaws that spring suddenly shut. Even the slightest weight will trigger it, and it’s often used to catch animals by being hidden in leaves or grass. The jaws are strong and sharp, designed to tear flesh and break bone. Jude and Arabella sleeping together means they're bound for life, as even their brief affair was enough to trigger the "trap." Jude feels that his life has been broken, torn, and “crippled” by the societal and religious expectations of marriage.
Another gin appears when Jude and Sue find an ensnared rabbit in Part 4, Chapter 2. Hardy describes the scene in gory detail:
If it were a ‘bad catch’ by the hind-leg, the animal would tug during the ensuing six hours till the iron teeth of the trap had stripped the leg-bone of its flesh, when, should a weak-springed instrument enable it to escape, it would die in the fields from the mortification of the limb. If it were a ‘good catch, ’ namely, by the fore-leg, the bone would be broken, and the limb nearly torn in two in attempts at an impossible escape.
This horrible description points to Sue's own entrapment in her unhappy marriage with Phillotson. Anyone with real passions and a desire to grow and learn in Jude the Obscure is “crippled” by marriage. They either slowly die while trapped in wedlock or they try to escape it and end up being "nearly torn in two." People without both passion and curiosity (like Arabella and Phillotson) are inconvenienced by the gin, too, but are not destroyed like Jude and Sue are.
Hardy regularly associates the ethereal Sue Bridehead with the motif of birds in this novel. Jude often refers to her as a bird or speaks of her as birdlike when he is frustrated with their their horrible luck, as he does in this fragment from Part 4, Chapter 2:
‘It is horrible how we are circumstanced, Sue – horrible!’ he said abruptly, with his eyes bent to the floor. [...] Your part is that you ought not to have married him. I saw it before you had done it, but I thought I mustn’t interfere. I was wrong. I ought to have!’
‘But what makes you assume all this, dear?’
‘Because – I can see you through your feathers, my poor little bird!’
In this passage, Jude refers to both their mutual emotional strain and his own dissatisfaction. Although Sue is safely married to a man with a regular job, Jude still thinks he can can "see her" through her “feathers.” This refers to the metaphorical idea that she looks thin and weary, as if she is a bird molting from stress and neglect. It’s also a suggestion by Jude that Sue's husband Phillotson doesn't really know her character but just wants her beauty. Jude believes he himself does more than this, thinking he can see "her" through her "feathers." In the same way as her counterpart Arabella Donn is linked to pigs, Sue is described by Hardy as being light, small, and delicate like a bird.
Sue is also associated with birds through her own choices. She memorizes Poe's poem "The Raven" as a child, an early instance of her desire to learn and exceed her circumstances. Although that poem is quite well-known now, it was relatively new and exciting for Victorian readers at the time in which Jude the Obscure is set. It would also have been considered an unusual choice for a young girl to learn, as it is full of grim and Gothic imagery. In this moment, Hardy makes a real-world reference to emphasize an early example of Sue’s free-thinking ways to his reader. Later in the book, Sue also releases birds from their cage, as if in sympathy for her own entrapment.
When Phillotson is considering reuniting with Sue in Part 6, Chapter 5, he is chastised through a metaphor by his friend Gillingham for "letting the bird go” in the first place:
‘Well – if you’ve got any sound reason for marrying her again, do it now in God’s name! I was always against your opening the cage-door and letting the bird go in such an obviously suicidal way.
Sue is described metaphorically here as a bird in a cage, as Hardy again refers to marriage as a cage or a trap from which she can be “released.”
Hardy regularly associates the ethereal Sue Bridehead with the motif of birds in this novel. Jude often refers to her as a bird or speaks of her as birdlike when he is frustrated with their their horrible luck, as he does in this fragment from Part 4, Chapter 2:
‘It is horrible how we are circumstanced, Sue – horrible!’ he said abruptly, with his eyes bent to the floor. [...] Your part is that you ought not to have married him. I saw it before you had done it, but I thought I mustn’t interfere. I was wrong. I ought to have!’
‘But what makes you assume all this, dear?’
‘Because – I can see you through your feathers, my poor little bird!’
In this passage, Jude refers to both their mutual emotional strain and his own dissatisfaction. Although Sue is safely married to a man with a regular job, Jude still thinks he can can "see her" through her “feathers.” This refers to the metaphorical idea that she looks thin and weary, as if she is a bird molting from stress and neglect. It’s also a suggestion by Jude that Sue's husband Phillotson doesn't really know her character but just wants her beauty. Jude believes he himself does more than this, thinking he can see "her" through her "feathers." In the same way as her counterpart Arabella Donn is linked to pigs, Sue is described by Hardy as being light, small, and delicate like a bird.
Sue is also associated with birds through her own choices. She memorizes Poe's poem "The Raven" as a child, an early instance of her desire to learn and exceed her circumstances. Although that poem is quite well-known now, it was relatively new and exciting for Victorian readers at the time in which Jude the Obscure is set. It would also have been considered an unusual choice for a young girl to learn, as it is full of grim and Gothic imagery. In this moment, Hardy makes a real-world reference to emphasize an early example of Sue’s free-thinking ways to his reader. Later in the book, Sue also releases birds from their cage, as if in sympathy for her own entrapment.
When Phillotson is considering reuniting with Sue in Part 6, Chapter 5, he is chastised through a metaphor by his friend Gillingham for "letting the bird go” in the first place:
‘Well – if you’ve got any sound reason for marrying her again, do it now in God’s name! I was always against your opening the cage-door and letting the bird go in such an obviously suicidal way.
Sue is described metaphorically here as a bird in a cage, as Hardy again refers to marriage as a cage or a trap from which she can be “released.”
In Chapter 7, Part 6, Tinker Taylor uses two unflattering metaphors to describe Arabella Fawley’s aging body:
‘Well, ’ said Tinker Taylor, re-lighting his pipe at the gas-jet. ‘Take her all together, limb by limb, she’s not such a bad-looking piece – particular by candlelight. To be sure, halfpence that have been in circulation can’t be expected to look like new ones from the Mint. But for a woman that’s been knocking about the four hemispheres for some time, she’s passable enough. A little bit thick in the flitch perhaps: but I like a woman that a puff o’ wind won’t blow down.’
Arabella is aligned with the image of the pig throughout Jude the Obscure, and this is taken to its most literal extreme in this passage. Taylor goes over Arabella’s body like he’s butchering a sow, assessing her attractiveness "limb by limb" as if she can be categorized and cut into pieces like meat. He calls her "thick in the flitch." This expression is usually used to indicate that a pig is ripe for killing because it has fat, sturdy haunches. Arabella may have meaty flanks and sides like a prize hog; but at least, Taylor says, she’s not “such a bad-looking piece – particular by candlelight.” He also mentions the fleshiness and solidity that has characterized her throughout the novel. Arabella is hefty and solid enough to have been “knocking around the four hemispheres for some time.” She remains intact no matter what the world throws at her, and she can't be "puffed" around. However, Taylor implies, Jude Fawley now can be “puffed,” and Arabella will get what she wants from him regardless of his preferences. Jude’s first wife seems almost grotesquely solid after all the time Jude has spent with Sue. His second wife is always associated with birds, air, and lightness: Arabella, on the other hand, is so solid that Taylor (rather problematically) presents her as a thick mass of meat.
