Thomas Hardy wrote Jude the Obscure between 1894 and 1895, and the novel is set in about 1855-6. Hardy's own experiences in 19th-century England provided the inspiration for the social pressures and cruel restrictions his characters face. This was a period of enormous social change in the world, with advances in medicine, science, education, and travel happening at an astonishing pace. Jude the Obscure's setting reflects a feeling contemporaneous to its time: namely that with the rapid industrialization and modernization of the world, people might have a chance to break class barriers and find better ways to live. The tragedies that happen to Jude, Sue, and their children reflect Hardy's own view of this being unrealistic, as do the grim weather, grinding poverty, and unrelenting limitations of Victorian social life that appear throughout the novel.
Geographically, Jude the Obscure is set in Wessex, Hardy's imaginative reframing of southwest England. Wessex was originally a historical Anglo-Saxon kingdom on the island of Britain in the fifth century, long before the island was one united country. Hardy sets his novels within these boundaries in order to link the problems of his contemporary society—poverty, industrialization, class divides, inequality—with the mystery and perceived grandeur of Anglo-Saxon England. Wessex in Hardy's books functions as a county of England, but is haunted by the ghosts of the civilizations who have previously occupied it. It is a densely historical space, filled with ancient buildings, institutions, and old-fashioned attitudes.
"Wessex" is also tightly linked to Hardy's contemporary England and its real geography. All the fictional towns, cities, and churches in Jude the Obscure have real-life counterparts. For example, the "golden city" of Christminster is intended to represent the university city of Oxford. This city, like Christminster, is another venerable and exclusive place. It is famous for several things: its beautiful colleges, churches, and deep investment in learning, and also for the uncomfortable class divide between "town" and "gown" (ordinary, local working people and the privileged and aristocratic students.) Jude wishes to be "gown," but he cannot escape being "town."
Jude the Obscure's plot moves between Marygreen, a rural "hamlet" deep in the West Country, the towns of Shaston and Aldbrickham, and the city of Christminster. Marygreen is depicted as being stiflingly small and "mean," full of small-minded people. Shaston and Aldbrickham are picturesque but dull, places of work and of middle-class struggle. Christminster, by contrast, is described as being inexplicably enormous and austere, "gleaming" like an impenetrable jewel. Marygreen and Christminster are both exaggerated examples of stereotypes about "country ignorance" and "city education," which Hardy makes evident through stark juxtaposition. As with the protagonists of many novels of development, Jude starts in a small and humble place as a child. He then moves to the city in order to obtain an education. However, this is unsuccessful. No matter where he moves, Hardy implies, Jude is still limited by the setting into which he was born.
