"Jude the Obscure", Thomas Hardy"s last novel is the story of its title character Jude Fawley, a young lower-class man with dreams of being a scholar, and his relationships with his wife, Arabella, and his intellectual cousin, Sue. A classic and tragic tale that plays upon many themes, principally of which is the idea that ones ruinous downfall is the product of having sinned against a higher being, an idea that Hardy strongly objects to. "Jude the Obscure" is one of Hardy"s finest and most intricate works which some suggest is strongly autobiographical.