Vanita Baraiya: Sue Bridehead

This blog as a thinking lab activity which is assigned by Prof. Dr. Dilip Barad Sir

Sue Bridehead

Here my own views on the character study of Sue Bridehead:

She embodies Hardy’s critique of Victorian society, becoming both the symbol of rebellion and the victim of compromise.

Sue Bridehead, Jude's cousin, is one of the most complex and puzzling creations of Thomas Hardy. Although she prides herself on being a free thinker, she marries a much older man, Richard Phillotson, out of a sense of obligation and then leaves him shortly afterward because of her revulsion toward him. She later lives with Jude for several years and bears him three children. She is not only a strong influence on Jude but also the primary reason for his giving up his attempts to enter the ministry, for through her unorthodox thought and skeptical views she pushes him toward questioning faith and tradition. Yet, after the tragic death of her children, she undergoes a complete change in personality. Wanting now to conform, she convinces herself that her sufferings are punishment for her rebellion against Christianity and finally returns to her first husband, Phillotson.

For me, Sue represents Hardy’s vision of the “New Woman” of the late Victorian age. She is intellectual, independent, and daring enough to question religion, gender roles, and tradition. At the same time, Hardy shows us how hard it is to actually break free from society. Guilt, custom, and fear all weigh heavily on her, and although she dreams of freedom, she ends in compromise and defeat. This is what makes her both admirable and tragic. She is admired for her intellectual courage, yet also criticized for her indecisiveness and contradictions. Hardy makes her one of his most psychologically complex heroines neither fully free nor fully conformist.

Her hypersensitivity and sexual ambiguity puzzle everyone around her. To Jude, she often seems “bodiless,” someone whose love is intellectual rather than physical.

But her tragedy comes after the horrifying death of her children, especially the murder-suicide by “Little Father Time.” Crushed by grief, Sue abandons her rebellion and convinces herself that their deaths are punishment for living “in sin” with Jude. In a heartbreaking reversal, she embraces a harsh Christianity and returns to Phillotson.

Thus, Hardy shows how society, religion, and guilt destroy a free spirit.

Symbolically, Sue embodies Hardy’s critique of Victorian morality. Through her character, he explores the themes of women’s freedom, the cruelty of rigid social conventions, and the terrible cost of nonconformity. The turning point of her life comes with the tragedy of her children’s deaths, especially the murder-suicide of “Little Father Time,” which devastates her. She interprets this catastrophe as divine punishment and turns back to conventional religion, self-denial, and duty. This marks her downfall — from a free, questioning spirit to a guilty, broken conformist.

Her conflict and contradictions make her a deeply puzzling figure. She constantly shifts between ideals and fears, independence and dependence, rebellion and submission. Her marriage to Phillotson, despite her love for Jude, shows her torn nature between desire and duty. She rejects marriage as oppressive, yet at times feels guilty for resisting it. Her relationship with Jude is loving but unconventional, and though they live together, she struggles with intimacy and often resists physical passion, creating strain between them.

Hardy himself seems fascinated by her. Sue stands apart from all of Hardy’s heroines. nor as sensual as Tess, nor as earthy as Arabella. Hardy builds her up as his most modern creation, almost ahead of her time. Her hypersensitivity, inconsistency, and sexual ambiguity all contribute to her tragic collapse not only in relation to Jude but in her own personality. Jude and Phillotson both become puppets, responding to her whims and contradictions, but she too is never at peace. She admits her own “colossal inconsistency,” and Hardy portrays her elusiveness so faithfully that she remains beyond complete explanation.

Her sexuality, or lack of it, is one of the great puzzles. Though she lives with Jude, she resists consummating their union for a long time. Jude often feels she has “hardly flesh at all,” that she is like air in his arms. She surrenders physically only out of jealousy or fear, and later urges Jude to place his wishes above his gratification. Her opinions on marriage and physical duty are strikingly modern: she protests against the expectation that a woman must respond whenever a husband demands, describing marriage as a “dreadful contract.” She refuses to see intimacy as an obligation. This radical thought reflects her rebellion, but also creates tensions in her love life.

Sue is full of strange contradictions. She reveres pagan statues but fears a landlady’s judgment. She is clever yet resists being called clever. She confuses Jude with her changes of mind, asking him not to love her and then writing to him again “out of charity.” She respects Phillotson more after leaving him than while living with him. She embodies the confusion of a woman caught between two worlds tradition and modernity.

The tragedy of her life is intensified by the way she responds to catastrophe. After the children’s deaths, the Sue who once led Jude toward radical thought collapses into guilt and repentance. The one who opposed marriage as the “climax of love” now embraces penance and returns to Phillotson, though she can never forget Jude. Arabella, more practical and worldly, concludes Sue’s fate in a bitterly simple way: “She’s never found peace since she left his arms, and never will again till she’s as he is now.”

A feminist reading of Sue highlights her rebellion against gender roles. She works outside conventional “women’s jobs,” challenges male authority, and refuses to define herself through men. She even dresses in Jude’s clothes at one point, unsettling gender stereotypes. She insists that she has never yielded herself to any man, and criticizes society for expelling her on grounds of propriety. She insists that men and women are equals in their suffering under social rules. In this way, Hardy makes her not just a character but also a statement against Victorian constraints.

Ultimately, Sue Bridehead is both a symbol and a woman of flesh and blood. Hardy’s portrayal of her psychology is extraordinary subtle, contradictory, and painfully real. She represents the modern woman’s struggle: independent but conflicted, desiring freedom but unable to escape guilt, breaking rules but crushed by the consequences. For me, she is Hardy’s most haunting heroine, because she never finds resolution. Her tragedy is not only her own but also symbolic of the universal conflict between tradition and modernity, desire and duty, rebellion and conformity. She begins as hope, ends in compromise, and remains unforgettable.

Through Sue, Hardy explores:

Women’s struggle for independence.
The hypocrisy of sexual double standards.
The tragedy of compromise when ideals meet harsh reality.

Conclusion:

Sue’s Legacy

Sue Bridehead is not a heroine one can neatly categorize. She is elusive, contradictory, and psychologically complex. She begins as a symbol of freedom and modernity, but ends in defeat and submission. Through her, Hardy shows that breaking free from society is never simple: tradition, guilt, and fear weigh too heavily.

Arabella may survive through practicality, Jude through broken dreams, but Sue remains the most haunting—a woman ahead of her time, yet crushed by her time.

As Hardy himself suggests, Sue is not to be explained, only experienced:

“Sue simply is, and it is up to the reader to sense the inner truth that creates multiple, conflicting impressions.”

In the end, Sue Bridehead remains Hardy’s most fascinating heroine—admired, criticized, and never forgotten.

Here is a video on character study of Sue Bridehead: