Creed-Drunk
Sue leaves Christminster by train. At Marygreen she remarries Phillotson as penance. She names the dead children as proof that the return is right. Jude is left with the fact that her principles have changed sides. Self-punishment wears the costume of moral repair. The man who kept faith with the old conviction becomes the evidence of her sin.
Key Insight
If your new position requires you to call the old one wicked and to hurt the person who still holds it, audit the grief before you call it wisdom. Penance that uses a living body as the instrument is not repair. It is outsourcing the pain.
“My children are dead and it is right that they should be!”Explore full theme analysis
