His marriage with Arabella made him realize that living life the ideal or Christian way can lead to disastrous results, like the suffering he experienced for marrying a woman he does not love. While pig-killing with his wife Arabella, he realized that he was now a different person to what he aspired to be when he was young. He perceived his life as revolving around poverty, hard work, and sinfulness; religion and education was a forgotten fact of his life, aspirations that he was surprised to remember once fueled his desire to live:

Jude felt dissatisfied with himself as a man at what he had done, though aware of his lack of common sense, and that the deed would have amounted to the same thing if carried out by deputy. The white snow, stained with the blood of his fellow-mortal, wore an illogical look to him as a lover of...
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