The Application of Lyotard‟s Concept of Multiplicity of Ideas on Jude the Obscure

Abstract

Humanity as a whole has diverse and varying social norms and regulations that govern day to day interactions of
individuals to others and also stipulate their expected association with those around them, which may be other
similarly socially constructed societies or those with different rules and regulations governing the social and
religious lifestyle. This paper intends to analyze the effects, influence and ultimate changes due to multiplicity (with
applying Jean Francois Lyotard‟s concept of multiplicity) in the mid and late Victorian era by using Thomas
Hardy‟s Jude the Obscure as a template to look back at the social construction of that era. In a world with the
tolerance of diversity, it is accepted and tolerated that people are different; they think differently, they judge
differently, they make different choices, they speak differently and they live differently. In this world people know
that ideas could be unlike and different from each other but they could be reasonable and true. In this world, people
can make different choices, live differently and they can be embraced and tolerated easily. In this world, people can
make their own rules and justices as long as they do not harm others. In this world, the notions like good, bad,
wrong, right are relative and different for each individual and all these concepts can change according to time, place
and circumstances.