What work of literature has surprised, unsettled, or challenged you, and in what way

One book that has affected me in a way that it has stayed in my mind and left me thinking long after I have finished reading it is Thomas Hardys novel, Jude the Obscure. It is a depressing story. Jude Fawley is a poor boy from a small village who dreams of being a scholar at Christminster when he grows up. In the meantime, he studies by himself, marries a country girl, separates with her, lives together with a cousin and bears children with her, and finds livelihood as a mason. All through these dramas and detours in his life, he holds on to his dream. In the end, his eldest child kills his siblings because he could not bear the poverty-stricken life anymore, his wife leaves him, and he gets sick until he dies.

    I have never read a book more depressing than Jude the Obscure. There is no redemption for Jude all throughout his life, not even a hopeful note in the tone of Hardys writings. Instead, certain events highlight Judes hopelessness and the impossibility of his dream as in the scene that shows him watching a parade of scholars passing by him, a sort of metaphor of how his sole dream of ever being a student in the academy is passing him by as he struggles with harsh everyday living. In the end, Jude simply diesthe ultimate escape to all hard lives in the world but it is an end that is not consoling to the reader.

    The story is unsettling because of this effect of telling the reader to face reality life will not realize your deepest dreams so do not expect too much from it. One either has to simply be content with and make the best out of what the present brings, or prepare to be defeated. On the other hand, the story also made me appreciate the value of the struggle that humans do on earth everyday. Humans are resilient beings. Like Jude, they are always fighting against fate until the very end of their lives. Somehow, it is never the realization of dreams that will matter, but the fact that one dared to dream, struggle, lost, but not ever give up and instead accomplish that test of endurance called living.