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Here on my blog. This blog related to the B.A. text " The Far From the Madding Crowd." Trailer of this movie: Click here
I didn't know what the story of this book was when it came in my syllabus but when our Sir called us Study, I had a lot of fun reading it and I liked two of these characters very much.When this novel came up with a syllabus, when our sir class asked how appropriate this title is or why this title is kept, many questions arose in my mind and many stories were also composed Interested in teaching this novel.The opening scene of Far from the Madding Crowd, the new adaptation of Thomas Hardy’s 1874 novel, shows Carey Mulligan’s Bathsheba Everdene stride into a stable, rain pouring outside, to comfort a horse. No skirts rustle or drag in the mud she’s wearing leather riding trousers and a jacket. It’s an image that jolts us out of comfortable period drama expectations, announcing that the film revolves around a woman ahead of her time.Bathsheba initially lives modestly with her aunt.
Like a lot of comedies, Far from the Madding Crowd ends with a wedding between two lovers who've always belonged together. Hardy puts a sober spin on this kind of ending, though, when he reminds us that Bathsheba likes Gabriel more than loves him.
◇ brief Introduction of Thomas Hardy:
While Hardy wrote poetry throughout his life and regarded himself primarily as a poet, his first collection was not published until 1898. Initially, he gained fame as the author of novels such as Far from the Madding Crowd (1874), The Mayor of Casterbridge (1886), Tess of the d'Urbervilles (1891), and Jude the Obscure (1895). During his lifetime, Hardy's poetry was acclaimed by younger poets (particularly the Georgians) who viewed him as a mentor. After his death his poems were lauded by Ezra Pound, W. H. Auden and Philip Larkin.Hardy's first novel, The Poor Man and the Lady, finished by 1867, failed to find a publisher. He then showed it to his mentor and friend, the Victorian poet and novelist, George Meredith, who felt that The Poor Man and the Lady would be too politically controversial and might damage Hardy's ability to publish in the future. So Hardy followed his advice and he did not try further to publish it. He subsequently destroyed the manuscript, but used some of the ideas in his later work. In his recollections in Life and Work, Hardy described the book as "socialistic, not to say revolutionary; yet not argumentatively so."
☆ Hardy philosophy:
Hardy is primarily a novelist, but his novels go beyond the story to articulate his philosophy and his views on life. It will not be inaccurate to say that his novels reflect the 19th century conflict between religion and science, faith in God and belief in human rationality. Far from the Madding Crowd, it raises many questions about society, religion, morals and ends on a positive note that virtue garners rewards as evidenced in Gabriel Oak’s happy union with Bathsheba as a reward for leading a life of goodness, humility, loyalty and selfless love.
* The transition is evident in the change:
(a) from an agrarian rural life to industrial urban life,
(b) from fundamental beliefs in God as the Creator of the world and as regulator of humans .
affairs through his omnipotence and omniscience to acceptance of scientific laws based on Charles Darwin’s The Origin of Species about the creation of the universe as an evolutionary process in defiance of earlier theological belief about God as the originator of the Universe,
(c) from a predominantly rural society with its strong belief in tradition and customs that gave some degree of security and stability and dignity to the rural folks to a urban society, with its new outlook on life and morals, along with a focus on material well being and a new social order that brought a sharp cleavage between the educated elite and the uneducated or semi-educated poor.
(d) from an acceptance of life’s ups and downs as the working of a beneficent, omnipotent, and omniscient deity to questioning the function of that deity in the face of omnipresent evil and unreasonable happenings leading to unhappiness. It had become increasingly difficult to reconcile the prevalence of unhappiness in life with the operation of a benevolent deity. As Brennecke observed, “He (Hardy) cannot reconcile the idea of an omnipotent and merciful Deity with human sufferings.”
Hardy was not a philosopher given to abstract metaphysical speculations. He was primarily a novelist and therefore it is appropriate to describe him as a philosophical novelist. His novels are not about an esoteric or an abstruse world but about the real world of the 19th century Victorian society to which he belonged. The novel form gave him the to reflect on Victorian society, its morals, ethics and worldview as it was caught between the old world that was slowly disappearing and the new world ushered in by the Industrial revolution, yet to be born.Though a Christian by birth and upbringing, Hardy, under the influence of the 19th century scientific thinkers and writers like Charles Darwin, lost his faith in a Christian God. Darwin’s work scientifically traced the origin of man as a natural evolution from a primordial form to his present state and thus questioned the prevailing concept of the creation of man by God. As a result, all the older Christian values appeared to the Victorians including Hardy as redundant. Darwin's work undermined the prevailing concept of the divine creation of man. He learnt from Darwin that the natural order is indifferent to man's desires and aspirations. As a consequence, he Broke with Victorian optimism and self complacency and developed pessimism and discontent.Hardy was an extensive reader who had read the ancient Greek tragedies, Shakespeare’s works, contemporary thinkers such as the English philosopher, Thomas Huxley, and the French radical reformers and philosophers, such as Charles Fourier, Hippolyte Taine, and Auguste Comte. His conception of human life was shaped in part by his extensive critical reading of the Bible. His novels are full of Biblical allusions and Far From the Madding Crowd is rich in its Biblical allusions. All his readings were further supported by his rural background. Ernest Brennecke, who wrote one of the earliest appraisals of Hardy’s philosophy of life, argued that Hardy developed “a consistent world-view through the notions of Chance and Time, Circumstances, Fate, Nature, Providence, Nemesis and Will tinged with metaphysical idealism”.His novels seem to suggest that the old Christian values did not help man to face misery and unhappiness.Thus we see the dilemma in his writings where on the one hand he castigates religion as it had very little to offer to the modern man and on the other he is acutely aware of the place of religion in tradition and customs that had given some degree of solidity to the culture of the people.As Lennart A. Björk noted, “Hardy’s castigation of traditional religion is an integral part of his social criticism,” as religion cannot offer comfort and consolation during moments of crisis.
Thus we see his writings that deal with the loss of an earlier simpler Christian faith and its total abandonment to the will of God, and a longing for a new order to replace that loss of the older faith in God by making the church an important social institution. He told Edmund Blunden, “If there is no church in a country village, there is nothing.”
Hardy’s critical vision of life was deeply rooted in his Hellenic and pagan sympathies of the rural countryside which held more charm for Hardy than did Christianity. In his Wessex novels and stories.
◇ Summary of " Far From the Madding Crowd " novel :
Early in the novel, in chapter 4, she says:“ nobody has got me yet as a sweetheart, instead of my having a dozen as my aunt said; I hate to be thought of as men's property in that way though possibly I shall have had some day.” Two things strike us the 19th century woman is presented as a modern heroine, refusing to be a man’s property. But realizing the patriarchal mindset of the age, she retreats and says she possibly will have to be the property of some man at some point of time. She shows herself to be strong willed and fiercely independent, though aware of the social compulsions that will force her to accept a man. She does not want to be the centre of gossip and pity over her unmarried status among her labour force that constitutes the village majority. More
than that she is keen to prove she is equal to the other sex in terms of owning, managing, and administering the farm and the farm labourers.In chapter 13, after she sends the Valentine card, the novelist Hardy comments:“So very idly and unreflectively was this deed done. Of love, as a spectacle Bathsheba had a fair knowledge; but of love subjectively she knew nothing.” This sums up the naivety of Bathsheba who has had no experience of love, a corroboration of what she had earlier said that she did not want to be any man’s property. She is presented as a happy go lucky young woman, self confident...Click here to read more
◇ Introduction about Character in " Far from the Madding Crowd " :
Bathsheba Everdene :
Bathsheba, the orphaned daughter of a wealthy farm owner, is raised by her aunt in the countryside. She is the protagonist as the novel centers around her. The story progresses through her relationship with three suitors and her final choice reflects her personal growth from the impulsive and headstrong woman that she was at the beginning to a mature woman who can manage her emotions. She is pivotal to the story and her final choice of Gabriel Oak as her husband shows she is far from her mad obsessed lover, Farmer Boldwood and a pretentious, self absorbed husband, Sergeant Troy who deserts her soon after marriage. Bathsheba is by farthe best-drawn and strongest female character seen in Hardy’s work, despite her vacillations. Hardy shows her to be a strong and self-reliant woman and although she makes some poor choices, they do make sense. She is a realistic character whose statement made late in the novel helps to explain Tess, Eustacia and Sue the central female leads inHardy’s later novels: ‘it is difficult for a woman to define her feelings in language which is chiefly made by men to express theirs.”
Gabriel Oak
The opening lines of the novel give us a perfect introduction to Gabriel Oak. We get an insight into his personality:“When Farmer Oak smiled, the corners of his mouth spread till they were within an unimportant distance of his ears, his eyes were reduced to chinks, and diverging wrinkles appeared round them, extending upon his countenance like the rays in a rudimentary sketch of the rising sun.His Christian name was Gabriel, and on working days he was a young man of sound judgment, easy motions, proper dress, and general good character.”
Gabriel, like Bathsheba, is different from all other characters in the novel. He is far from the madding crowd of Weatherbury, for he is originally from Norcombe Hill and he comes to Weatherbury in search of a job. He is an outsider to Weatherbury and learns about the people of that place and their way of living after he gets a job under Bathsheba to manage her farm and settles down there. While the Weatherbury folks are given to gossip and are skeptical about a woman deciding to manage her own farm, Gabriel Oak, a shepherd who was reasonably well off in his native place till tragedy struck him with the loss of his two hundred sheep, suffers from no false pride and accepts a job under a woman. He does not gossip about anyone. He is humble and gentle and accepts Bathsheba’s instant rejection of his marriage proposal in his stride. His humility, unboastful character and selflessness are in marked contrast to the vain, boastful, self-centric Sergeant Troy who marries Bathsheba and leaves her. He is also a simple rustic shepherd from an obscure village and thus is a contrast to the country-bred, complex and wealthy gentleman Farmer Boldwood, who falls a victim to his own passion that was initially kindled by Bathsheba’s prankish message to him to marry her. Thus Gabriel Oak is far removed from both the suitors of Bathsheba - Sergeant Troy and Boldwood. Gabriel Oak stands out in the midst of the Weatherbury crowd, and proves to be a likeable loner, far from the madding crowd.
Sergeant Francis Troy
Sergeant Troy is a handsome, dashing young soldier, charming to women and a pleasure seeker. He is not one of the Weatherbury types; he feels superior to the country folks in Weatherbury and his conquest of Bathsheba provokes awe and admiration in the innocent rural farmhands. He is in their eyes a hero who could tame Bathsheba, the spirited young woman of the place. He is not like Gabriel Oak who is self- effacing and withdrawing by nature. He is unlike Farmer Boldwood who is a strict no-nonsense type and who adheres to Christian morals. Boldwood has a congenital hatred for Sergeant Troy who with his pretentious charm, woos and wins Bathsheba. If Gabriel Oak, who ultimately proves successful, is the hero, Sergeant Troy is the antagonist of the novel. He should not be seen as totally evil for he has shades of good qualities. He keeps to his promise he made to Fanny Robin that he will marry her by waiting in the church for her to turn up. Unfortunately it is destiny that mars their marriage as Fanny reaches another church and thus fails to arrive at the right place. He feels a deep sense of remorse, when Fanny dies along with his unborn baby.
Farmer Boldwood
Boldwood is the second of the three suitors for Bathsheba’s hand. Boldwood is not a young man like Gabriel Oak or Sergeant Troy. He is middle aged, dignified and respectable. He owns a farm
close to Bathsheba’s and is a highly respected farmer, especially for his knowledge and management of his farm. He had never regarded marriage as a necessity and despite the gossip of the villagers about his unmarried status, the truth is, he had never really been in love. He is kind and sympathetic towards the poor and the submissive like Fanny Robin. He is a man with a kind heart and he feels responsible for Fanny, initially for her schooling ,then for her employment in Bathsheba’s uncle’s farm and finally for her safety when she suddenly disappears from the village with no one having any information about her whereabouts. In spite of his no-nonsense approach to women and marriage, he misunderstands Bathsheba’s mischievous Valentine card sent to him with the tagline ‘Will you marry me?” He is flattered to be paid such attention by a beautiful, almost imperious woman and slowly becomes obsessed with her an obsession that eventually turns into madness. He is insistent on Bathsheba agreeing to marry him after it is rumored that her husband Sergeant Troy had died of drowning. The Valentine card makes him for the first time look at women and think of marriage that he had till then shunned. For the first time, he experiences love which turns into obsessive passion. He becomes possessive of Bathsheba and gets upset with Sergeant Troy whom he knows to be a pretender with no genuine love for Bathsheba. The change in Boldwood is palpable. He is far removed from his earlier serious and solemn nature. He forces Bathsheba to promise that she will marry him after the official mourning period for her departed husband is over. His character undergoes change twice in the course of the novel from a stiff, sedate, sober, almost a boring character to a passionate and obsessed lover and then, when he is denied the fruition of his obsession, to a vengeful murderer.
Fanny Robin
She is not a full-fledged character and her appearance is limited to her meeting with Gabriel Oak on a gloomy winter evening. Yet she is pivotal to the development of the story. Both Boldwood and Bathsheba wonder where the girl had disappeared, as they are not aware of her pathetic condition of pregnancy and destitution. She is young and innocent and is taken in by the charming Sergeant Troy. She believes in him as a true lover with his proposal to marry her. But it was just her fate that she waits for him outside a wrong church while Troy waits inside another church. Troy gets angry and refuses to listen to her pleas for forgiveness and abandons her even as she carries his baby in her womb. Fanny dies in childbirth and but for Gabriel Oak’s presence of mind to erase the word ‘child’ on the coffin and retain only ‘Fanny’, her name would have been sullied as an unwed mother. She is guileless, innocent and honest as she returns the shilling that Oak had lent her earlier on seeing her distressed condition.The rest of the characters who appear are the people of Weatherbury, mainly farm hands and employees of the farm owners. They are illiterate labourers, and work manually in farms to earn their livelihood. The only pleasure they get is from their drink and gossip.
☆ Critical analysis on " Far From the Madding Crowd"
◇ feminist :
Quite how far Hardy intended Bathsheba to be a proto-feminist figure is debatable. The novel was in part a response to unease at changes in the law on women’s property rights.specifically, the Married Women’s Property Acts of 1870 and 1882. These modified the common law on coverture (the legal fiction that a married woman’s identity was subsumed within her husband’s), allowing married women to own property in their own right for the first time.Although Hardy was relatively unique in writing strong female characters and writing so many of them.there are other property.owning women in The Woodlanders and A Laodicean, for example : an unease with this change in the law sometimes seeps to the surface. In Far from the Madding Crowd, I’ve always found Hardy’s depiction of Bathsheba’s success in the corn-market particularly distasteful. Having braved the all-male space and begun to negotiate sales of her corn, the narrator comments that something in her face when arguing over prices “suggested that there was potentially enough in that lithe slip of humanity for alarming exploits of sex”. This rapid juxtaposition of her achievements and her sexuality seems unlikely to go down well with modern feminists. Needless to say, it’s also not the version of Bathsheba we see in the film.The novel is narrated by an omniscient, third-party narrator with a distinctive voice and perspective, who sometimes interjects to make remarks about the characters and the world around them. The point of view alternates in different scenes, ranging from Bathsheba to Gabriel to Boldwood to Troy to Fanny.
could ensue. He then runs away, eventually joining a traveling show, in order to forget his one true love.
In the end Troy returns to being a scoundrel. He is dragging Bathsheba out of the Christmas party, saying she should obey him, when he is shot by Boldwood and killed.
◇ Unrequited Love :
Much of the plot of Far from the Madding Crowd depends on unrequited love.love by one person for another that is not mutual in that the other person does not feel love in return. The novel is driven, from the first few chapters, by Gabriel Oak's love for Bathsheba. Once he has lost his farm, he is free to wander anywhere in search of work, but he heads to Weatherbury because it is in the direction that Bathsheba has gone. This move leads to Oak's employment at Bathsheba's farm, where he patiently consoles her in her troubles and supports her in tending the farm, with no sign he will ever have his love returned.
Oak's feelings for Bathsheba parallel Boldwood's feelings for Bathsheba. Given the fact that Bathsheba sends Boldwood a provocative valentine, sealed with the strong message "Marry Me," Boldwood has good reason to believe she might love him. On the other hand, she tries to extinguish any such belief, telling Boldwood repeatedly she will not marry him. Unlike Oak, who is willing to take Bathsheba at her word, Boldwood looks for the slightest sign in what she says that there may be a chance she may change her mind. Since she is not strong or direct in her refusal of him, there is always room for him to believe that she is softening.
Bathsheba herself suffers a similar unrequited love for Sergeant Troy. She feels he is mistreating her once they are married, but she cannot help herself because she loves him so much. He, on the other hand, is not capable of a stable love relationship. When they argue over the fact that he is lying about the trip he plans to take to see Fanny, and Bathsheba regrets how much she used to love him, Troy can only mutter, "I can't help how things fall out … upon my heart, women will be the death of me." When he is thought to have drowned, though, Bathsheba still thinks enough of him to go on waiting, to see if he will come back.
◇ Catastrophe :
This novel focuses on the way that catastrophe can occur at any time, threatening to change lives. The most obvious example occurs when Oak's flock of sheep is destroyed by an unlikely confluence of circumstances, including an inexperienced sheep dog, a rotted rail, and a chalk pit that happens to have been dug adjacent to his land. In one night, Oak's future as an independent farmer is destroyed, and he ends up begging just to secure the diminished position of a shepherd.
Potential catastrophe occurs throughout the novel, but Oak, having suffered already, uses skill and diligence to avert it. For instance, Bathsheba's flock is almost ruined as swiftly and thoroughly as Oak's flock is, on the day that Bathsheba dismisses Oak from her farm. It is only because Oak returns to his post, after forcing Bathsheba to ask him back, that most of the sheep survive. Then a thunderstorm arrives the day the harvest is complete. The rain could ruin the barley, corn, and wheat, destroying Bathsheba financially, if the grain is not covered. This catastrophe is averted because Oak works through the night in the rain to protect the harvest. Sergeant Troy, who is supposed to be the master of the farm, sleeps off the hard liquor that has rendered him and all of his farm hands useless. With these episodes, Hardy shows that catastrophe can cause ruin, but it can also sometimes be avoided when care is taken.
◇ Social Hierarchy :
This novel offers modern readers a clear picture of how important social position was in England in the nineteenth century and of the opportunities that existed to change class, in either direction. In the beginning, Oak and Bathsheba are social equals: he is an independent farmer who rents his land, and she lives on her aunt's farm next door to his, which is presumably similar in value. The only thing that keeps her from accepting his proposal of marriage is the fact that she just does not want to be married yet. After Oak loses his farm and Bathsheba inherits her uncle's farm, there is little question of whether they can marry—their social positions are too different. She is more socially compatible with Boldwood, who owns the farm next to hers and is in a similar social position.
Unlike societies in which the social hierarchy is rigid, the situation in rural nineteenth-century England did offer opportunity to those in the lower positions to move up. With hard work, Oak works his way up to bailiff of both Bathsheba's and Boldwood's farms. Earning more money, he also has the social status that comes from being trusted with such a unique position. Still, at the end of the book he does not think that he has risen socially high enough to marry Bathsheba, as indicated by the fact that he offers to leave the country, rather than give anyone the idea he might think himself worthy of her. He has risen enough socially by this time to have their marriage accepted, however, and the rest of society has nothing but good will for them.
◇ Love :
I have seen many characters in this novel. Gabriel Oak early on falls in love with and proposes to the headstrong Bathsheba Everdene, but she turns him down. As her fortunes rise and she becomes mistress of a farm, Gabriel faces disaster when his overzealous sheepdog drives his herd of sheep over a cliff. To survive, he has to go to work for Bathsheba. The class barrier between them makes it more impossible than ever that they get together. The faithful Gabriel can only love and serve Bathsheba from afar.
Bathsheba shows consistently poor judgment in affairs of the heart. Not only does she not perceive the worth of Gabriel but she impulsively and in a silly way sends a flirtatious valentine to an older neighboring farmer, Boldwood. He falls hopelessly in love with her on the basis of the valentine. This love, which is unreturned, will ultimately break his heart. But Bathsheba's worst act of ill judgment is to fall for and elope with the flashy soldier Troy, who marries her for money while his heart is given to another. This marriage makes both Troy and Bathsheba miserable.not to mention Oak and Boldwood, who have to watch the disaster from afar.Earlier, Troy's true love, Fanny Robin, had gone to the wrong church the day she was supposed to wed Troy. He is humiliated and only finds out after she dies that she was carrying his child.
The novel sends the strong message that one should marry for love, not money or class, and that a key component to both individual and community happiness is for people to develop the character to be able discern which person is truly worthy of their love and meant for them as a mate.
Thank you….
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