Far from the Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
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Far from the Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
Table of Contents
Context
Summary
Characters
Summary & Analysis:
Chapters 1 to 4
Chapters 5 to 8
Chapters 9 to 15
Chapters 16 to 23
Chapters 24 to 30
Chapters 31 to 34
Chapters 35 to 38
Chapters 39 to 42
Chapters 43 to 48
Chapters 49 to 51
Chapters 52 to 57
Overall Analysis
Study Questions Context
Thomas Hardy lived from June 2, 1840, to January 11, 1928. He grew up in Higherbockhampton, Dorset, the eldest son of a stonemason. He had one brother and two sisters. Sickly from an early age, he was educated at home until he was sixteen. He then began an apprenticeship, and then a career, as an architect. He started writing poetry in the 1860s but did not publish his first novel until 1871. He married Emma Lavinia Gifford in 1874.
It was not until the publication of Far from the Madding Crowd, Hardy's fourth novel, that Hardy won widespread popularity as a writer, and he was able to give up architecture. The book was published serially in 1874, in Corn Hill Magazine, a journal edited by Leslie Stephens, the father of Virginia Woolf. The novel was published in short sections, and as you read it, you can see that they intentionally leave the reader in suspense; this was a device to motivate readers to buy the next issue of the magazine. Early reviewers compared Hardy's writing to that of George Eliot and recognized him as an important new voice in English fiction.
Hardy went on to write novels at an extraordinary rate for more than 20 years, writing one every one or two years. His most famous novels written during these years include The Return of the Native, Tess of the D'Urbervilles, and The Mayor of Casterbridge. After the publication of Jude the Obscure caused a major scandal in 1895, Hardy stopped writing novels and devoted the rest of his life (more than 30 years) to poetry. His last great project was an epic poem titled "The Dynasts," a versed chronicle of the Napoleonic Wars. After some time in London he built himself a house in his native Dorsetshire and lived there for the rest of his life. He was widowed in 1912 and married Florence Dugdale in 1914.
Hardy was a devoted reader of philosophy, scientific texts, the Bible, and Greek literature, and he incorporated much of his knowledge into his own works. One of the most profound influences on his thinking was Charles Darwin, particularly Darwin's emphasis on chance and luck in evolution. Though brought up to believe in God, Hardy struggled with a loss of faith suffered by many of his contemporaries; he increasingly turned to science for answers about man's place in the universe.
One of Hardy's central concerns in all of his writing was the problem of modernity in a society that was rapidly becoming more and more industrial. One of his projects as a writer was to create an account of life in the swiftly changing Dorsetshire as it had once been. He was particularly interested in the rituals and histories of that part of England, as well as the dialect of its locals. The title Far From the Madding Crowd suggests avoidance of the life of a city, modernized government, crowds and industry; in it, Hardy tries to fashion a portrait of what he saw as an endangered way of life and to create a snapshot for future generations.
Summary
At the beginning of the novel, Bathsheba Everdene is a beautiful young woman without a fortune. She meets Gabriel Oak, a young farmer, and saves his life one evening. He asks her to marry him, but she refuses because she does not love him. Upon inheriting her uncle's prosperous farm she moves away to the town of Weatherbury.
A disaster befalls Gabriel's farm and he loses his sheep; he is forced to give up farming. He goes looking for work, and in his travels finds himself in Weatherbury. After rescuing a local farm from fire he asks the mistress if she needs a shepherd. It is Bathsheba, and she hires him. As Bathsheba learns to manage her farm she becomes acquainted with her neighbor, Mr. Boldwood, and on a whim sends him a valentine with the words "Marry me." Boldwood becomes obsessed with her and becomes her second suitor. Rich and handsome, he has been sought after by many women. Bathsheba refuses him because she does not love him, but she then agrees to reconsider her decision.
That very night, Bathsheba meets a handsome soldier, Sergeant Troy. Unbeknownst to Bathsheba, he has recently impregnated a local girl, Fanny Robin, and almost married her. Troy falls in love with Bathsheba, enraging Boldwood. Bathsheba travels to Bath to warn Troy of Boldwood's anger, and while she is there, Troy convinces her to marry him. Gabriel has remained her friend throughout and does not approve of the marriage. A few weeks after his marriage to Bathsheba, Troy sees Fanny, poor and sick; she later dies giving birth to her child. Bathsheba discovers that Troy is the father. Grief-stricken at Fanny's death and riddled with shame, Troy runs away and is thought to have drowned.
With Troy supposedly dead, Boldwood becomes more and more emphatic about Bathsheba marrying him. Troy sees Bathsheba at a fair and decides to return to her. Boldwood holds a Christmas, to which he invites Bathsheba and again proposes marriage; just after she has agreed, Troy arrives to claim her. Bathsheba screams, and Boldwood shoots Troy dead. He is sentenced to life in prison. A few months later, Bathsheba marries Gabriel, now a prosperous bailiff. Characters
Gabriel Oak - The novel's hero, Gabriel Oak is a farmer, shepherd, and bailiff, marked by his humble and honest ways, his exceptional skill with animals and farming, and an unparalleled loyalty. He is Bathsheba's first suitor, later the bailiff on her farm, and finally her husband at the very end of the novel. Gabriel is characterized by an incredible ability to read the natural world and control it without fighting against it. He occupies the position of quiet observer throughout most of the book, yet he knows just when to step in to save Bathsheba and others from catastrophe. Bathsheba Everdene - The beautiful young woman at the center of the novel, who must choose among three very different suitors. She is the protagonist, propelling the plot through her interaction with her various suitors. At the beginning of the novel, she is penniless, but she quickly inherits and learns to run a farm in Weatherbury, where most of the novel takes place. Her first characteristic that we learn about is her vanity, and Hardy continually shows her to be rash and impulsive. However, not only is she independent in spirit, she is independent financially; this allows Hardy to use her character to explore the danger that such a woman faces of losing her identity and lifestyle through marriage. Sergeant Francis (Frank) Troy - The novel's antagonist, Troy is a less responsible male equivalent of Bathsheba. He is handsome, vain, young, and irresponsible, though he is capable of love. Early in the novel he is involved with Fanny Robin and gets her pregnant. At first, he plans to marry her, but when they miscommunicate about which church to meet at, he angrily refuses to marry her, and she is ruined. He forgets her and marries the rich, beautiful Bathsheba. Yet when Fanny dies of poverty and exhaustion later in the novel with his child in her arms, he cannot forgive himself. William Boldwood - Bathsheba's second suitor and the owner of a nearby farm, Boldwood, as his name suggests, is a somewhat wooden, reserved man. He seems unable to fall in love until Bathsheba sends him a valentine on a whim, and suddenly he develops feelings for her. Once he is convinced he loves her, he refuses to give up his pursuit of her, and he is no longer rational. Ultimately, he becomes crazy with obsession, shoots Troy at his Christmas party, and is condemned to death. His sentence is changed to life imprisonment at the last minute. Fanny Robin - A young orphaned servant girl at the farm who runs away the night Gabriel arrives, attempts to marry Sergeant Troy, and finally dies giving birth to his child at the poor house in Casterbridge. She is a foil to Bathsheba, showing the fate of women who are not well cared for in this society. Liddy Smallbury - Bathsheba's maid and confidant, of about the same age as Bathsheba Jan Coggan - Farm laborer and friend to Gabriel Oak Joseph Poorgrass - A shy, timid farm laborer who blushes easily, Poorgrass carries Fanny's coffin from Casterbridge back to the farm for burial. Cainy Ball - A young boy who works as Gabriel Oak's assistant shepherd on the Everdene farm. Pennyways - The bailiff on Bathsheba's farm who is caught stealing grain and dismissed. He disappears for most of the novel until he recognizes Troy at Greenhill Fair and helps Troy surprise Bathsheba at Boldwood's Christmas party.
Chapters 1 to 4
Summary
The first chapter introduces us to Gabriel Oak, our hero, a 28-year-old shepherd who has earned enough to acquire a small piece of land of his own. He has bought a farm of 200 sheep, many of the ewes pregnant. In the first scene, he watches a young woman with black hair drive up in a carriage laden with goods. Gabriel observes her as she waits for her driver. Thinking she is alone, she takes out a mirror and gazes at herself. Shortly afterward, he sees her again, stopped at a toll gate. She is arguing with the gatekeeper over the toll and Gabriel steps in to pay the two pence for her. When she drives off, he speaks with the gatekeeper and tells him that the black-haired woman has one fault: "vanity."
Tending to his sheep over the next few weeks, Gabriel spots the woman on several occasions as she walks to milk a cow at a nearby dairy. In several scenes he watches her without being seen, and he learns that she lives with her aunt. They meet when he goes to look for the hat she has lost, but he embarrasses her with his bold manner. Then, one night, Gabriel falls asleep in his shepherd's hut with the windows closed but the hearth still lit; he nearly dies from smoke inhalation but the woman breaks in and saves his life. He thanks her and asks her name; she refuses to tell him outright, challenging him to find it out for himself.
Gabriel learns that her name is Bathsheba Everdene. He visits her aunt in order to ask for her niece's hand in marriage, but the aunt tells him that Bathsheba already has many lovers. Bathsheba runs after Gabriel to tell him that what her aunt has said is untrue, and in a funny and misunderstanding-laden exchange, the two discuss the possibility of their marriage. Gabriel assumes that if she has run after him to tell him he may court her, then she must be interested; however, she assures him that she would never marry him because she does not love him. When he asks her a second time and she again refuses, he at last agrees to drop the matter, though he declares he will always love her.
Commentary
From the very first chapter, the novel's rustic focus emerges. Hardy's treatment of his subject alternates between a painstaking realism and an idealized romanticization: While he details the minutiae of rustic culture and includes specific information about the practice of farming, he also links Gabriel to the pastoral literary tradition, an ancient classical form that enjoyed new popularity during the Renaissance. Playing his flute as he tends his sheep, Gabriel evokes the carefree, flute-playing shepherds that populated these poems' idyllic landscapes. Furthermore, throughout the novel Gabriel will occupy the position of the observer who watches others make mistakes without ever implicating himself in the action; the traditional pastoral lyric commented on the civilized world in a tone of similar detachment.
At the same time, the novel has the plot of a romance: A man meets a woman and falls in love. Hardy avidly analyzes the way a person in love forms ideas about the loved one, even if the two share only the slightest acquaintance. He avidly analyzes the delusions of human psychology, particularly regarding love, concluding that love is rarely returned with equal intensity, despite what the lover leads himself/herself to believe.
Gabriel's conversation with Bathsheba shows her to be a capricious, spirited young woman who has never been in love. The two discuss marriage with remarkable frankness. Bathsheba admits that she would like to have all the trappings of marriage--she would delight in a piano, pets, and her own carriage; she would enjoy seeing her name in the newspaper's marriage announcements--but she objects to the concept of having a husband in the first place and to losing her freedom. While Bathsheba seems a bit superficial, her independence and strength are admirable, and she remains a sympathetic character.
Chapters 5 to 8
Summary
Not long after he proposes, Gabriel Oak hears that Bathsheba Everdene has left the neighborhood and gone to a place called Weatherbury. He finds "that there is no regular path for getting out of love as there is for getting in" and loves her all the more once she is gone.
The rest of Chapter Five describes a tragic event that changes Gabriel's fate forever. He has two sheepdogs, a loyal and reliable one named George and George's son, who is still learning to herd sheep and is often too enthusiastic. One night, on one of the rare occasions when Gabriel goes to sleep in his own bed rather than in the fields, he wakes in the middle of the night to the sound of sheep bells clanging wildly. He goes outside and follows their footprints to the edge of a steep chalk-pit: Looking in, he sees hundreds of dying sheep and mangled sheep carcasses; the younger dog has unwittingly chased them over the edge in his zeal. Ruined financially without his sheep, Gabriel can no longer farm. However, he does not immediately dwell upon his own misfortune: His first impulse is to pity the gentle ewes and their unborn lambs; his second impulse is to thank God that Bathsheba did not marry him, for he wishes only prosperity for her. He regretfully shoots the dog, pays his debts, and finds himself with nothing more than his clothes.
Chapter Six begins two months later at a hiring fair for farm laborers, including shepherds, bailiffs (men who run a farm and oversee the workers), carters, waggoners, and thatchers. Hardy describes the 200-300-man group as a whole and then focuses in on one particular man, who turns out to be Gabriel. After unsuccessfully advertising himself as a bailiff, he resignedly offers his shepherding skills for hire; still no one gives him a job. Finally, he earns a little money by playing his flute for the passers-by, and he decides to try another fair the next day.
He falls asleep in a wagon and wakes up to find it moving toward Weatherbury, where Bathsheba has settled. He allows it to take him most of the way and then slips out of the wagon unseen. Intending to continue on to Weatherbury on foot, he pauses when he sees a strange light and realizes something large is on fire in the distance. A crowd gathers helplessly around a straw-rick (a large stack of straw, wheat, or other grain) but Gabriel knows just what to do; without regard to his own safety, he coordinates the effort to extinguish the fire, climbing himself to the top of the rick to stamp out the flames with his shepherd's crook. In the meantime, two women watch the proceedings, one of whom is the mistress of the farm. Once Gabriel has put out the fire, she asks him how she can repay him. He approaches her and asks if she has need of a shepherd's services; when she lifts her veil, the two figures stare at each other in astonished recognition. Bathsheba decides to hire him, and she asks him to speak to the bailiff, a bad-tempered man. As Gabriel walks through the forest to an inn called Warren's Malthouse, he comes across a "slim girl, rather thinly clad" who asks him not to say that he has seen her. As he reaches to give her a shilling, seeing that she is poor and worrying she may be cold, he touches her arm by mistake: We read, "Gabriel's fingers alighted on the young woman's wrist. It was beating with a throb of tragic intensity. He had frequently felt the same hard, quick beat in the femoral artery of his lambs when overdriven. It suggested a consumption too great of a vitality which, to judge from her figure and stature, was already too little." Gabriel passes her and joins the other farm laborers in the malthouse.
Chapter Eight takes place in the malthouse and introduces us to the local laborers and their culture. Hardy attentively records the men's dialect and their ways of life, and he takes care to differentiate one from another, though to some extent the characters fit into types. Gabriel drinks with them, and after he has left, news arrives that Bathsheba has fired her bailiff, Pennyways, having caught him stealing, and her youngest servant, Fanny Robin, has run away. This, we guess, is the slim girl Gabriel met in the forest. Bathsheba asks her workers for help in finding her or information about the lover with whom she may have fled.
Commentary
Up until now, most of the narration has been told from the point of view of Gabriel. In these chapters, the reader remains privy to Gabriel's thoughts but also receives information to which he has no access. He does not learn about the bailiff's crime or about Fanny Robin's possible elopement, and we see the whole crowd at the fair before the narrator focuses in on Gabriel. This practice of gradually moving in on a scene from an initial great distance, eventually singling out a familiar character, is a favorite of Hardy's. He analyzes the way we perceive a group of people, noting the fact that they all seem the same until we recognize a prior acquaintance.
The scene characterizing the farm laborers is also typical of Hardy's novels. Here, Hardy pauses the plot for an entire chapter, giving a detailed account of how the laborers speak, how they spend their free time, and their opinions about each other. These groups of lower-class, common characters figure in almost all of Hardy's novels; like Shakespeare, he often uses them to effect comic relief, offsetting a tragic scene--here, the deaths of Gabriel's ewes--with one of a more light-hearted tone. With this scene, Hardy also intends to introduce urban or middle-class readers to the many different kinds of people that exist in the lower classes. In a later essay on the Dorsetshire laborer, he complains that people tend to stereotype farm workers and lump them all together.
These chapters also serve to test Gabriel by presenting him with a series of difficulties. Yet Gabriel consistently passes the test: Indeed, the way in which he repeatedly overcomes his challenges, honor intact, constitutes part of Gabriel's idealized portrayal in the novel as a whole. While Bathsheba and Sergeant Troy interest us precisely because of the ways in which each character's strengths and faults play against each other, Gabriel is almost utterly noble and reliable. He loses his sheep and reacts by mourning for the sheep rather than for himself; he comes across a fire and knows exactly how to stop it. Gabriel is the idealized hero of the novel.
Hardy artfully sets up the meeting between Gabriel and Bathsheba so as to highlight the changes both have undergone in the intervening months. The last time they met their situations were precisely reverse: She was penniless and he was a prosperous young farmer. In two months their relative stations have changed dramatically, and Gabriel finds himself asking for a job rather than for her hand in marriage. The meeting marks a new phase in both characters' lives; the change in setting also heralds this realigned relationship.
Chapters 9 to 15
Summary
The next few chapters establish the rhythm of life on Bathsheba Everdene's farm and introduce a new plot line into the novel, Bathsheba's relationship with Mr. Boldwood. The day after Gabriel's arrival, the dignified bachelor Mr. Boldwood knocks on Bathsheba's door as she and her servant Liddy Smallbury are cleaning. Boldwood comes to ask if there is any news of Fanny Robin, whom he had helped when she was younger. From Liddy's gossip we learn that Boldwood is a confirmed bachelor whom many of the local women have tried unsuccessfully to woo. Bathsheba calls a meeting of the farm workers to announce that she has dismissed the Pennyways for thieving and that she will take on the bailiff's responsibilities herself. She also asks for news of Fanny Robin, who is still missing. Chapter 10 describes the meeting and consists primarily of a roll call, in which the various farm laborers identify themselves and their trades to both Bathsheba and the reader. Chapter 11 reveals what has happened to Fanny Robin; here we see her arrive at the barracks of Sergeant Troy, many miles north of Weatherbury. The narrator describes the scene from a distance; we see Fanny as "a spot" almost lost in the snow. She throws snowballs at a window to get the sergeant's attention, and they have a brief conversation in which she reminds him that he has promised to marry her. He responds callously but agrees to uphold his promise. When he shuts his window, the other soldiers are laughing.
In the next chapter, it is market-day, and Bathsheba tries out her new role of farmer. The only woman in the group, she nonetheless comports herself well. The only man oblivious to her beauty is Mr. Boldwood, who does not look at her once, as Liddy remarks on the way home. When Bathsheba and Liddy are at home on Sunday, Bathsheba is about to send a valentine to a young boy when Liddy suggests that she send it to Boldwood instead. On a whim, Bathsheba agrees, setting in motion one of the novel's tragedies. The valentine contains a meaningless ditty, "Roses are red, Violets are blue..." but Bathsheba impulsively stamps it with a seal that reads, "Marry Me." The narrator reflects that Bathsheba knows nothing of love.
Unfortunately, the letter has a profound effect on Boldwood. It is the one ornate object in a puritanically plain home, and he places it on the mantlepiece, disturbed and excited. Then he receives a second letter; in his excitement he opens it hurriedly, only then noticing that it is addressed to Gabriel. He delivers it to Gabriel the next morning and Gabriel shares its contents with Boldwood: It is a letter from Fanny identifying herself as the girl Gabriel met in the forest and returning the shilling he had given her. The letter also announces her engagement to Sergeant Troy. As he leaves, Boldwood asks Gabriel to identify the handwriting on the valentine, and he tells Boldwood that it is Bathsheba's.
Commentary
The most important event in this section is the sending of the valentine and the unintentional effect it has on Boldwood. This one act will haunt both Bathsheba and Boldwood until the end of the novel. Hardy uses this set of circumstances to analyze one of his favorite concerns: how a person's life is determined by minor, seemingly insignificant events. Sometimes these events are questions of luck or forces beyond human control. Here, however, Hardy examines human agency: Bathsheba sends the valentine in jest, without thinking, but her act results in extraordinary consequences.
Another theme throughout this section is the imbalances of affection in human relations; this imbalance characterizes the relationship between Gabriel and Bathsheba, as well as that between Sergeant Troy and Fanny Price, and Liddy tells us that Boldwood has been unaware of several local women's efforts to win his affections. While this asymmetry is a natural part of relationships, its consequences can be dire.
Chapters 16 to 23
Summary
In the interior of a church, several women watch a soldier enter and realize that a wedding is about to occur. As he waits for his bride to arrive, the clock strikes the quarter hour, and the women titter. Finally, after a full hour of waiting, the soldier leaves the church humiliated; just at that moment his bride runs across the square to meet him. She has been waiting at All Souls' rather than at All Saints' and has just realized her mistake. The two are Fanny Robin and Sergeant Troy. She asks him when they can reschedule their wedding, but he refuses to set a date.
In the market place again, Boldwood sees Bathsheba Everdene as if for the first time. He finds her unbelievably beautiful and asks someone nearby whether she is generally considered handsome. Bathsheba notices his attention and regrets having sent the valentine. She decides to explain and apologize, but she realizes that he might misread her initiation of conversation as a sign of romantic interest.
Chapter 18 gives us a little background about Boldwood. He is a confirmed bachelor, wealthy and well established at the neighboring farm. Hardy warns us that Boldwood's is not an "ordinary nature": the "positives and negatives" in his character balance only precariously, and he plunges easily into extreme emotions. The narrative focuses in on Bathsheba and Gabriel as they watch Boldwood from afar; Gabriel sees Bathsheba blush, and, remembering the valentine, he begins to suspect something between the pair. At a village-wide sheep-washing, Boldwood approaches Bathsheba, who tries to avoid him. He follows her off toward the river, and when they are alone, he proposes to her. She refuses, and he continues to try to persuade her, finally getting her to permit him to propose again later.
Chapter 20 charts Bathsheba's reaction to Boldwood's offer. Hardy tells us that Bathsheba feels no "wish whatever for the married state in the abstract." She also enjoys the independence of running a farm on her own. As she is considering the possibility, she approaches Gabriel and begins to ask him about what the farm workers had thought of her appearing together with Boldwood. The two of them quarrel when she asks his opinion of her conduct concerning the bachelor, and he tells her "it is unworthy of any thoughtful, comely woman." She then accuses him of being jealous, but he tells her that he has long ago given up all thoughts marrying her. Finally, she orders him to leave the farm, and he agrees.
Only one day after Gabriel's departure, the farm workers announce that another disaster has occurred--the sheep have eaten young clover, and their stomachs are expanding fatally. Only Gabriel knows how to perform the operation that can save them. Bathsheba sends him an order to come back. He replies by messenger that she will have to ask him properly, and she does so, writing, "Do not desert me, Gabriel!" He returns and saves all the sheep but one. Bathsheba regrets firing him, and he agrees to come back to the farm.
During the annual sheep-shearing, the workers discuss Bathsheba and Boldwood, wondering if they will marry, and at the sheep- shearing supper, Bathsheba allows Boldwood to sit with her inside the house. At the very end of the supper, they are left alone together, and Bathsheba tells him that she will try to love him. She finally almost promises herself to him, saying that she may feel ready to marry by harvest-time.
Commentary
This section of the novel sets up a number of different couples--Fanny and Troy, Bathsheba and Boldwood, and Bathsheba and Gabriel--and analyzes the dynamics of each. Many parallels can be drawn; for instance, much as a chance circumstance of Bathsheba deciding to send the valentine to Boldwood changes his life forever, Fanny's simple mistake about the church means that Troy refuses to marry her. By setting up several sets of relationships, Hardy explores the way chance generates a variety of fates from what were initially parallel circumstances.
Hardy plays upon the traditional novel by choosing a heroine who has no abstract desire to get married. In some ways, Far From the Madding Crowd is a traditional novel of marriage in that a heroine is given a choice of two or more suitors, and at the end of the novel, she makes the "correct" choice. Yet a novel such as Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice or Sense and Sensibility focuses on a character who wants to find a husband; in contrast, Bathsheba's economic and emotional independence allow her the choice of not marrying, and she has an interest in maintaining the farm and preserving her freedom. Many of Hardy's female characters show similar independence and interest in work or scholarship.
The scenes of sheep-shearing and sheep-washing present the farm workers as a kind of Greek chorus and also help to create a sense of the rituals built around the seasons of the farm.
Chapters 24 to 30
Summary
Moments after she tells Boldwood that she might marry him, Bathsheba wanders over her farm, as she always does, checking to see that everything is in order. She carries a darkened lantern so she cannot be seen. The narrator tells us that, unbeknownst to Bathsheba, Gabriel performs the same task every evening, a sign of his unending devotion to her.
As she walks through the fir plantation, she hears footsteps nearing her and bumps into someone on the path. It is Sergeant Troy, and his spur has caught on her dress. She cannot free herself, and in the dark the two hold a conversation without identifying themselves. When Troy finally opens her lantern, Bathsheba is surprised to see he is a soldier, having expected a suspicious- looking intruder. Troy, for his part, is also struck by the appearance of his interlocutor; he immediately praises her beauty and delays in his untangling of her dress. She finally frees herself, confused by his praise, and speaking somewhat curtly. She later asks Liddy whether there is a soldier living near the fir plantation, and Liddy tells her that it must be Sergeant Troy. Bathsheba regrets being rude to him. In the next chapter Hardy gives an account of Troy's character, much as the author has done with Boldwood earlier on. We learn that Troy lives only for the moment and displays the opposite of Gabriel's ceaseless loyalty. He is full of activity without direction and regularly deceives women. Toward the end of the chapter, we learn that he has joined the haymakers in their task for the day. Bathsheba notices him in the fields, and as soon as he sees her, he approaches.
Troy and Bathsheba converse for the second time, and Chapter 26 follows a long dialogue between them, with little description. Troy apologizes for not recognizing who she was in the woods and again compliments her. From her responses we can see that she is flattered, bewildered by his admiration--a very different woman from the scornful, proud individual we have heretofore seen asserting her independence with Gabriel and Boldwood. Troy offers her his watch as a gift, and she refuses but agrees that he may continue to join the hay- makers.
In the next chapter their intimacy is increased when Troy encounters Bathsheba maintaining the bees; he helps her, donning the ridiculous-looking protective gear. When he mentions the famous sword exercise that soldiers learn, she confesses that she'd love to see it, and they set a date to meet.
Bathsheba is reluctant to keep the date but comes at the last minute, and Troy shows her the sword exercise. He persuades her that the sword's edge is blunt as he sweeps the hissing, glittering sword around her. At the end of their meeting, as Bathsheba stands overwhelmed by the beauty and danger of the scene, Troy kisses her and disappears.
Bathsheba has fallen in love. However, the narrator comments ominously, "When a strong woman recklessly throws away her strength, she is worse than a weak woman who has never had strength to throw away." Gabriel, too, feels the danger of her infatuation and decides to talk to her about it. Gabriel and Boldwood are the only ones who know (from Fanny's letter) that Troy was Fanny Robin's lover, whom she intended to marry when she ran away. Knowing this, he tries to hint at Troy's immoral character. Bathsheba refuses to listen, however, and tries to fire Gabriel from the farm again, but he refuses to leave unless she agrees to hire someone else as a bailiff. She will not, so he refuses to leave his post. As they part, he sees Troy coming to meet Bathsheba.
When Bathsheba comes home, she overhears the servants gossiping about her and Troy, and she forbids them to speak about it. Then, she chastises Liddy and confesses that she loves Troy. In the midst of their conversation Bathsheba breaks down in tears; she has lost all her self-possession.
Commentary
Both Bathsheba and Boldwood are otherwise strong people who nevertheless develop sudden weaknesses for a single person-- Boldwood for Bathsheba and Bathsheba for Sergeant Troy. Both of them have spurned earlier lovers. By describing the sensory perceptions of these characters as enhanced, Hardy conveys the fact that they are experiencing emotions unprecedented for them. Bathsheba's first view of Troy is a perfect example; after utter darkness, she sees a handsome man in scarlet and brass. The sword exercise is another; Bathsheba is overpowered by the sensory experience of having the blade surround her from all directions, nearly touching her. Notice that Sergeant Troy is repeatedly linked to a bright, burning color of scarlet. Bathsheba can spot his red uniform in the field with ease.
Hardy's many different narrative strategies are also at work in this section. The first of these is his manipulation of the plot's pace. Boldwood has just extracted a promise from Bathsheba that he will have an answer to his proposal in six weeks. Then, Hardy immediately introduces Sergeant Troy. In each meeting, their intimacy increases noticeably: In the first, they are physically thrown together and entangled; in the second, he receives her permission to work on the farm and offers her his watch; in the third, she agrees to meet him, and in the fourth, they kiss. The speed of this growing intimacy contrasts strongly with the slow development of Bathsheba's relations with Boldwood, thus, commenting on the difference in chemistry between Bathsheba and each man.
Another emerging pattern is Hardy's method of introducing important (and often less important) characters. First, he shows them to us in action: Gabriel sees Bathsheba in her carriage; Bathsheba hears Boldwood ride up to the farm; she meets Troy in the wood; Gabriel meets Fanny Robin in the wood. In each of these scenes, the characters with whom we are already familiar know nothing about the character they are encountering except what they see at the time. Later, the omniscient narrator comes in and gives us background assessments of Boldwood, Bathsheba, Fanny, and Troy, in which we are given generalizations about their character and their approach to life. Finally, then, we come to see the characters at their truest, deepest level by watching how they are transformed by the events in the novel. Notice that the reader has much more room for interpretation when we first meet these characters in action. We have to decide what we think based on the clues Hardy gives us; later, then, we see whether these initial interpretations are borne out.
Chapter 26, Bathsheba's conversation with Troy in the field, is an extreme example of deliberate narrative strategizing. The chapter consists almost wholly of dialogue, almost entirely lacking any narrative commentary or even description. We hear Troy's words, knowing him to be dishonest, and then we hear how Bathsheba responds to them; the narrator withholds his own speculations, putting almost all of the interpretive power in the hands of the reader. We experience the scene as Bathsheba does; however, because we have prior information--in addition to an objectivity she lacks--we know she misreads Troy's remarks, falling too quickly for his charming surface. This narrative situation creates in the reader a tense feeling of frustration as we watch Bathsheba enter Troy's trap.
Chapters 31 to 34
Summary
Bathsheba leaves one evening soon afterward with the intention of visiting Liddy. She has written to Boldwood to refuse him and does not want to see him when he returns from his trip. Troy is in Bath and is planning to return to Weatherbury in the next day or two.
On her way to Liddy's, Bathsheba runs into Boldwood, who has received her letter but will not accept her refusal. The two of them have a heated discussion, in which he reminds her of the valentine she sent, and she tries to persuade him that it meant nothing. Finally, she claims that she lacks warmth. Boldwood responds by telling her that he knows she loves Troy, and he chastises her for being "dazzled by brass and scarlet." She admits that she does love Troy and has kissed him. He flies into a jealous rage, declaring, "I pray God he may not come into my sight for I may be tempted beyond myself." Bathsheba fears greatly for Troy.
Chapter 32 opens in the perspective of the wife of one of Bathsheba's farm laborers, a woman by the name of Maryann Money. After Bathsheba has left, Maryann sees someone take a horse from the stable. Thinking it is a thief she alerts Gabriel and Coggan, and the two set off after the rider. When they finally catch up to him or her, after a long chase, they discover it is Bathsheba, secretly following Troy to Bath. They agree not to tell anyone what they have seen, but Gabriel warns Bathsheba that women generally should not travel alone at night. The chapter ends with a summary of the events from Bathsheba's perspective, explaining that she was so frightened by Boldwood's words that she determined to warn Troy not to return to Weatherbury.
The next chapter spans two weeks at the farm during the oak harvest. No news of Bathsheba comes, except when Cainy Ball, one of the farm hands, comes back from seeing a doctor in Bath. He tells a group of farm workers that he saw the mistress enter a park arm-in-arm with a soldier.
That night Gabriel hears voices and realizes that Liddy and Bathsheba have returned. Boldwood is also walking nearby, and he sees Sergeant Troy return to the carriage house. Boldwood tries to bribe Troy to marry Fanny Robin and leave Bathsheba alone. Troy claims to agree to the bribe but persuades Boldwood to wait and overhear his conversation with Bathsheba first, whom he now awaits. She comes and Boldwood hears her invite Troy back to the house, and she calls him by his first name, Frank. At this, Boldwood abandons all hope, thinking she has now lost all sense of propriety. When Bathsheba has gone back to the house, Boldwood tells Troy he will now pay him to marry Bathsheba rather than Fanny, reasoning that marriage will be more honorable than the current state of affairs. At this, however, Troy brings Boldwood back to the farm and shows him a newspaper announcement revealing that he and Bathsheba are, in fact, already married. He refuses Boldwood's money but has utterly humiliated him. Boldwood wanders the fields all night after Troy locks him out of the house.
Commentary
Aside from advancing the plot with the off-stage marriage of Bathsheba and Troy, this short section provides crucial insights into the characters of Bathsheba, Boldwood, and Troy. Having shown us the effect of a series of meetings with Troy on Bathsheba's feelings, Hardy now takes Troy away and shows us how his absence affects her. Interestingly, very little of this section is shown from her point of view. Instead, we see her behavior as it strikes people who know her only distantly, such as Maryann Money and the farm workers. Chapter 32 is a particularly good example. Maryann watches someone take the horse from the stables and has no idea that Bathsheba would act so rashly as to ride to Bath at night without telling anyone. Thus, rather than seeing the series of decisions that lead up to her strange act, we see the act from afar. Hardy's use of perspective here makes the strange irrationality of Bathsheba's actions much more clear to us than it would be if we were inside Bathsheba's consciousness. Hardy does not allow us to sympathize with her but rather asks us to evaluate her behavior; the information with which he provides us gives us little choice but to judge this once strong and independent woman as increasingly foolish.
A similar transformation occurs in Boldwood, as shown in particular through his desperate dealings with Troy. Troy has some perspective and is emotionally removed enough from the situation to manipulate Boldwood and utterly humiliate the man who once was above all weakness. After showing him the wedding announcement, Troy mocks him, calling him ridiculous. This scene reveals a cruel and heartless aspect of Troy's character that makes the reader fear for Bathsheba.
Cainy Ball's report about Bath is a comic scene, in which the farm laborers serve a dual role, acting both as a kind of Greek chorus, commenting on what has happened, and also as a kind of comic relief.
Chapters 35 to 38
Summary
Gabriel and Coggan learn of the secret marriage the next day, when Sergeant Troy appears, greeting them and throwing money at them patronizingly, to Gabriel's great distress. Gabriel's feelings are registered by Coggan's comment that his face is as white as a corpse's. Soon afterward, Gabriel runs into Boldwood and notices Boldwood's look of despair. He foresees much future misery resulting from the hasty wedding.
The next scene occurs at night, when Gabriel begins to notice signs of bad weather. It is the night of the harvest supper and dance, and Bathsheba and Troy have invited all the workers to celebrate the harvest and their marriage. We see the festivities from Gabriel's perspective. Then, Troy announces that he wants the laborers to be served brandy and water. None of the laborers are used to hard liquor, and Bathsheba objects, but Troy overrules her. She leaves with the women and children, and Troy insists that the men drink brandy with him. Gabriel slips outside and sees yet more signs of a huge oncoming storm: The sheep are huddled together; toads and slugs are seeking shelter. He calculates that with the wheat ricks and barley ricks, Bathsheba has 750 pounds' worth of produce lying exposed to the rain, and he goes to the barn to get help in covering it. Every single one of the workers is lying passed out with Troy in the barn, inexperienced with hard liquor. Gabriel decides he will have to save the wheat and barley single-handedly before the storm arrives. He works heroically to cover the wheat and then heads for the barley.
Chapter 37 gives a dramatic account of the powerful lightning storm that hits just as Gabriel works atop one of the ricks, thatching it to protect it from rain. As he struggles there in the dark, he sees a figure and realizes it is Bathsheba, coming to his aid. As they thatch side by side, in grave danger of being hit by lightning, she confesses that she did not go to Bath with the intention of marrying. This is yet another moment in the novel when Bathsheba and Gabriel engage in an intimate conversation in which she turns to him for guidance, and her confession provides us with our first insight into the motivation behind Bathsheba's mysterious acts. She explains that she had gone to Bath meaning to break off her engagement to Troy. However, upon arriving in Bath, Troy again fell to lavishing compliments on her and said that "his constancy could not be counted on" unless she at once married him. Bathsheba recounts that she was "grieved and troubled," and married him in a state between "jealousy and distraction."
At seven in the morning, once he has sent Bathsheba home and covered the ricks in the rain, Gabriel finishes and heads home. He sees the farm workers just waking up from their excesses, unaware that the ricks were ever endangered, and then he runs across Boldwood. Gabriel asks after Boldwood's own ricks, only to find that he has left them all uncovered. Gabriel is intensely shocked at Boldwood's negligence: "A few months earlier Boldwood's forgetting his husbandry would have been as preposterous an idea as a sailor forgetting he was in a ship." Boldwood ashamedly declares himself weak and foolish, unable to fend off his miserable grief.
Commentary
Throughout this section, Gabriel acts as overseer and observer, the only truly sane man in a time of trouble. He is a stand-in for the reader, who also sees the folly of Bathsheba and Boldwood's actions but without being able to stop them. Through his sensibility, we are given a measure of the madness that has taken over the others, even the normally reliable, down-to-earth farm workers.
The storm is one of the few catastrophes in the novel inflicted by the natural world. In this struggle with nature, we see how different people respond to forces beyond human control. Gabriel emerges as the person most attuned to the signals of nature and able to read what will happen and control it as well as he can. Chapter 36 gives an extraordinary account of a series of natural signs--a toad on the path, a slug crawling across the table, and sheep huddling together. Hardy first presents this information to us, though we don't know what it means, and then shows how Gabriel is able to interpret it correctly: Gabriel realizes that the sheep's position foretells a long and constant rain after the initial storm.
The storm's destructive force symbolizes that of Troy upon the people around him, from Bathsheba and Boldwood to the laborers. Hardy depicts a world in which one must be constantly attentive and responsible in order to survive; that is the reality of farm life. Troy dismisses such attention to work and the natural world, but in this scene, we begin to realize why Gabriel's cautious, responsible qualities, while perhaps less beguiling than Troy's extravagantly romantic manner, are more valuable in the world of the novel.
Bathsheba realizes this too. As he stands on the rick, saving it from the storm, Gabriel remembers the time eight months earlier when he saved a rick from the fire. By linking the two scenes, Hardy indicates how the characters and circumstances have changed since the first event. Similarly, Bathsheba's conversation with Gabriel is one of several she has with him alone, the first being the conversation in which Gabriel first proposes to her. In each of these talks, questions come up regarding marriage and the motivations for it. Gabriel is the one intelligent person in whom Bathsheba can confide. By isolating these conversations and studying their progression in series, a reader can see the transformations Bathsheba experiences over the course of the novel.
Notice the suspense Hardy builds into this section as Gabriel wonders what has driven Bathsheba to marry. Just when a crucial event has occurred, Hardy removes the reader from Bathsheba's point of view, intentionally leaving us wondering.
Chapters 39 to 42
Summary
The narrative jumps ahead two months to a Saturday evening in October. Bathsheba and Troy are traveling up the steep Yarbury Hill, coming from Casterbridge to Weatherbury. They have been at the markets. Bathsheba rides in the gig, while Troy walks alongside her.
This is the first glimpse we have of the two of them alone together, and the marriage does not seem to be going well. Bathsheba complains about all the money Troy has lost at the horse races. Troy has bought his discharge from the army and is dressed as a fashionable farmer. As they argue, Bathsheba begins to cry, and Troy tells her, "You have lost all the pluck and sauciness you formerly had," implying that he regrets having married her.
As they proceed, they pass a woman who asks Troy the way to Casterbridge. When he replies, she utters a cry and falls down, recognizing his voice: The woman is Fanny. Bathsheba is alarmed, but Troy makes the horse carry her on up the hill while he stays and talks to Fanny. We learn that he has had no idea where to reach her, and that she was afraid to write to him. He realizes that she needs money, and agrees to meet her two days from then at Casterbridge. When he catches up with Bathsheba she is suspicious, accusing him of knowing the woman's name and not telling her. Troy denies all acquaintance with the woman.
Chapter 40 tells the extraordinary story of Fanny's difficult walk to Casterbridge that night. We know it is Fanny, but the narrator identifies her only as "the woman." Stumbling weakly, she comes to a haystack and falls asleep beneath it. Upon waking, she thinks she may be dead by the time she is to meet Troy. She persuades herself to go on by counting the milestones, frequently pausing. She takes two sticks to use as crutches but falls. A dog appears, and she leans on him the rest of the way. Finally, near morning, she reaches Casterbridge.
In the meantime, Bathsheba and Troy have been sullenly avoiding all conversation. On Sunday evening, Troy asks her for 20 pounds, saying that he needs it badly. He eventually admits that it is not for horse racing, but he will not tell her what it is for. As they argue she notices a curl of yellow hair in his watch and asks him about it. He explains that it belongs to "a young woman I was going to marry before I knew you." After she demands that he burn it and he refuses, Bathsheba bursts into great sobs, hating herself for being so weak as to fall for Troy.
The next day as she rides around the farm, she sees the laborer Joseph Poorgrass talking to Gabriel and Boldwood. Poorgrass then approaches her with the news that Fanny Robin is dead from an unknown cause. As the chapter continues, Bathsheba begins to suspect that Fanny Robin is the woman Troy had loved and that she has died giving birth to a child. She questions Poorgrass and Liddy to test her suspicions. She offers to bury Fanny, as Fanny worked for Bathsheba's uncle, and sends Poorgrass to collect the body. Chapter 42 describes Joseph Poorgrass's journey from Casterbridge with the body. As he carts the coffin back, a fog descends, and Poorgrass begins to fear the dead body. He stops at Buck's Head to have drinks with his friends Mark Clark and Jan Coggan, and gradually these men persuade him to stay later and later, drinking. As the men converse, Poorgrass keeps announcing he will continue on, but his friends persuade him not to. After some hours have passed Gabriel finds them there, chastises them for their carelessness, and brings the coffin to the farm himself.
Gabriel is eager to keep the truth from Bathsheba, but by the time he reaches the farm, the parson has postponed the funeral to the following morning and asks Gabriel to leave the coffin in the farm for the night; Gabriel reluctantly brings it to a sitting room for the night. Before he leaves, he partially rubs off the chalk marks on the coffin, which read "Fanny Robin and child," leaving only the name "Fanny Robin."
Commentary
Hardy waits until this section to give his readers any insight into the workings of Troy and Bathsheba's marriage. He leaves us to imagine for ourselves the quality of their life together, based on a few conversations. Through Troy's harsh words to her, we see how weak she has become after maintaining such independence for so long.
Chapter 42 is notably slower in pace than other chapters in this novel, and Hardy's description of Fanny's intense exhaustion painstakingly depicts every step that Fanny has to take, as well as the heaviness of her body, making us feel them with her. Throughout the novel, the sections dealing with Fanny together constitute a study of the type of person who slips through the cracks in society; what kind of person is this, neglected by others, forced to live a transient and impoverished life? Hardy uses an anonymous, distanced tone to describe Fanny, thus, conveying the lack of attention that others pay her.
Much of this section centers around Bathsheba's attempt to solve the mystery of Fanny Robin's relationship to Troy, and Hardy carefully structures the narrative to keep his readers in suspense, as well. We do not know of Fanny's death until Bathsheba does: The narrative leaves Fanny in Casterbridge, and on Monday morning, Troy leaves, presumably to meet Fanny, but we hear nothing more of him even once we know that Fanny is dead. Hardy's most powerful tension-building device is his plodding description of Poorgrass' trip with the coffin: He gives us detailed accounts of the men's conversation at Buck's Head, which does nothing to advance the plot, while the whole time the reader must wait, waiting to hear how Fanny died, wondering if something might happen to her untended coffin outside, wondering where Troy is, whether he yet knows of Fanny's death, and anticipating Bathsheba's imminent discovery of Fanny and Troy's previous relations.
In addition to building tension, Poorgrass' comic drinking scene offers insight into the leisure time of the laborers. On a more profound level, this episode analyzes the effect of chance and circumstance on human lives. Had Poorgrass gone straight home, the funeral would have occurred that day, the coffin would never have lay waiting in the sitting room, and Bathsheba might never have suffered under the knowledge she is about to attain: that Fanny died giving birth to Troy's child.
Chapters 43 to 48
Summary
Liddy offers to sit up and watch over Fanny's coffin with Bathsheba until Troy gets home. Bathsheba refuses, asks Liddy if she has heard anything strange, and bursts into tears. Liddy leaves the room and returns, saying that a laborer's wife, Maryann Money, has heard that Fanny has had a baby (this is whispered, but the implication is clear). Bathsheba does not want to believe it. Alone, her first instinct is to seek Gabriel's advice. He has hidden the truth from her, not knowing that she has seen Fanny on the way back from Casterbridge. Bathsheba goes to Gabriel's cottage and looks in the window. She sees him praying and is too nervous to knock. When she returns, obsessed by the uncertainty of whether the coffin contains a baby or not, Bathsheba finally takes a screwdriver and opens the lid of the coffin. Inside lies Fanny, with hair the same color as the curl in Troy's watch, and a baby in her arms. In a stupor, Bathsheba puts flowers around her in the coffin and waits for her husband to return.
When Troy enters the house, not yet having heard of Fanny's death, his first instinct is to wonder who in the house has died. When he approaches the coffin and sees Fanny, he leans down to kiss her; he tells Bathsheba he has been a bad, black-hearted man. He declares that Fanny is his wife in the eyes of Heaven, and tells Bathsheba, "I am not morally yours." Bathsheba leaves the room and runs out of the house. Bathsheba stays outside all night, and when Liddy comes looking for her in the morning, she has lost her voice. Liddy tells her that Troy has left, and Bathsheba barricades herself and Liddy in the attic to avoid Troy when he returns. Troy never returns, however, and later that day there is news that two men from Casterbridge are putting up a tombstone in Weatherbury.
Chapter 45 backs up and tells us what has happened from Troy's point of view. He has gone on Monday morning to meet Fanny and, not finding her at the appointed place, gets angry and goes to the Budmouth races instead. While there, he reflects and regrets not having made more inquiries in Casterbridge. He comes home to find Bathsheba in the room with Fanny's open coffin and a dead baby by Fanny's side. Troy spends his last 27 pounds buying a gravestone for Fanny in Casterbridge. It is installed and he spends the evening planting an absurd number of flowers around her grave. Exhausted, he goes to sleep in the church overlooking Fanny's grave.
Overnight, a strong rain comes. Through a twist of fate, the gargoyle on the church has a spout that, in heavy rain, pours directly onto Fanny's grave, displacing all the flowers and spattering the white gravestone with mud. When Troy awakes, he finds his hard work ruined. Discouraged, he does not attempt to fix it but leaves town. In the morning, Bathsheba learns that Troy has been seen leaving town, and she emerges from the attic. She visits Fanny's grave and sees the damage the rain has done. With Gabriel's help, Bathsheba replants the flowers, has the gargoyle spout altered, and cleans off the gravestone. The inscription reads, "Erected by Francis Troy in Beloved Memory of Fanny Robin."
Chapter 47 shows Troy wandering around the countryside. When he reaches the coast, he goes swimming, leaving his clothes and watch on the bank. As he swims a current pulls him from shore, and he nearly drowns. At the last minute, a boat of sailors picks him up and saves him.
In the meantime, Bathsheba feels certain that Troy is coming back, and she worries distractedly about the farm. Despite Troy's heartlessness, she still feels bound to him. When she goes to the market a stranger tells her that he saw Troy drown, but Bathsheba cannot believe this is true. It is only when Troy's clothes arrive, with the watch still containing a curl of Fanny's hair, that Bathsheba begins to accept that he is dead.
Commentary
This is a dramatic section, covering a great deal of action in a small space. Chapter 43 focuses on the intense emotional anxiety that leads Bathsheba first to open Fanny's coffin, then to confront Troy when he returns home. It is crucial that this whole section is told from Bathsheba's point of view, making us aware of her jealousy as it wars with her generosity. Bathsheba turns to Gabriel in the height of her trouble and gradually begins to realize Gabriel's selflessness, his intelligence and goodness.
Hardy further builds the drama by waiting to disclose Troy's experiences on this fateful day. Troy has resolved to make amends to Fanny, but his decision comes too late, and in his self-reproach he behaves callously toward Bathsheba. Although Bathsheba resents Fanny, her sympathy toward her shows her to be far more sensitive than she has previously appeared; her dependence on Troy has brought her humility.
The gargoyle's destruction of Fanny's carefully attended grave seems like a ridiculous contrivance on the part of Hardy, and it is one of the least credible coincidences in the novel. At the same time, there is significance to the fact that Bathsheba succeeds in tending Fanny's grave while Troy does not: Bathsheba has learned generosity and sympathy through her own weakness for Troy, a trait she did not possess at the beginning of the novel. Troy's regret does not benefit Fanny, serving only to hurt Bathsheba. Thus, he is not worthy to decorate Fanny's grave.
Chapters 49 to 51
Summary
The lengthy Chapter 49 covers several months after Troy's supposed death, from late autumn to late summer of the next year. It charts Gabriel's increasing success. Bathsheba relinquishes control of the farm, letting Gabriel oversee it. Similarly, Boldwood, who has lost all his crops from the previous year because of his neglect, decides to hire Gabriel, as well. Gabriel is given a horse and acts as bailiff for both farms. Boldwood even gives Gabriel a share of his profits. The farm laborers comment that Gabriel is miserly because he refuses to change his lifestyle despite his new property. In the meantime, Bathsheba lives in a state of abstraction. She does not fully believe that Troy is dead and only reluctantly wears clothes of mourning.
Boldwood develops hopes that in six years (the period legally necessary for a missing person to be declared dead), Bathsheba may be willing to forget Troy and marry him. He quizzes Liddy about the likelihood of her mistress remarrying. His preoccupation is turning into a full-blown obsession.
Chapter 50 is built around the Greenhill Sheep Fair, where farmers and shepherds meet from all over the countryside in September. Hardy describes the fair in detail. Gabriel's sheep, from both Boldwood and Bathsheba's farms, are universally admired. The fair also contains a "circular tent, of exceptional newness and size" in which a theatrical show is being performed. Called "The Royal Hippodrome Performance of Turpin's Ride to York and the Death of Black Bess," it stars Troy as the lead role. We see the farm laborers, Poorgrass and Coggan, in the audience, engaged in comical bickering.
The narrator briefly explains that Troy has been wandering through England and America over the past few months. In America he has worked as a professor of gymnastics and sword exercises, but, not liking it, he has returned to England. He intends to wait and see what Bathsheba's financial situation is before revealing his presence to her, not wanting to be held financially "liable for her maintenance." In the meantime, he has taken up with a traveling circus.
Boldwood approaches Bathsheba once the sheep have been sold, and he gets her a seat at the show. Troy recognizes her, and, explaining to the manager that he has a creditor in the audience, asks if he might perform the rest of the play in pantomime, in order to disguise his identity. After the show, Troy thinks that Pennyways, Bathsheba's former bailiff, may have recognized him nonetheless. Pennyways approaches Bathsheba, giving her a note saying her husband is alive, but Troy hides behind her and snatches the note from her before she can read it. Troy and Pennyways go off together to talk.
Boldwood contrives to take Bathsheba home from the fair, and on the way, he reminds her that Troy is dead and asks her whether she would consider marrying him. He asks her to take pity on him, even though she does not love him. Bathsheba is intimidated by him almost to the point of fear, and through timidity and guilt, she tells him, "I will never marry another man whilst you wish me to be your wife, whatever comes--but to say more--" It is another half- promise. Finally, she agrees to tell him for certain at Christmas whether she is willing to marry him six years later.
Bathsheba asks Gabriel for advice a few weeks later, telling him that if she does not give Boldwood her word, she thinks he will go out of his mind. Gabriel replies that "The real sin, ma'am, in my mind, lies in thinking of every wedding wi' a man you don't love honest and true." After their conversation, Bathsheba feels piqued that Gabriel has not mentioned his own love for her.
Commentary
The Greenhill Fair chapter, Chapter 50, contains an enormous amount of factual information about life in Dorsetshire. One of Hardy's projects in this novel is to preserve a detailed account of the rural habits of the region that he saw becoming extinct in an age of increasing industrialization. The agricultural economy would suffer in the late 1800s through competition with produce from other countries. Faster transportation and technological advances in refrigeration meant that by 1900, the English no longer had to subsist on food grown on British soil alone. The agricultural fair, then, is a ritual that Hardy sees dying out, and the chapter serves as a sort of historical document or record.
Much of the plot of this chapter is built around unlikely coincidence: Troy meeting up with Bathsheba, being recognized by Pennyways but not by his wife, being able to steal the note that Pennyways gives Bathsheba. The intense acceleration of events in this part of the novel makes it seem far less realistic than the slower, more carefully drawn scenes in the novel. Yet Hardy's somewhat contrived states of affairs allow him to experiment with interesting psychological situations. The way the characters respond to their strange circumstances sheds light on their personalities and minds. For example, the fact that Troy persists in hiding from Bathsheba, despite being in her immediate presence, exposes the depth of his callousness: he has not seen her in months, she is in mourning for him, and yet he still waits to see how financially well-off she is before making his presence known. Chapters 52 to 57
Summary
The novel builds toward its climax in Chapter 52, appropriately named "Converging Courses." Hardy divides the chapter into seven sections, charting the activities of Boldwood, Bathsheba, Gabriel, and Troy as they prepare for and attend Boldwood's Christmas Eve party.
The party is talked about all over Weatherbury, largely because it is so unusual for Boldwood to give a party. He has decorated his long hall meticulously, but, we are told, "In spite of all this, the spirit of revelry was wanting in the atmosphere of the house"; Boldwood is not a natural host.
Bathsheba is dressing for the party. She tells Liddy, "I am foolishly agitated: I am the cause of the party, and that upsets me!" She decides to continue to wear her mourning and dress in black for the festivities.
Boldwood, too, is dressing and has given an inordinate amount of attention to his clothes, hiring a tailor to alter everything. Gabriel visits him and Boldwood asks for his assistance in tying his tie. He asks, "'Does a woman keep her promise, Gabriel?'" and Gabriel answers, "If it is not inconvenient to her she may.'" Gabriel warns him not to build too much on promises, and it is clear that Boldwood harbors fear of Bathsheba's refusal; he is highly agitated.
We also see Troy and Pennyways as they prepare to go to Boldwood's party. Troy asks Pennyways about Bathsheba's relationships with Boldwood and Gabriel. Troy finally sets off for the party in disguise, thinking that Bathsheba is on the verge of marrying Boldwood. He plans to arrive at nine.
Now we are shown Boldwood at his farm again, as he offers Gabriel a larger part of the farm's profits, saying that he hopes to retire from the management altogether. Boldwood says he knows Gabriel loves Bathsheba and says he believes he has won the competition for Bathsheba, in part, because of Gabriel's "goodness of heart." As the guests arrive, Boldwood shows "feverish anxiety."
The climax of the novel comes in Chapter 53. The villagers gather outside Boldwood's house, whispering that Troy has been seen that day in Casterbridge. The night is "dark as a hedge." Boldwood is waiting desperately for Bathsheba, and the workers overhear him say, "Oh my darling, my darling, why do you keep me in suspense like this?" Bathsheba arrives, and the workers try to decide whether to tell Boldwood about Troy. Then, they spot his face at the window. After an hour, Bathsheba prepares for departure, and Boldwood finds her alone in the parlor. He pressures her and she agrees to "give the promise, if I must." Boldwood finally presses her to take a ring, persuading her to wear it for just that night, and she begins to cry. He is almost violent in his firmness, and she is "beaten into non-resistance." Just then, a stranger is announced, and in front of the whole party, Troy announces, "Bathsheba, I am come for you!" She does not move.
He reaches out to pull her toward him, but she shrinks back; her dread irritates Troy, who seizes her arm violently; she screams. The sound of the scream is followed by a deafening bang: Boldwood has shot Troy dead. He is about to shoot himself, as well, when a worker stops him. Boldwood leaves the hall.
In the next chapter, we learn that Boldwood has turned himself in at the Casterbridge prison, while Bathsheba has tended to Troy and called for a surgeon. Troy, however, is dead.
Months later, in March, Boldwood's trial occurs. The onlookers learn that Boldwood had prepared a set of ladies' dresses in expensive fabrics in a closet in his home and several sets of jewelry in packages labeled "Bathsheba Boldwood." Boldwood is sentenced to death by hanging. However, the residents of Weatherbury are convinced that Boldwood is not "morally responsible" for his actions, and Gabriel sends a petition to the Home Secretary requesting a reconsideration of the sentence. Finally, on the eve of his execution the news comes that he has been pardoned and given "confinement during Her Majesty's pleasure" instead.
Troy is buried in the same grave as Fanny Robin. Bathsheba's spirits slowly revive as the spring turns to summer. One day, as she is visiting the grave, she sees Gabriel singing in the church choir. He joins her at the grave and tells her that he intends to leave Weatherbury. Upset, she begs him to stay, but he will not. When she receives his official final notice as bailiff, she cries and decides to visit him at his cottage. He invites her in and explains that one of his motivations for leaving are the rumors going around the village about a romance between the two of them. After some confusion, Bathsheba admits that she has come "courting him" and the two agree to marry.
The last chapter portrays the quiet wedding of Gabriel and Bathsheba. After the wedding, the two dine at the farm, and all the men of the village gather to sing and play for them.
Commentary
The tension builds through the use of the villagers' comments about Troy, just as in a Greek tragedy in which the conflicts about to be unleashed are commented on by the chorus. They alone know what the reader knows--that Troy is alive and may turn up at the party. Yet also like the reader, they are powerless to intervene. The villagers articulate all the fears the readers have about how Boldwood and Bathsheba will react to Troy's presence. The tension they instill makes the somewhat melodramatic climax-- Boldwood's murder of Troy--more plausible. Knowing how deeply Boldwood hopes that Troy's death will allow him to possess Bathsheba, we understand his urge to kill Troy.
The scene-by-scene structure of Chapter 52 contributes to this dramatic suspense, as we imagine three separate sets of people each about to come together and each deeply anxious, wondering how it will all be resolved. Notice that Gabriel fulfills his classic role of the intelligent, sensible observer, who does not take part in the action.
The final chapters serve to release this tension and to make sense of what has happened. Boldwood's trial looks back upon all the recent events and causes the readers to develop sympathy for his misdeed so that we, like the villagers, may forgive him. Similarly, by burying Troy with Fanny, Bathsheba shows acceptance of their previous bonds to each other. In the wake of these three ruined lives, only Gabriel and Bathsheba remain.
Bathsheba's trip to Gabriel's cottage is the final instance of the series of intimate discussions about marriage the two have from the very outset of the novel, beginning with Gabriel's first proposal. In the previous scenes, Bathsheba has been hurt when Gabriel has not confessed his devotion to her. Here, finally, she is driven to admit her own love for him. This time, she is the one who introduces the notion of their marrying.
Hardy is careful to show that the love that Gabriel and Bathsheba share is not the passion of a first love but a sadder and wiser connection. In the final scene, Jan Coggan makes a joke, and the narrator tells us, "Then Oak laughed, and Bathsheba smiled (for she never laughed readily now), and their friends turned to go." While the ending is ostensibly a happy one, that happiness is tempered by all that has happened.
Overall Analysis
The title Far From the Madding Crowd comes from Thomas Gray's famous 18th-century poem "Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard": "Far from the madding crowd's ignoble strife, Their sober wishes never learned to stray; Along the cool sequestered vale of life They kept the noiseless tenor of their way." By alluding to Gray's poem, Hardy evokes the rural culture that, by Hardy's lifetime, had become threatened with extinction at the hands of ruthless industrialization. His novel thematizes the importance of man's connection to, and understanding of, the natural world. Gabriel Oak embodies Hardy's ideal of a life in harmony with the forces of the natural world.
The novel also contemplates the relationship between luck, or chance, and moral responsibility: Why should we live a morally upright life if tragedy strikes us all equally anyway? While some characters, like Gabriel, are always responsible and cautious, others, like Sergeant Troy, are careless and destructive. Hardy was very much influenced by the ideas of Charles Darwin, who maintained that the development of a biological species--and, by extension, of human society and history--is shaped by chance and not by the design of a god.
Another theme is the danger and destruction inherent in romantic love and marriage; Hardy exposes the inconsistencies, irrationalities, and betrayals that often plague romantic relationships. Bathsheba begins the novel an independent woman, but by falling in love with Troy, she nearly destroys her life. Similarly, Hardy presents us with many couples in which one partner is more in love than the other, and he shows what disastrous events result from this inequality. Study Questions
Discuss Hardy's use of point of view. Why does he have a third-person narrator? What is the effect of giving us insight into the minds of different characters by turns, presenting the same scene from different viewpoints? When is the narrator omniscient, and when is he connected to a particular character? Think about scenes in which one character observes another without being seen. How is this experience similar to that of being a reader?
Hardy purposely plays with point of view in order to create drama. When he describes Troy waiting for Fanny at the church, he does so from the perspective of the women watching Troy, not knowing him and not knowing Fanny. He slows down the time so we feel every minute tick by. As a result, we see Troy's humiliation at being seen to be abandoned at the altar, a reaction he would never have consciously admitted in his own mind. Another of Hardy's narrative methods is the way he introduces important (and often less important) characters. First, he shows them to us in action: Gabriel sees Bathsheba in her carriage; Bathsheba hears Boldwood ride up to the farm; she meets Troy in the wood; Gabriel meets Fanny Robin in the wood. In each of these scenes, the characters with whom we are already familiar know nothing about the character they are encountering except what they see at the time. Later, the omniscient narrator comes in and gives us background assessments of Boldwood, Bathsheba, Fanny, and Troy, providing generalizations about their character and their approaches to life. Finally, we see them transformed by what happens to them in the novel. Notice that the reader has much more room for interpretation when we meet these characters in action. We have to decide what we think based on the clues Hardy gives us. Chapter 26, Bathsheba's conversation with Troy in the field, is an extreme example of deliberate narrative strategizing. The chapter consists almost wholly of dialogue, almost entirely lacking any narrative commentary or even description. We hear Troy's words, knowing him to be dishonest, and then we hear how Bathsheba responds to them; the narrator withholds his own speculations, putting almost all of the interpretive power in the hands of the reader. We experience the scene as Bathsheba does; however, because we have prior information--in addition to an objectivity she lacks--we know she misreads Troy's remarks, falling too quickly for his charming surface. This narrative situation creates in the reader a tense feeling of frustration as we watch Bathsheba enter Troy's trap. Having shown us the effect of a series of meetings with Troy on Bathsheba's feelings, Hardy then takes Troy away and shows us how his absence affects her. Interestingly, very little of this section is shown from her point of view. Instead, we see her behavior as it strikes people who know her only distantly, such as Maryann Money and the farm workers. Chapter 32 is a particularly good example. Maryann watches someone take the horse from the stables and has no idea that Bathsheba would act so rashly as to ride to Bath at night without telling anyone. Thus, rather than seeing the series of decisions that lead up to her strange act, we see the act from afar. Hardy's use of perspective here makes the strange irrationality of Bathsheba's actions much more clear to us than it would be if we were inside Bathsheba's consciousness. Hardy does not allow us to sympathize with her but rather asks us to evaluate her behavior; the information with which he provides us gives us little choice but to judge this once strong and independent woman as increasingly foolish.
Discuss the roles of the farm laborers in the novel.
Several times during the novel, Hardy spends entire chapters giving an account of how the common laborers speak, how they spend their free time, and their opinions about each other. These groups of lower-class, common characters figure in almost all of Hardy's novels; like Shakespeare, he often uses them to effect comic relief, offsetting a tragic scene--for example, the deaths of Gabriel's ewes--with one of a more light-hearted tone. With such scenes, Hardy also intends to introduce urban or middle-class readers to the many different kinds of people that exist in the lower classes. In a later essay on the Dorsetshire laborer, he complains that people tend to stereotype farm workers and lump them all together. In other scenes, such as the sheep-washing and sheep-shearing scenes, the farm workers act as a kind of Greek chorus. At Boldwood's Christmas party, tension builds through the use of the villagers comments about Troy, just like a Greek tragedy in which the conflicts about to be unleashed are commented on by the chorus. They alone know what the reader knows--that Troy is alive, and may turn up at the party. Like the reader, they are powerless to intervene. The villagers articulate all the fears the readers have about how Boldwood and Bathsheba will react to Troy's presence. The tension they instill makes the somewhat melodramatic climax--Boldwood shooting Troy--more plausible.
Traditional "marriage plot" novels, such as Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, show a female choosing between several suitors and finally deciding on "Mr. Right" at the very end of the novel. Like theatrical comedies, these novels end with at least one marriage. How is this novel similar to marriage plot novels? How is it different? How does Sergeant Troy's relationship with Fanny affect this novel's portrayal of marriage? One of the ways in which Hardy is playing with traditional novels is by choosing a heroine who has no abstract desire to get married. In some ways, Far from the Madding Crowd is a traditional novel of marriage, meaning that a heroine is given a choice of two or more suitors, and at the end of the novel, she chooses the right one. Yet a novel such as Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice or Sense and Sensibility focuses on a character who wants to find a husband; Bathsheba has the economic and emotional independence not to need to marry, and she has an interest in maintaining the farm and preserving her freedom. Gabriel's early conversation with Bathsheba shows her to be a capricious young woman who, in her own words, wants taming and has never been in love. The discussion the two have about marriage is remarkably frank. Bathsheba admits that she would like to have a piano, pets, a gig, and to be in the newspaper list of marriages, but her main objection is the husband himself, the notion of having someone to answer to, having one's independence constrained. Already we see that this novel is not going to view marriage as an idealized state, but imagine it as a reality. At the end of the novel, when Bathsheba marries Gabriel, Hardy is careful to show that the love that Gabriel and Bathsheba share is not the passion of a first love but a sadder and wiser connection. While the ending is ostensibly a happy one, that happiness is tempered by all that has happened.
Look carefully at the role of promises and contracts in this novel. How does Bathsheba negotiate with each of her suitors? What does she agree to do, and what does she refuse to do? Why don't we see first-hand her final capitulation when she agrees to marry Troy?
Think about the use of land and nature in this novel. Who is talented at farming and who is less so? Why? What does a person's harmony with nature seem to signify? Think about Gabriel's response to the storm and how he reacts when he learns of the sheep's feeding upon young clover.
Does Bathsheba Everdene's character change over the course of the novel? What evidence is there that she learns from experience? What evidence is there that she does not change?
Discuss Hardy's use of setting in Far from the Madding Crowd. What happens at Weatherbury, before the reader's eyes? What important events take place elsewhere, only reported second-hand? How are the events that take place outdoors different from those that take place indoors? What happens at night, and what happens during the day? How does an event's setting help us to interpret it?
Several natural catastrophes happen over the course of this novel: the dog's driving the sheep off the cliff, the fire, the sheep's feeding upon young clover, the storm. What role do these events play with respect to the plot? What do they suggest about man's role with respect to nature? With respect to chance events?
Choose one chapter and look carefully at the point of view Hardy employs in that chapter. How does it advance the plot? How does it reveal information about the characters?
Discuss the roles of letters in this novel. How is communication by letter different from a conversation? What are the advantages or disadvantages of letter-writing as opposed to direct communication? Why do people choose to use letters?