Far from the Madding Crowd
Far from the Madding Crowd is the fourth published novel by English author Thomas Hardy; and his first major literary success. It was published on 23 November 1874. It originally appeared anonymously as a monthly serial in Cornhill Magazine, where it gained a wide readership.
The novel is set in Thomas Hardy's Wessex in rural southwest England, as had been his earlier Under the Greenwood Tree. It deals in themes of love, honour and betrayal, against a backdrop of the seemingly idyllic, but often harsh, realities of a farming community in Victorian England. It describes the life and relationships of Bathsheba Everdene with her lonely neighbour William Boldwood, the faithful shepherd Gabriel Oak, and the faithless soldier Sgt. Frank Troy.
On publication, critical notices were plentiful and mostly positive. Hardy revised the text extensively for the 1895 edition and made further changes for the 1901 edition.
The novel has an enduring legacy. In 2003, the novel was listed at number 48 on the BBC's survey The Big Read, while in 2007, it was ranked 10th on The Guardians list of greatest love stories of all time. The novel has also been dramatised several times, notably in the Oscar-nominated 1967 film directed by John Schlesinger.
Synopsis
Meeting, parting and reuniting
Gabriel Oak is a young shepherd. With the savings of a frugal life, and a loan, he has leased and stocked a farm. He falls in love with a newcomer eight years his junior, Bathsheba Everdene, who arrives to live with her aunt. Over time, Bathsheba and Gabriel grow to like each other well enough, and Bathsheba even saves his life once. However, when he makes her an unadorned offer of marriage, she refuses; she values her independence too much and him too little. Days later, she moves to Weatherbury, a village some miles off.When next they meet, their circumstances have changed drastically. An inexperienced new sheepdog has driven Gabriel's flock over a cliff, ruining him. After selling off everything of value, he manages to settle all his debts but emerges penniless. He seeks employment at a hiring fair in the town of Casterbridge. When he finds none, he heads to another such fair in Shottsford, a town about ten miles from Weatherbury. On his way, he spots a fire on a farm and leads the bystanders in putting it out. When the veiled owner comes to thank him, he asks if she needs a shepherd. She uncovers her face and reveals herself to be Bathsheba. She has recently inherited her uncle's estate and is now wealthy. Though somewhat uncomfortable, she employs him.
Bathsheba's valentine to Boldwood
Meanwhile, Bathsheba gains a new admirer. William Boldwood is a prosperous farmer of about forty, whose ardour Bathsheba unwittingly awakens when she playfully sends him a valentine sealed with red wax on which she has embossed the words "Marry me". Boldwood, not realising the valentine was a jest, becomes obsessed with her and soon proposes marriage assuming she wanted the same. Despite not loving him, she toys with the idea of accepting his offer; he is the most eligible bachelor in the district, wealthy and handsome. However, she avoids giving him a definite answer. When Gabriel rebukes her for her thoughtlessness regarding Boldwood, she dismisses him from his job.When Bathsheba's sheep begin dying from bloat, she discovers to her chagrin that Gabriel is the only man who knows how to cure them. Her pride delays the inevitable, but eventually she is forced to beg him for help. Afterward, she offers him back his job, and their friendship is restored.
Sergeant Troy
At this point, Sergeant Francis "Frank" Troy returns to his native Weatherbury and by chance encounters Bathsheba one night. Her initial dislike turns to infatuation after he excites her with a private display of swordsmanship. Gabriel observes Bathsheba's interest in the young soldier and tries to discourage it, telling her she would be better off marrying Boldwood. Boldwood becomes aggressive towards Troy, and Bathsheba goes to Bath to prevent Troy returning to Weatherbury, as she fears what might happen if Troy encountered Boldwood. On their return, Boldwood offers his rival a large bribe to give up Bathsheba. Troy pretends to consider the offer, then scornfully announces they are already married. Boldwood withdraws, humiliated, and vows revenge.Bathsheba discovers that her new husband is an improvident gambler with little interest in farming. She also begins to suspect he does not love her. In fact, Troy's heart belongs to Bathsheba's former servant, Fanny Robin. Before meeting Bathsheba, Troy had promised to marry Fanny; on the wedding day, however, Fanny goes to the wrong church. She explains her mistake, but Troy, humiliated at being left at the altar, calls off the wedding. When they part, unbeknownst to Troy, Fanny is pregnant with his child.
Fanny Robin
Months later, Troy and Bathsheba encounter the frail Fanny on the road, destitute, as she painfully makes her way toward the Casterbridge workhouse. Troy sends his wife onward, then gives Fanny all the money in his pocket, telling her he will give her more in a few days. Fanny uses up the last of her strength to reach her destination. Hours later, she dies in childbirth, along with the baby. Mother and child are then placed in a coffin and sent home to Weatherbury to be buried. Gabriel, who knows of Troy's relationship with Fanny, tries to conceal the child's existence – but Bathsheba agrees that the coffin can be left in her house overnight, from her sense of duty towards a former servant. Her servant and confidante, Liddy, repeats the rumour that Fanny had a child; when all the servants are in bed, Bathsheba unscrews the lid and sees the two bodies inside.Troy then comes home from Casterbridge, where he had gone to keep his appointment with Fanny. Seeing the reason for her failure to meet him a second time, he tenderly kisses the corpse and tells the anguished Bathsheba, "This woman is more to me, dead as she is, than ever you were, or are, or can be". The next day he spends all his money on a marble tombstone with the inscription: "Erected by Francis Troy in beloved memory of Fanny Robin..." Then, loathing himself and unable to bear Bathsheba's company, he leaves. After a long walk, he bathes in the sea, leaving his clothes on the beach. A strong current carries him away, but he is rescued by some men in a boat. He does not return home, however.
Troy returns
A year later, with Troy presumed drowned, Boldwood renews his suit. Burdened with guilt over the pain she has caused him, Bathsheba reluctantly consents to marry him in six years, long enough to have Troy declared dead. Boldwood begins counting the days, going so far as to buy gifts for Bathsheba on special days.Troy tires of his hand-to-mouth existence as a travelling actor and considers reclaiming his position and wife. He returns to Weatherbury on Christmas Eve and goes to Boldwood's house, where a party is under way. He orders Bathsheba to come with him; when she shrinks back in shock and dismay, he seizes her arm, and she screams. At this, Boldwood shoots Troy dead and tries unsuccessfully to turn the double-barrelled gun on himself. Although Boldwood is convicted of murder and sentenced to be hanged, his friends petition the Home Secretary for mercy, claiming insanity. This is granted, and Boldwood's sentence is commuted to "confinement during Her Majesty's pleasure". Bathsheba buries her husband in the same grave as Fanny Robin and their child.
Gabriel triumphant
Throughout her tribulations, Bathsheba comes to rely increasingly on her oldest and, as she admits to herself, only real friend, Gabriel. When he gives notice that he is leaving her employ, she realises how important he has become to her well-being. That night, she goes alone to visit him in his cottage to find out why he is deserting her. Pressed, he reluctantly reveals that it is because people have been gossiping that he wants to marry her. She exclaims that it is "... too absurd – too soon – to think of, by far!" He bitterly agrees that it is absurd, but she corrects him, tearfully, saying that it is only "too soon." Emboldened, Gabriel says if he only knew if she would marry him, and she replies that he will never know, because he never asks. At this, they become engaged, and later, are quietly married.Title
Hardy took the title from Thomas Gray's poem "Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard" :"Madding" here means "frenzied".
Lucasta Miller points out that the title is an ironic literary joke, as Gray is idealising noiseless and sequestered calm, whereas Hardy "disrupts the idyll, and not just by introducing the sound and fury of an extreme plot... he is out to subvert his readers' complacency".
Hardy's Wessex
was first mentioned in Far from the Madding Crowd; describing the "partly real, partly dream-country" that unifies his novels of southwest England. Far from the Madding Crowd offers in ample measure the details of English rural life that Hardy so relished.He found the word in the pages of early English history as a designation for an extinct, pre-Norman Conquest kingdom, the Wessex from which Alfred the Great established England. In the first edition, the word "Wessex" is used only once, in chapter 50; Hardy extended the reference for the 1895 edition. Hardy himself wrote: "I am reminded that it was in the chapters of Far from the Madding Crowd… that I first ventured to adopt the word 'Wessex' from the pages of early English history... – a modern Wessex of railways, the penny post, mowing and reaping machines, union workhouses, lucifer matches, labourers who could read and write, and National school children".
Puddletown's parish church has significant architectural interest, particularly its furnishings and monuments. It has a 12th-century font and well-preserved woodwork, including 17th-century box pews. Hardy took an interest in the church, and the village provided the inspiration for the fictional settlement of Weatherbury
In The Mayor of Casterbridge, Hardy briefly mentions two characters from Far from the Madding Crowd – Farmer Everdene and Farmer Boldwood, both in happier days.