Far From the Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy

Far From the Madding Crowd
Thomas Hardy

About Author :

Thomas Hardy (1840-1928)  is one of the few writers to succeed as both major novelist and poet. He was born in Dorset on 2nd June, 1840 in the early part of queen Victoria's reign. He was a serious novelist attempting to present theough fiction a view of life and totally different from his great contemporaries. His mood is pessimism.

Hardy was never quite certain of his philosophy because Hardy uses an impersonal and malign fate as a being possessing free will, in the play.

His characters are mostly ordinary men and women living close to soil. He has qualities of handling striking situations with great firmness of touch and a telling realism, and all his best novels contain individual scenes which are unforgettable.

Increasingly harsh attacks by critics on his 'pessimism' and 'immorality' in the later novel led Hardy to ababdon the novel from forever.

About Title: 

Hardy borrowd the phrase -'Far From the Madding Crowd' from Gray's poem and used it as a title of the novel.

Gray's lines: 

"Far From the Madding Crowd's ignoble strife. 

Their sober wishes never learn'd to stray."

Madding crowd represents the crowded congested, suffocating life of the city. All action is laid in the countryside, in a region of England to which he gives the name of Wessex.

About Novel: 

In 1874, the first of great novels which have made him famous - Far From the Madding Crowd. It is a tragi-comedy set in Wessex. The rural background to the story is an integral part of the novel, which reveals the emotional depths which focuses on rustic life.

28 years old Shepherd, Gabriel Oak is the central character of the novel 'Far From the Madding Crowd'. The story is waving around Bathsheba Everdene. Oak falls in love with Bathsheba. As a woman she is impulsive ans her beauty makes her succumb to masculine attention. Though Bathsheba refuses him for his second proposal, Oak says that,

"He will always love her. There is no regular path for getting out of love as there is for getting in."

He lost all his wealth in form of Sheeps. He destroys financially. This tragic event changes Gabriel's fate forever. Bathsheba is an eduacted, light-hearted beautiful girl who inherits her uncle's property and takes over as manger of the farm. Once there was crowd who stand helplessly around a straw-rick but only Gabriel knows, "Just What to do". Being careless about himself, 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. Bathsheba neess the services and Gabriel says,

" If she wants to need the services of the Shepherd, he ia ready."

Gabriel Oak is simple and straightforward than Troy. He is also loyal towards gis duties.  He is totally different from Troy and Blodwood. Gabriel Oak has a distinctive slow and unhurried manner of speaking in keeping with his character.

Bathsheba is worried about Fanny Robin who is still missing. Fanny Robin falls in love with Sergeant Troy. When  Fanny Robin went to meet Troy, he treated her very brutally. While reminding his promise  that.."He has promised to marry her!" he agreed to uohold the promise.

Sergeant Troy and Fanny Robin have  rescheduled their marraige but Troy refused to decide the date due to misunderstanding of the place, All Souls' rather than at All Sanits. Bathsehba feels sorry to Mr. Boldwood as he recieved Valentine letter instead of Gabriel. Here, Hardy warns us that Boldwood is not an ordinary nature. He is a confirmed Bachelor, wealthy and well established at neighboring farm.

Bathsheba has fallen in love of Sergeant Troy. However the narrator comments ominously, 

"When a strong woman recklessly throws away her strength, she is wrose than a weak woman who has never had strength to throw away."

Gabriel has true feelings for Bathsheba so he wanta to protect her from Troy because he knows about the affair of Troy and Robin. Troy tries to avoid everything and he will now marry to Bathsheba rather Fanny saying that,

"Marriage will ne more honourable than the current state of affairs."

When Bathsheba came to know about the reality of Troy, she said that she married him in state between jealousy and distraction. Bathsheba felt sorrow to Fanny Robin while she got the news that Fanny Robin is dead from unknown cause and also suspected that she is the girl to whom Troy loved ans Fanny has baby, too.

On the other side, Troy desn't know about the death of Fanny. When he approaches the coffin, he leans down to kiss her and announced that...

• "Fanny is his wife in the eyes of Heaven. I am not morally yours, Bathsheba." 

On the gravestone of Fanny it is written,

"Erected by Francis Troy in Beloved Memory of Fanny Robin".

Blodwood is sentenced to death by hanging but Boldwood is not morally responsible for his action so, he has been  pardoned and given 'Confinement during her Majesty's pleasure' instaed. Troy is buried in the same grave as Fanny Robin.

Gabriel explains the reason why he wants to leave Waterbury saying that,

"The rumors going around the village about a romance between two of them."  

At the end, novel turns into happy ending. As Bathsheba admits  that she was come 'courting him' and two agree to marry.