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The author :

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. Hardy ’s most famous novels 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. 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. 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.

Main characters :

 Gabriel Oak - The novel’s hero, Gabriel Oak is a farmer, shepherd, and bailiff (régisseur), 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.

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.

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Read this extract from SparkNotes :

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.