Far From the Madding Crowd in bbc book list, the top 100

Jun 22, 2017 Nicole rated it it was amazing

Shelves: classics, fiction, british, love-story

Last night as I lay down to bed upon finishing "Far from the Madding Crowd", my mind was roiling. Was this really a happy ending? Does Hardy's complex portrait of the strong, intelligent and proud Bathsheba Everdene count as proto-feminist when he often uses her example to stereotype womankind? And what the hell was up with Farmer Boldwood?

After stewing on it for a while, I'm beginning to answer some of my questions. (view spoiler) Last night as I lay down to bed upon finishing "Far from the Madding Crowd", my mind was roiling. Was this really a happy ending? Does Hardy's complex portrait of the strong, intelligent and proud Bathsheba Everdene count as proto-feminist when he often uses her example to stereotype womankind? And what the hell was up with Farmer Boldwood?

After stewing on it for a while, I'm beginning to answer some of my questions. (view spoiler)[...No, it isn't a happy ending, not entirely. For while Gabriel Oak has been rewarded for his constancy and steadiness of character, Bathsheba has been torn down, punished for her pride and vanity, for her stubborn insistence that she can do it on her own. In the last paragraph of the book, "...Oak laughed, and Bathsheba smiled (for she never laughed readily now)...". She is made to beg of Oak to stay, to admit that she can't do it on her own, but never does she get to experience the true tenderness of love. Hardy bolds the words he wants for their relationship: "CAMARADERIE", not love. Oak spends these last paragraphs and chapters laughing and giddy with happiness and love, but Bathsheba is a hesitant shadow of her former self. It has been proven to her that a pretty woman is not allowed to own herself; she will always be the subject of a man, even if not one of her choosing.

Here I come to my second question--is Bathsheba Everdene a proto-feminist? Yes and no. "Although she scarcely knew the divinity’s name, Diana was the goddess whom Bathsheba instinctively adored. That she had never by look word or sign encouraged a man to approach her, that she had felt herself sufficient to herself, and had in the independence of her girlish heart fancied there was a certain degradation in renouncing the simplicity of a maiden existence to become the humbler half of an indifferent whole, were facts now bitterly remembered."–page 239. Though this insight is served to us in a romantic couching, it neatly summarizes Bathsheba's character arc. Had Bathsheba not fallen prey to her fatal flaw of vanity, would she have married Frank Troy? I doubt it, for she begins the novel determined not to be indebted to any man, even one so innocuous and well-meaning as Gabriel Oak. What is Hardy's intention behind the character of Bathsheba? She is written so sympathetically--he makes a point to tell us that even as she acts foolishly, she is wise to her folly and it pains her. Yet he is unsparing in her fall from grace--if she will not be a priestess to Diana and remain forever virginal, she must be beholden to a man to save her downfall in society, and he will command her as the rule of law dictates he may. She learns this lesson well after her ill-conceived passion and marriage to Sgt. Troy, and subsequently promises herself to two men to whom she feels obliged. Hardy is ambiguous in his moral judgement of her, and while he holds sympathy for her, she (and Fanny Robin), are both condemned.

And as to my last question--what the hell is up with Farmer Boldwood? He who starts the book so reserved, proud in his own way, then becomes mad with obsession. I would love to read a psychological profile of the character, because his is the character whom I can't resolve. More than Bathsheba, he's haunted my mind a little. If anyone who reads this has some insight, I'd love to hear it. (hide spoiler)]

Outside of these questions, I thought the language Hardy used was spellbinding. I felt entranced while I was reading, and I'm sorry to have left the world that he painted. ...more

4 likes · Like · see review