Far From The Madding Crowd

“To find themselves utterly alone at night where company is desirable and expected makes some people fearful; but a case more trying by far to the nerves is to discover some mysterious companionship when intuition, sensation, memory, analogy, testimony, probability, induction—every kind of evidence in the logician’s list—have united to persuade consciousness that it is quite in isolation.” 

Throughout the narrative our expectations are upended, and this contrast is an early example of being asked to reconsider our presumptions about a circumstance. Our presumption is that solitude enacts fear, but Hardy suggests here that the opposite might be similarly true (and perhaps worse). 

“Love is a possible strength in an actual weakness. Marriage transforms a distraction into a support, the power of which should be, and happily often is, in direct proportion to the degree of imbecility it supplants.” 

This is a strange and interesting quote for the duality it presents, as well as its reinforcement of norms. Love is a driving force of the novel, which explores social norms through a complex love pentagon. Yet the novel frequently suggests the importance of love and undermines the institution of marriage. The suggestion here seems to be that the sillier the two lovers are, the more marriage is necessary to stabilize them, but even a cursory glance at the events of the novel suggests this is not true.

“George’s son had done his work so thoroughly that he was considered too good a workman to live, and was, in fact, taken and tragically shot at twelve o’clock that same day—another instance of the untoward fate which so often attends dogs and other philosophers who follow out a train of reasoning to its logical conclusion, and attempt perfectly consistent conduct in a world made up so largely of compromise.” 

The novel frequently returns to matters of logic—Joseph Poorgrass uses a roundabout form of reasoning to conclude that it’s okay to sit and drink while Fanny decomposes in the parking lot. Here there is something more sinister, though, as the moment’s lightheartedness belies a more troubling assertion about Gabriel, who appears to have killed his dog out of frustration and anger. The narrator often describes things euphemistically, and the narrator’s description here leaves us to question how Gabriel actually reacted.

“In feeling for each other’s palm in the gloom before the money could be passed, a minute incident occurred which told much. 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 quick, hard 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.” 

This is likely a roundabout way of telling us that Fanny is pregnant—the lambs, consumption of vitality, etc.—and we learn later that Fanny was in fact pregnant at this moment. As with the above, Hardy’s narrative style leans euphemistic in situations like these; however, his tendency is to later make these moments far more concrete, and often, impactful as a result. 

“It would be ungallant to suggest that the novelty of her engagement in such an occupation had almost as much to do with the magnetism as had the beauty of her face and movements. However, the interest was general, and this Saturday’s début in the forum […] was unquestionably a triumph to her as the maiden.”

The language pulls double-duty here, and it’s interesting that Hardy’s comparison uses the language of marriage and virginity to refer to Bathsheba’s entrance into the market. It is a kind of virginity, of course, but this draws an interesting comparison between the traditional role of a woman in Victorian society, which Bathsheba wishes to work against, and the way in which she chooses to enact that difference. 

“Here, in the quiet of Boldwood’s parlour, where everything that was not grave was extraneous, and where the atmosphere was that of a Puritan Sunday lasting all the week, the letter and its dictum changed their tenor from the thoughtlessness of their origin to a deep solemnity, imbibed from their accessories now.” 

The novel deals frequently with matters of perspective, and this passage illustrates how the same act can be viewed differently by different people. Bathsheba is a playful person, so to her it’s obvious that the valentine should not be taken too seriously; Boldwood, on the other hand, is a terribly serious person, so to him it’s impossible to think that it should not be taken seriously. This kind of confusion in many ways forms the heart of the novel.

“To Boldwood women had been remote phenomena rather than necessary complements—comets of such uncertain aspect, movement, and permanence, that whether their orbits were as geometrical, unchangeable, and as subject to laws as his own, or as absolutely erratic as they superficially appeared, he had not deemed it his duty to consider.”

This is meant to be humorous, but it takes on a more sinister edge when we see how Boldwood treats Bathsheba moving forward. Boldwood claims that he loves her, but in truth he treats her as an object for acquisition more than anything else. Women here are described as something strange and foreign—the implied meaning being that they are extraterrestrial rather than human.

“[Boldwood’s] stillness, which struck casual observers more than anything else in his character and habit […] may have been the perfect balance of enormous antagonistic forces—positives and negatives in fine adjustment. His equilibrium disturbed, he was in extremity at once. If an emotion possessed him at all, it ruled him; a feeling not mastering him was entirely latent.”

In a way, this characterizes Victorian society and sensibility more broadly, and that which Hardy seeks to critique. Boldwood’s calm is only an illusion seen from afar; up close, and under observation, it becomes clear it’s false, and that he is much more turbulent than believed. Likewise, rigid Victorian moral and social codes offer the illusion of order, but Hardy’s aim in the novel is to demonstrate what happens when those codes are jostled just a bit.

“She resolved never again, by look or by sign, to interrupt the steady flow of this man’s [Boldwood’s] life. But a resolution to avoid an evil is seldom framed till the evil is so far advanced as to make avoidance impossible.” 

This suggests a fact of inevitability. Essentially, the momentum of the act is so far gone that Bathsheba is unable to reverse it. She does, to an extent, by marrying Troy—but as a solution to the Boldwood problem, this is insufficient.

“Yet Farmer Boldwood, whether by nature kind or the reverse to kind, did not exercise kindness, here. The rarest offerings of the purest loves are but a self-indulgence, and no generosity at all.” 

Hardy again attacks love as illusory at best, dangerous at worst. Of course, one might argue in response that Boldwood is not practicing love; what he’s calling love is mere self-indulgence, whereas true love might be Gabriel swallowing his pride to save Bathsheba’s ewes, or working through the night to save her produce while the rest of the town is passed out drunk in the barn. Still, even in those acts, we find pieces of self-indulgence. 

“It appears that ordinary men take wives because possession is not possible without marriage, and that ordinary women accept husbands because marriage is not possible without possession; with totally differing aims the method is the same on both sides. But the understood incentive on the woman’s part was wanting here.”

The practical aims of marriage are reiterated throughout the novel; in fact, these are the grounds on which Bathsheba rejects Gabriel, ultimately convincing him at the start that there is no practical reason for them to marry. Hardy’s critique is similar to the larger critique of social mores, though—in this case, if we take these to be the normal aims of marriage (again, a cursory inspection should tell us this is not necessarily true), what happens when someone—Bathsheba—does not fit the usual gender role?

“Men thin away to insignificance and oblivion quite as often by not making the most of good spirits when they have them as by lacking good spirits when they are indispensable.” 

As much as the novel is concerned with fate and circumstance, it is also concerned with making the right decision at the right time. Twice early on Gabriel makes suspect decisions: first he nearly dies when he forgets to open the latch to avoid suffocation; then he leaves an untrained dog out and about, leading to his ruin. Here the suggestion is that we must take advantage of high points when they come as much as we need to work against the low points when they arrive, as well.

“In comparison with cities, Weatherbury was immutable. The citizen’s Then is the rustic’s Now. In London, twenty or thirty-years ago are old times; in Paris ten years, or five; in Weatherbury three or four score years were including in the mere present, and nothing less than a century set a mark on its face or tone.” 

Key to the novel is the relative passage of time. Our modern era has collapsed this much further than would be recognizable at the time the novel is set—places like Weatherbury still exist, but they have broadband. The world was changing at the time Hardy was writing, but seemingly faster in some places than in others, leading to an interesting tension between Weatherbury and London. It’s not perfectly clear Hardy’s position on this, given his distaste for London society, but this description suggests a fundamental power that the events of the novel are often at odds with.

“We learn that it is not the rays which bodies absorb, but those which they reject, that give them the colours they are known by; and in the same way people are specialized by their dislikes and antagonisms, whilst their goodwill is looked upon as no attribute at all.” 

It is likewise not entirely clear whether this is meant as a critique or description. Goodwill, here, could certainly be seen as embodying social norms, in which case working against them might be seen as good. Alternatively, we see several instances in the novel where people, like Boldwood, become conspicuous and undone by their differences, ones that are sharp and important. In any case, it is key that we are not to be known—whatever this may mean—by our good traits, but by our bad.

“[Troy] spoke fluently and unceasingly. He could in this way be one thing and seem another: for instance, he could speak of love and think of dinner; call on the husband to look at the wife; be eager to pay and intend to owe.” 

As the novel progresses, Troy’s duplicity becomes clearer and more important, but there is dramatic irony throughout given that we are told more or less upon meeting him that he is a liar. Even his treatment of women is made very clear here—not only are we told earlier that he always lies to women, but here are explicitly told that fidelity is simply not something he’s concerned with.

“Bathsheba loved Troy in the way that only self-reliant women love when they abandon their self-reliance. When a strong woman recklessly throws away her strength she is worse than a weak woman who has never had any strength to throw away. One source of her inadequacy is the novelty of the occasion. She has never had practice in making the best of such a condition. Weakness is doubly weak by being new.” 

There is an important suggestion here that the events of Bathsheba and Troy’s relationship are partially her fault, and it’s couched in this idea that this is because she was so strong—i.e., she fell harder because she had further to fall. As usual, the narrator’s tone makes this difficult to decipher, as Hardy’s narrator is often at least somewhat unreliable. Still, though, there is something interesting in the way the narrator questions conception of internal strength—this plays out similarly with Boldwood, who collapsed as soon as he felt a weakness for Bathsheba.

“We discern a grand force in the lover which he lacks whilst a free man; but there is a breadth of vision in the free man which in the lover we vainly seek. Where there is much bias there must be some narrowness, and love, though added emotion, is subtracted capacity. Boldwood exemplified this to an abnormal degree […]”

Hardy continues to critique the difficulties of love, the claim here being that love blinds us—or, at least, narrows our vision. So, while we become passionate, we also become single-minded. Of course, someone like Boldwood was always single-minded; love merely changed his focus.

A philosopher once said in my hearing that the old builders, who worked when art was a living thing, had no respect for the work of builders who went before them, but pulled down and altered as they thought fit; and why shouldn’t we? ‘Creation and preservation don’t do well together,’ says he, ‘and a million of antiquarians can’t invent a style.’”

It's intriguing that Troy often represents the more modern impulses that one would presume Hardy would embody given his aims. Again, though, it’s worth remembering that Troy is an extreme, and the suggestion here might be that Troy seeks change for the sake of change rather than because that change is useful or necessary.

“Self-beguilement with what [Fanny] had known all the time to be false had given her strength to come over half a mile that she would have been powerless to face in the lump. The artifice showed that the woman, by some mysterious intuition, had grasped the paradoxical truth that blindness may operate more vigorously than prescience, and the short-sighted effect more than the far-seeing; that limitation, and not comprehensiveness, is needed for striking a blow.” 

In contrast with earlier, the narrator here suggests that it is useful to be able to lie to ourselves—that an inability to grasp the larger truths of the world might be useful in allowing us to achieve our ends. Fanny here is determined and single-minded but must lie to herself in order to reach the Union (which ultimately is a failed effort, anyway). Naturally, we see a worse version of this in Boldwood, who lies to himself in order to convince himself that he and Bathsheba will be together.

“Until she had med Troy, Bathsheba had been proud of her position as a woman; it had been a glory to her to know that her lips had been touched by no man’s on earth—that her waist had never been encircled by a lover’s arm. She hated herself now.”

The suggestion here is that Bathsheba felt compelled to marry Troy because she was no longer the picture of virtue required of Victorian women. It’s interesting that she retains this image of her duties and obligations to society despite occupying a role in social which would normally not be given to a woman—she is happy to break gender norms in some instances, whereas in others, she feels compelled to uphold them.

“It is only women with no pride in them who run away from their husbands. There is one position worse than that of being found dead in your husband’s house from his ill usage, and that is, to be found alive through having gone away to the house of somebody else.” 

Bathsheba’s comments here represent an internal conflict and suggest that her upholding of social norms may at times be in order to stand her ground, so to speak. Her example is stark: she suggests that it’s better to be beaten to death by her husband than to escape the abuse, and her argument is fatalist to be sure. It also seems to suggest that leaving means that he won, and she has no intention of doing that.

“It was eventually known that Gabriel, though paid a fixed wage by Bathsheba independent of the fluctuations of agricultural profits, had made an engagement with Boldwood by which Oak was to receive a share of the receipts—a small share certainly, yet it was money of a higher quality than mere wages, and capable of expansion in a way that wages were not.” 

Although the novel is largely concerned with the wealthy, specifically Bathsheba and Boldwood, a significant portion of the novel deals directly or indirectly with class inequality and mobility—we frequently get depictions of the lives of the working class, and Gabriel acts as an intermediary between the two worlds. This passage recognizes the difficulty of such movement, though, essentially making the claim that without a stake in ownership, there is no real possibility of social advancement.

“When I want a broad-minded opinion for general enlightenment, distinct from special advice, I never go to a man who deals in the subject professionally. So I like the parson’s opinion on law, the lawyer’s on doctoring, the doctor’s on business, and my business-man’s—that is, yours—on morals.” 

Bathsheba critiques the idea of expertise. At first, her comments might seem strange or willfully obtuse. However, this reinforces a skepticism of social norms and connects to a larger concept of who owns knowledge. In fact, it’s worth considering Hardy’s own situation—again, he briefly moved to London only to return to Dorset once realizing his background would never allow him to move up in society, so it’s not surprising that he, through Bathsheba, might be suspicious of expertise.

“Deeds of endurance, which seem ordinary in philosophy, are rare in conduct, and Bathsheba was astonishing all around her now, for her philosophy was her conduct, and she seldom thought practicable what she did not practice. She was of the stuff of which great men’s mothers are made. She was indispensable to high generation, hated at tea parties, feared in shops, and loved at crises.” 

Hardy suggests a problem with fierceness or boldness in that it is only accepted at certain points. For example, in a crisis, boldness is appreciated and even desired; in usual circumstances, however, boldness and antagonism are rejected for stepping out of line.