Far from the Madding crowd by Thomas Hardy written during the Victorian Era, which indicates the prevalence of the genre of literary realism. The novel encircles a range of themes: love, marriage, betrayal, and fidelity. The story begins with an introduction of an honest shepherd named Gabriel Oak, who lost all of his belongings (his sheep) leading to his poverty, and is craving for marriage with a beautiful rich woman named Bathsheba, who inherited the entire Weatherbury estate. Even though Bathsheba denies his proposal, Gabriel still manages to be a shepherd under Bathsheba’s estate, maintaining his loyalty. During Valentine's Day, Bathsheba plays a prank to a wealthy middle-aged farmer named Boldwood by sending him a love letter. Primarily, Boldwood possesses no romantic feeling toward her, but after receiving the letter, he finds Bathsheba attractive and proposes to her lately, but gets refused just like Gabriel. Bathsheba then gets attracted by a rich and handsome man that she really loves: Sergeant Troy. Bathsheba and Troy soon marry, but Bathsheba’s unaware of Troy’s real pursuer: Fanny Robin. Undergoing a series of misery, betrayal, and hesitation of marriage, Bathsheba finally marries Gabriel Oak after he becomes a wealthy successful bailiff.
Differences in social status results in differences of self-identity, esteem, expectations, behaviors, and the choices we make. Our social status impacts our daily life: from financial stability, occupations to marriage and family. People differ in perspectives of social classes, some think they would never be able to satisfy their needs or their pursuer’s needs because of their own inability, while others view social classes as unfixed. There are mainly three stages of social classes depicted in the novel " Far from the Madding Crowd”, which includes the nobles (rich), middle, and the poor class. From these classes, only William Boldwood and Fanny Robins retained their social position of being rich and poor in the entire book. This is called social immobility, where an individual's socio-economic position stays stable without changes. On the contrary, the remainder act as social climbers, rearranging their statuses from time to time either from a successful marriage or inheritances, referring to the concept of social mobility, going through improvements or declines. At the beginning, Bathsheba was poor, but from gaining her inheritance of a farm, she improved her status to the rich. Sergeant Troy is also poor; he improved his status through marrying Bathsheba. Even though Fanny was the one he loved more, he preferred Bathsheba because he knew he had better potential of enhancing his social position. Gabriel Oak was the one who fluctuates the most, from being a middle class to a working class employed by Bathsheba, and finally promoting to the patrician state through his diligence and virtue of devoted faithfulness. Change of social class either improves or aggravates one’s social living, therefore we should always strive for the better statuses.
In the Victorian Era, marriage acted as the center of everyday lives and influenced all aspects of Victorians, serving as the basis of their lives. The most commonly accepted form of marriage evermore is marrying someone of equal status as you. In the novel, Boldwood’s marriage to Bathsheba is normal, since they are both in the rich class. Oak’s marriage in the end to Bathsheba is also rich paired with rich. However, Sergeant Troy’s romantic relationship with Bathsheba is anomalous. Both of them have no realistic constant loving feelings toward each other because of the difference of their social status. Sure enough, their failure of marriage is in anticipation. Fanny’s pure love to Troy is unstable ever since Troy abandoned her even though he promises to satisfy her marriage with him. People often make ignominious mistakes during their marriage, and Bathsheba’s refusal to Gabriel Oak from the beginning is an example of such. Marrying Oak could possibly make her exceed into the rich status, but Bathsheba’s willingness of independence limited her choices. As we can see, money is the only stable thing in marriage since it is the quickest substantial thing to help us fulfill our needs. Love created by money is always more stable than pure genuine love filled with merely humane feelings.
The role of a female can be described as “homemakers”, suiting their husbands and children with a subservient, motherly attitude, which is known as “a sense of tenderness”. Almost all women appearing in Victorian literature appear to be fragile and motherlike since they don’t acquire any form of independence. In the novel Far from the Madding Crowd, Bathsheba and Fanny, the lovers of Troy, resulted in two contrastive endings. Although they are both beautiful, independent, and love believers, in the end, Bathsheba settles into a nice family with Gabriel Oak, while Fanny suffered from Troy’s traitorous abandonment and died with her children. Their only difference is their social status: the rich and the poor. As we can see, Fanny represents the majority of Victorian females, who earned no identity at the end because of their low status, while Bathsheba values independence and no one seems to have the courage to pull her down since she became an elite.
In the novel Far From the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy, Bathsheba experiences fortune with her three suitors: the honest shepherd Gabriel Oak, the superior farmer owner William Boldwood, and the charming but dangerous Sergeant Troy. The novel encounters a wide range of themes like love, social class, marriage, and feminine roles through portraying the complicated relationships between Bathsheba’s marriages and other characters. From dividing the characters into the rich, middle class, and the poor, Thomas Hardy gives us an explicit state of Victorian society at that time. The value of independence and ambition can be clearly revealed through Bathsheba’s decisions while the rejection of Gabriel Oak and the death of Fanny Robin indicates the poor consequence of the working class. Far From the Madding Crowd is a suitable novel for readers to understand the importance of social status, and to have a general idea of the prevalent Victorian Literature.
Comments