‘A slim girl, thinly clad’, ‘little shape’
To describe Fanny robin as a character she is a direct contrast to Bathsheba: Fanny Robin is blond and timid which fixes her second name ‘Robin’ and while this Bathsheba is dark and lively. Fanny is also a shadowy character and is adding mystery to the plot. Thomas Hardy also uses Fanny to juxtapose scenes with Troy and Fanny with Bathsheba, this causes emphasis. They only meet one in the whole novel and that is on the Yalbury Hill and Bathsheba only discovers the identity when of Fanny she opens her coffin.
Fanny Robin also is used as a character to bring in irony with her letter letting her to rejoice in a marriage and this is naïve and premature. Also she is used for dramatic irony in the act of her going to the wrong church and the reader knowing she is at the wrong church.
Once again Hardy evokes pity in the case of hardy describing her last journey with the picture of her ‘little arms’ resting on her only hope, a dog, this is to go with the contrast to the melodramatic death of troy. Also more irony in the case of her death has more effect on the characters than when she was a live.
Troy has an effect on the character of Fanny Robin by the fact of Fanny being powerless when it comes to being used for sex and Troy over powers from his money and power to tell her when the wedding will be.
Fanny Robin is used to bring out many main characters in the novel. The first one is Troy, this links in with the marriage and the way he respects Fanny and uses her for sex. Troy is also brought out more from Fanny when Thomas Hardy shows the different types of classes by using social class to show Troy’s embarrassment to seeing her in front of his friends. This is as shown by Troy saying:
‘What girl are you’.
The reason why Thomas Hardy has put this in is because Thomas Hardy is a social historian and wrote for people to learn and is teaching the public the way men treat the working class girls and just use there power to have sex with, the men with money would then go of and marry a virgin. Thomas Hardy wanted to change this.
Another point that Fanny brings out in Troy is what other people think about him for example Gabriel Oak and Mr Boldwood, this happens when Fanny gives the letter to Mr Boldwood to give to Gabriel and this brings in the quotation of:
