What do you find of interest in Hardy's presentation of Bathsheba and Fanny's experiences in far from the madding crowd?

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Social/ historical awareness

Katie Lambert

English/ English Literature Coursework Pre 1914 (prose)

Far From The Madding Crowd- Tomas Hardy

What do you find of interest in Hardy’s presentation of Bathsheba and Fanny’s experiences in far from the madding crowd?

How does this novel reveal the social reality of the time?

In this essay I will look at Thomas Hardy’s ‘Far from the Madding Crowd’ in the first section, I will look at the different ways Hardy portrays Bathsheba and Fanny’s experiences. Since Hardy based this novel in the 1840s, and being true to history, it does reveal a lot about the social reality of the time. However, Hardy could have a different perspective, as he is writing in the 1870s, which may have affected his view on the 1840s social ideal.

        Fanny is offered almost as a complete contrast to Bathsheba Fanny wants to get married (though this could possibly be because she is pregnant), she has no money, no home and no family, while Bathsheba has everything (except the family) that Fanny doesn’t have, including her boyfriend too, Troy.  

Bathsheba at the beginning represents a very rare kind of Victorian woman, one who is proud, strong and independent. While Fanny is the naïve and ‘fallen’ woman. As you progress through the novel, you see a peculiar change coming over both women, they seem to change their characters, Bathsheba becoming more like Fanny, and Fanny becoming more like Bathsheba. Fanny shows her strength as she almost pulls herself down the road by the will of her mind, ‘holding onto the rail she advanced, thrusting one hand forward, then the other, leaning over it whilst she dragged her feet on beneath’ a lesser woman would have just sat down and given up, but she shows us her strength of character as she tricks her body into making the steps, that would take her ever nearer, to her death, so to speak.. Bathsheba however, allows herself to be ruled by Troy, and in the end resorts to begging, ‘yes the independent and spirited Bathsheba has come to this’ no longer strong independent and proud, she has been worn down, broken.

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        Throughout the novel Hardy often relates his characters to their surroundings, using nature to mirror their moods and comment on their characters. He does this two ways, firstly for the character i.e. Bathsheba when she meets Troy ‘ it was gloomy there at cloudless noontide…black as the ninth plague of Egypt at midnight’. It is no coincidence that they meet in the dark, as it represents that Troy is a man of the night, and very mysterious, some of his less respectable qualities hidden in the dark from Bathsheba, coming out only after their marriage.

        Secondly he also use large, ...

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