Hardy was very aware of social class. This is probably because his father rose up the social ladder, but his mother on the other hand went down the social ladder. Bathsheba goes up the social ladder when she inherits her Uncles farm. Oak starts off by rising up the social ladder when he takes out a loan and starts up his sheep farm. But then he falls as low as he can go when his sheep were run over the cliff by his sheep dog when it became scared in a storm. This is also another one of those points when the weather is a warning of up coming events. The storm is a warning because Oak is almost unconscious because he forgot to open the shutters to let the air circulate when he went to bed and he lost his farm because he could not afford to pay back the loan for the sheep. This results in him having to go to the hiring fair to try and get another job. To start with he offers himself as a shepherd, but all of the farmers want a bailiff to start with, so when Oak sees this, he then goes and get some extra things to make himself look more like a bailiff, but after he has done this, all of the farmers want a shepherd. Also, when the farmers ask him what farm he has come from, he makes the mistake of telling them that he came from his own farm, they don’t want to know because it makes it look like he can’t take care of a farm and they don’t think he will make a very good shepherd.
“ ‘Whose farm were you upon last?’ ‘My own.’ This reply invariably operated like a rumour of cholera. The inquiring farmer would edge away and shake his head dubiously.”
The film version of ‘Far from the madding crowd’, directed by Nicholas Roag, is very different from the book, but it is still effective. In the book, the first time Oak sees Bathsheba is when she is riding along the road in a carriage being pulled by a horse. She cannot afford the road fair and he pays it for her. From this brief meeting, Oak doesn’t really know what to think of her. She is a pretty woman, but she is vain and thinks far too much of her beauty. “A small swing looking-glass was disclosed, in which she proceeded to survey herself attentively. She parted her lips and smiled.” Thomas Hardy has described the moment that Oak falls in love with Bathsheba when she is in the cow shed with her aunt. He spies on her and watches with fascination. “Oak, upon hearing these remarks, became more curious to observe her features, but this prospect being denied him by the hooding effect of the dark, and by his aerial position, he felt him-self drawing drawing upon his fancy for their details.” Nicholas Roag doesn’t show either of these scenes in the film. It just goes straight to the part when Gabriel Oak goes to ask Bathsheba for her hand in marriage at the cottage, taking a lamb with him as a present for her.
Nicholas manages to show Bathsheba Everdene, (Julie Christie), just as Thomas Hardy described her. She is flirtatious, vain and a tease to the men. She is independent and likes to get her own way all of the time. “Well, what I mean is that I shouldn’t mind being a bride at a wedding, if I could be one without having a husband. But since a woman can not show off in that way by herself, I shan’t marry – at least yet.” I think this quote shows just how demanding Bathsheba is. She obviously likes to get a lot of attention and if the attention doesn’t last that long then she doesn’t see the point in doing it at all.
Compared to Bathsheba, Gabriel Oak, (Alan Bates), is a very down to earth and pragmatic man. He likes to make other people happy “ ‘Here he said, stepping forward and handing two pence to the gatekeeper; ‘Let the young woman pass’” From this you can see that Oak is putting Bathsheba before himself. He can see that she is vain and puts herself above all others, but he still becomes fascinated by her.
Another character that I find quite interesting to look at is Sergeant Frank Troy, (Terence Stamp). From both the film and book, you get a sense of Frank being an obnoxious, arrogant, self-centred pig. He likes to use vulnerable young women for a quick fling before taking his army off to another place leaving the women behind. He doesn’t want commitment and he expects the women to forget about him after they have mourned him for a few days. You can see this by the way that he acts towards Fanny when she turns up at the barracks. He is definitely surprised to see her. “ ‘Fanny!’ cried the wall in utter astonishment’ ”, ‘How did you come here?’ and an important quote… “I did not expect you tonight. Indeed, I did not think you would come at all. It was a wonder you found me here. I am orderly tomorrow.” In this last quote, Frank is literally telling Fanny that he did not expect her to follow him and he did not expect her to ever see him again. He had expected her to stay behind in Weatherbury and eventually forget about him. You can see that Frank is dangerous straight away, just by simply looking at the colour of his uniform. Hardy often gave warning signals by using the colour red, and with Frank being a soldier, his uniform is obviously red. I think this is a warning of his attitude to women and it shows that he will be a bad character who will upset many people.
When Farmer William Boldwood, (Peter Finch) first enters the story near the beginning, you don’t really get the feeling that he is going to be a main character. He just seems like a friendly neighbour enquiring about Fanny, who he practically brought up. “All I wanted to ask was if anything had been heard of Fanny Robin.” As the story goes on, You can see that he is going to be an extremely significant character and he plays a very important part in the plot and story line. When he falls in love with Bathsheba, he doesn’t really know how he is feeling or what he really wants. But his love for Bathsheba grows and takes a turn for the worse when he becomes obsessed with her and is determined to marry her. He pays Frank Troy to go away and leave Bathsheba alone forever, but he is too late as Frank and Bathsheba are already married. It even gets to the point at the end, where he has brought her a wedding dress and lots of other little presents that include everything she will need for their wedding before he has even asked her to become his wife. You can definitely see him obsession come to blows at the end of the book, and film when he shoots and kills Frank Troy.
Most of the major events and plots in the story all evolve around the weather. A few of these events include… The storm and the fire when Oak first arrives on the farm and he immediately takes charge of saving the farm. There is also the major storm when all of the other men are asleep or drunk from the harvest celebrations, and yet again, Oak saves the farm by covering the hayracks so that they don’t get ruined by the rain or blown away. Another major part in the story where the weather effects the plot is when Fanny goes to see Frank at the barracks. In the book at this point, it is snowing. This gives you the feeling of it being cold and you feel sorry for Fanny. Mixed with Frank’s attitude you can almost feel the cold, hostile environment.
In the paragraph above, you can see that there are many times when Gabriel Oak comes to the aid of Bathsheba Everdene and saves her farm. This is another pivot point of the story. Every time Bathsheba needs help, Oak is always there. In the two above cases mentioned; When there is a hayrack fire and when there is a big storm and there is no one else to help her. Another of these points is when the sheep escape and they eat the wrong sort of food and they become ill. Oak is the only one who knows how to help the sheep and make them better. He doesn’t come at first because of his pride, but you know that he wouldn’t leave Bathsheba to go down the same path that he did when he lost his sheep. He always seems to be there and he always seems to take control of the situation and sort it out. “Oak suddenly remembered that eight months before this time he had been fighting against fire in the same spot as desperately as he was fighting against water-now-and for a futile love of the same woman.” He obviously loves her and would do anything for her.
Hardy liked to show a lot about the rural way of life, and he didn’t want to show just the easy, pleasant side of living in the countryside. He liked to show that it was difficult and involved a lot of hard work. Even so, Hardy yet again goes against Victorian principles over this matter by Bathsheba deciding that she wants to run and works on the farm, not just pay everyone else to do everything. “ I shall be up before you are awake; I shall be afield before you are up; and I shall be breakfasted before you are afield. In short, I shall astonish you all.”
The main story line up to chapter 16, ‘All saints and all souls’, in the book is generally as follows… Gabriel Oak first meets Bathsheba when he pays for her road fee. He falls in love with Bathsheba when he spies on her in the cow shed and when he spies her riding her horse as a man would. He is astonished. Bathsheba refuses his offer of marriage before her Uncle dies and she moves to Weatherbury to take over his farm. Gabriel loses his farm when his sheep are driven over the edge of a cliff and he can’t pay back the loan he took out to purchase his sheep, so he has to sell his land and hut. He then goes to a hiring fair and is unsuccessful. But then when he is sent on his way he ends up at Weatherbury where he saves Bathsheba’s farm from going up in flames completely. She then takes him on as a shepherd for her farm. Farmer Boldwood comes to Bathsheba’s farm to enquire after Fanny. Bathsheba becomes intrigued by Boldwood and wants to know more about him. In the meantime Fanny is visiting Frank at the Barracks, while everyone else back in Weatherbury is worrying about where she could have got to. Nobody wants to go to bed and lock the gates incase they lock her out. Bathsheba sends some of her men from the farm out to look for her the next day. The next morning, Bathsheba goes to the corn market. Everyone else who is there is rather shocked to see her there because they are all men and they are not used to seeing women at these sort of places. When Bathsheba gets out, she complains to her maid that everyone was staring at her, but she wants to know why Boldwood wasn’t looking at her. “ ‘But there was one man who had more sense than to waste his time upon me.’ The information was put in this form that Liddy might not for a moment suppose that her mistress was at all piqued. ‘A very good-looking man,’ she continued, ‘upright; about forty, I should think. Do you know at all who he could be?’ After this, Bathsheba sends Boldwood a valentine that was apparently for little Ted Coggin. This valentine results in Boldwood getting very attached to Bathsheba and he finds himself always aware of the valentine, even when his back is turned to it. This part of the book ends with Fanny turning up to the wrong church for her wedding to Frank. In results in Frank feeling humiliated because he thought he had been stood up. He leaves Fanny standing there upset because she doesn’t want him to be angry with her. She can’t see what she has done wrong.
I do think that the opening scenes from the film ‘Far from the Madding Crowd’ faithfully and accurately reflect what happens in the novel by Thomas Hardy. I feel this because Nicholas Roag has managed to reflect the characters attitudes and personalities that Thomas Hardy described in the novel very well in his film. I also think Julie Christie, Terence Stamp, Peter Finch, Alan Bates and Prunella Ransome, who play, Bathsheba Everdene, Frank Troy, William Boldwood, Gabriel Oak and Fanny Robin, do a very good job of showing their characters exactly as Hardy had described them. Nicholas managed to capture all of the small things that Hardy uses in most of his books, such as using the colour red and the weather as warnings for upcoming events and plots in the following chapters.
