Far from the Madding Crowd”- Thomas Hardy

Sometime after she had been married to Troy, Bathsheba explained to Liddy, "O, I love him to very distraction and misery and agony." In the short term, Bathsheba's life is full of pain caused by the love, "she felt powerless to withstand." Troy overwhelmed Bathsheba because she had never experienced love before, and this is also apparent when Troy demonstrates his swordsman skills on the moors. This shows just how powerless she is to him, as her life is put into his hands. When Bathsheba goes to Bath to warn Troy not to return to her, he warns her that he has seen a woman more beautiful than she, who he will marry if she does not consent. Bathsheba's vanity is ever more evident, as she cannot bear to be thought less beautiful by anyone else. Sometime afterwards she confides in Gabriel about why she had married him. "And then between jealousy and distraction, I married him." This jealousy, caused by her vanity, becomes apparent later on in the novel, when after the death of Fanny, Troy begins to exclaim his love for Fanny. As he kisses her on the forehead, it is to much for Bathsheba to endure and she cries out, "You will Frank, kiss me too!!"

However, we could say that in the long term, her vanity taught her powerful lessons about love and the way in which it should be treated and valued. Over the months she remains married to Troy, she has to endure a lot more pain and suffering, which really stemmed from her own vanity. In the end her attitude to love, is no longer the cosy, idea of romance that she had imagined it to be as Bathsheba claims, "Love is an utterly, bygone, sorry, worn out, miserable thing with me- for him and anyone else." Her opinions metamorphosed, at the hand of her own suffering, and she begins to realise the true value and power of love. She is no longer flirtatious and her vanity has vanished. Hardy writes, "her original vigorous pride of youth had sickened." The realization of the value of love, causes her to recognise the devotion that Gabriel Oak had given to her unselfishly over the years. The simplicity that she now recognises as an important factor to love, is her reward at the end as she and Gabriel find happiness together.

Gabriel Oak's opinions and responses to love, relate directly to his character and experiences. Unlike the other characters, we are not told what Gabriel's previous experiences to love have been. Gabriel is not a difficult character to understand, as he tackles any problems he faces in life with logic and patience.

As a farmer, Gabriel's attitude towards love, could be said to be similar to the way he lives and works, as he appears to be quite practical and not a glutton for romance or the fancier images of love. At his proposal to Bathsheba, he talks of a simple life and Hardy writes, "We shall have cocks and hens and a gig for the market." By saying this, he is offering Bathsheba security, and at this point in the novel, financial security, as he is better off than she is at this time. As a deep thinker and a quiet man, we could believe that when Bathsheba refuses his proposal, Oak could become disturbed and quietly volotile. However, Oak appears indifferent, and returns to his farm work. One reason for this could be due to the way in which he had come to be attracted to Bathsheba in the first place. When he had first observed her at Norcombe Hill, he had been attracted to her "bright face" and Hardy had described her as "handsome." We could say that this attitude was as shallow as the way in which Troy was drawn to beauty, and that Gabriel had been hasty to propose to Bathsheba after such a short time of making her acquaintance.

Gabriel's unselfish character, is reflected in the love that he feels for Bathsheba. We first become apparent of this when Oak loses his flock of sheep, after they had been run off the edge of the cliff by his dog. The first thing that Gabriel can think of before realising his own financial instability, is "Thank God I am not married: what would she have done in the poverty now coming upon me." This unselfishness continued to be unfailing throughout his time working for Bathsheba. At the end of the novel, he informs Bathsheba that he is going to leave to work in California, he later reveals that this was to silence the gossip that had started, of the supposed romantic happenings that were going on between himself and Bathsheba. By proposing to move to California, he does so not to preserve his own reputation, but to preserve Bathsheba's reputation. Despite this kindness that he has shown her, Bathsheba has no interest in him whatsoever. Although Gabriel is not in a good financial position when he first reaches Weatherbury, he shows how unselfish and sharing he is when he offers money to Fanny Robin when he comes across her on his journey. This is down to his good character, and the love and friendship which he shows his neighbours and friends.

He realises that waiting for Bathsheba would be in vain, but still continues to care for her. When he fears that Bathsheba is taking an interest in Troy, he tries to warn her, and urges her that she would be better off with Boldwood. He exclaims, "I do beg of 'ee to consider before it is too late, how safe you would be in his hands!" He is not obliged as her shepherd to look out for her, but does it as an unrequited gesture of his friendship. He tries to protect Bathsheba in this way, and also when he prevents Bathsheba from finding out about Fanny Robin's pregnancy, as he rubs off the chalk writing from the lid of her coffin. Although he knows that Bathsheba does not have any interest in him, at first he finds it a challenge to hide his feelings for her, and at one time he finds himself telling her, "You know mistress, that I love you and I shall love ya always." However, after time had passed, Oak was able to give coolly advice to Bathsheba should she require it. This "ruffled" Bathsheba, although in a deeper sense, she admired his ability.

Oak has to be satisfied with the friendship that Bathsheba offers him, though his devotion never lessens. He says to Bathsheba on one occasion, "But I love you and as for myself, I am content to be liked." On several occasions, Oak is called upon to save the day, such as when the farms flock of sheep nearly die of bloating. Each time, Oak does not hesitate to help out, and as his name suggests he is as reliable and strong as an Oak. His favours are unreturned, although Bathsheba does realise on one occasion just how lost she would be without Oak. She says, "Thank you for your devotion, a thousand times Gabriel!" This devotion has its advantages for Oak as well. For example, his financial position becomes more stable, as he is installed as Bailiff for both Boldwood's and Bathsheba's farm, which means a substantial increase of wages. Hardy sums up this change of good fortune as he writes, "Gabriel's malignant star was setting fast."

Oak's quality of endurance is admired by many including Bathsheba, who thinks to herself, "What a ways Oak had, she thought, of enduring things." He admits to Bathsheba at the beginning of the novel that, "But I can't match you, I know, in mapping out my mind upon my tongue." He is not a man of words, unlike Troy and Boldwood, but proves that "actions can speak louder than words". He is unable to speak the flattery that Troy can, or be as persistent and persuasive as Boldwood is, but in his devoted actions to Bathsheba, by being the hard and diligent worker that he is, he is rewarded in the end, by giving the opportunity to offer Bathsheba the love that he had talked of to her when he had first met her.

In contrast to Gabriel, Francis Troy is a man who appears to understand only what he can get out of love. He does not believe in treating women fairly, and which is expressed as he says, "treat them fairly and you are a lost man," when referring to women. Hardy also writes about his consistency when telling the truth; "He was moderately truthful towards men, but to women he lied like a cretan." By lying to women he found it easy to get what he wanted, as Hardy describes him; "he spoke fluently and unceasingly." At the beginning, Hardy remarks that a woman's greatest fault is her "Vanity." Troy, as he possesses such ease with the words he uses, has learnt that a woman's weakness is her vanity, and knows that by flattering them he can get what he wants. This is precisely what he did with Bathsheba, and like her, he felt some sense of triumph when he saw that he had succeeded in weakening the women he flattered, as she did with the men she flirted with. However, instead of making the women he met feel confident, his flattery merely destroyed them, as they became dependent upon him to feed their vain needs.

Troy did not have the emotional sense of love, but instead he felt the physical attraction to the women he met. This meant that he only got involved with beautiful women, as it was their beauty that attracted them to him. Even after having left Bathsheba for so long, when he saw her again at Greenhill Sheep Fair, it was her beauty that "found unexpected chords of feeling, to be stirred again within him..." The way in which Troy judged by appearances was perhaps inevitably the cause of his failed marriage to Bathsheba, because he had not got to know Bathsheba as a person, but simply looked at her, as a symbol of beauty. In some ways it could be said that he looked at the women as trophies that he had won.

Troy was also a man driven by wealth. Bathsheba, who had come into wealth after the inheritance of the lease of Weatherbury Farm, would have been even more attractive to him as she now had money. We know that he was driven by money, as he used to bet on the horses, which put considerable financial strain on Bathsheba. This was probably the reason why he did not marry Fanny, due to her financial instability. Money was also the reason why he did not return to Bathsheba initially after landing at Liverpool, as Hardy writes, "what a life such a future of poverty would be." This, unlike the love felt by Gabriel, was a selfish form of love, because he only ever though of himself. He had a very superficial view of love, which required wealth in order to make him happy.

Troy's opinions of love did not include the idea of commitment, and another reason for the failure of his marriage could be due to his womanising and flirtatious behaviour. We learn near to the end of the novel that his opinion of marriage is negative and he sees it not as the beginning of two people's lives together, but as he says himself, "all romances end at marriage." He also did not believe in the idea of equality, and shared responsibilities in a relationship, as he abandons Fanny with the great burden of an unborn child to deal with alone. This is probably due to his carefree opinion of sex, which he also valued as much as he did love.

Troy did not value love as anything special, and this could be put down to the fact that he had a very unstable background, and an uncertain upbringing. His profession would also have something to do with his opinion of women, and as a soldier, he probably never had to deal with women and did not understand them. This is why he tried to possess them, and this destroyed them.

Hardy has some very clear opinions that he wishes to get across to the reader in this novel. He uses the characters as tools, to create a picture for the readers, expressing his personal views on love. He rewards those characters that see love as a simple but precious thing, and he shows how much he admires Gabriel Oak for his powers of endurance, by rewarding him with Bathsheba in the end. In contrast, he punishes those characters that take love too lightly. An example of this is the attitude of Troy which end is death in the end. Hardy warns us of the great power of love and how dangerous it can be. The obsession that Boldwood felt for Bathsheba, is another feeling that he condemns, and shows how life can be ruined because of obsession. This is shown by the lifelong imprisonment of Boldwood. Hardy's opinions of love are really exposed at the end of the novel, when he describes his own thoughts about how truelove can develop. He uses Bathsheba and Gabriel as an example of how true love can develop. They were "tried friends" who enjoyed "good-fellowship and comraderie." The main message Hardy is trying to get across to us is that love cannot hide behind a fake face. He writes that in order for a successful relationship to take place, you must know the "rougher sides" of each other's character. This is the love Hardy describes to be "the only love which is as strong as death- that love which many waters cannot quench, nor the floods drown."