Already, Bathsheba is attracted to Troy’s Redcoat exterior and his bold flirtatious manner. At their next meeting, Troy succeeds in dazzling Bathsheba with his witty remarks about men and their love for women; “Probably some one man on an average falls in love with each ordinary woman... such a woman as you a hundred men will always covet” and once again he showers her with compliments; “I would rather have curses from you than kisses from any other woman.” Troy finally achieves to bewitch Bathsheba in chapter twenty-eight. When Bathsheba and Troy meet in the ferns, Troy impresses her with his skill with a sword. He tells her that the sword he is using is blunt when really it is razor sharp; “No edge! This sword will shave like a razor.” Troy takes the liberty of slicing a caterpillar that had settled on Bathsheba’s chest and cutting a stray lock of her hair. At this point, Hardy may have been influenced by the poem written by Alexander Pope called “The Rape of the Lock”. In this poem, Pope writes about a man named Lord Fermor, who cuts a lock of hair from the Lady Arabella “except for the loss of your hair, which I shall always name in reverence.“ This is a symbol of sexual achievement.
Later on in the book, we found out that Troy is also in the possession of a lock of Fanny Robin’s hair, so this would lead us to suspect that Troy regards this as trophy collecting or personal reminders of all the women he has seduced. Troy is the first man to kiss Bathsheba and this has a definite impact on her. “The minutes interval had brought the blood beating into her face... and enlarged emotion to a compass which quite swamped thought... He had kissed her.”
After this event, Troy travels to Bath and Bathsheba follows him for many reasons. One of these reasons is that when she is on the road one afternoon, she meets Farmer Boldwood. He is obsessively in love with her and shouts at her, threatening Troy and cursing his name; “I’ll punish him be he soldier or no... if he were one hundred men I’d hose whip him.” Bathsheba is very frightened for Troy and thinks long and hard about what to do in her trivial situation. She decides to go to Bath. She will warn Troy not to come back and to see him one last time before she end their relationship; “Her plan was now to drive to Bath during the night, see Sergeant Troy in the morning before he set out to come to her, bid him farewell and dismiss him.” Although this seemed like the best thing to do to save anyone from getting hurt, Bathsheba talks with Gabriel about the reasons for her ultimate commitment to Troy; “I went to Bath that night with the full intention of breaking off my engagement to Mr. Troy... Well I was alone in a strange city, and the horse was lame... I saw, at last, when it was too late that scandal might seize hold of me for meeting alone him in that way.... I was coming away when he suddenly said he had that day seen a woman more beautiful than I, and that his constancy could not be counted on unless I at once became his... And then between jealousy and distraction I married him.” Here we see one of the main reasons that Bathsheba married Troy - he made her desperately jealous by manipulating her emotions.
William Boldwood loves Bathsheba with an intense and suffocating love that was sparked by a meaningless Valentine prank that came about only by chance. Bathsheba writes the card in jest and humour but Boldwood takes it completely the wrong way. In chapter fifteen we see how the joke has affected him deeply; “He was conscious of its presence even when his back was turned... Her unrevealed eyes had watched every curve as she formed it; her brain had seen him in imagination the while. Why should she had imagined him?” It affects Boldwood so much that he dreams about the unknown woman who wrote the card; “Whenever Boldwood dozed she took form, and comparatively ceased to be a vision: when he awoke there was the letter justifying the dream.”
Before Boldwood falls in love with Bathsheba, he is known throughout the town as a secluded bachelor leading a quiet life, he had no interest in women whatsoever. So when he does unleash his love Bathsheba it affects his life with no chance of it ever returning to the way it was.
Bathsheba never actually loves him but leads him on and keeps him hanging on by a thread. She feels sorry for Boldwood because he loves her so much and guilty because it is her that has caused these consequences; “Don’t, don’t say it I can not bear you to feel so much.” He proposes marriage to her; “But you will just think - in kindness and condescension think - if you cannot bear wit me as a husband!” But deep down she does not want to marry him, she just does not have the heart to say so. As a result of this, she says she will think about his offer; “I may speak to you again on the subject., “Yes.” By doing this Bathsheba only leads him on further and intensifies his love for her, making the situation so much worse.
We see how strong his fixation and love is for Bathsheba when he meets her on the road in a state of pain and fury after receiving her letter of rejection. He is in such pain he blames her for making him fall so in love; “But, I say, t here was a time when I thought nothing of you, cared nothing of you, and yet you drew me on... I took for earnest what you insist was jest and now this that I pray to be jest you say is awful.” He is livid with Troy and Bathsheba’s feelings for him. Boldwood feels that Troy has stolen Bathsheba from him; “Why did Troy not leave my treasure alone?” Boldwood also makes a reference to the “Scarlet fever” which he suggests is what has bewitched Bathsheba; “Dazzled by Brass and Scarlet!” This could be Hardy’s reminded that this was one of the common occurrences that happened amid women of that time.
These enraged and jealous comments are a couple of the many dynamics that show us how possessive and obsessive Boldwood’s character really is. Other examples of this are his rekindled hope for Bathsheba’s heart at the thought of Troy’s death; “Thereupon a strange fire lighted up Boldwood’ eye, and his face flushed with the suppressed excitement of an unutterable thought.”, his persistency at the Christmas party; “Be gracious and give up a little to me, when I would give up my life for you!”, his drastic action at Troy’s return; “He had turned quickly, taken one of the guns, cocked it and at once discharged it at Troy.”
In chapter fifty-five, we see how deep Boldwood’s obsession really is when Gabriel and Bathsheba find jewellery dated and marked for the day of Bathsheba’s and Boldwood’s supposed wedding; “above all there was a case of jewellery... They were all carefully packed in paper, and each package was labelled ‘Bathsheba Boldwood’, a date being subjoined six years in advance.” These are all reasons for Boldwood’s refusal.
Bathsheba refuses Gabriel Oak because he offers her the same kind of life style that Boldwood does; “At home by the fire, whenever you look up there I shall be - and whenever I look up, there will be you.” Gabriel offers her everything he feels would make a farmer’s wife happy; “You shall have a piano in a year or two - farmers’ wives are getting to have pianos now... And have one of those little ten pound gigs for market - and nice flowers, and birds - cocks and hens I mean... And a frame for cucumber - like a gentleman and lady.” Once again this is a classic example of the tamed and adventurous life that Bathsheba does not want to lead.
Bathsheba leads Gabriel on right from the beginning of the story by running after him when he has left her house, because he aunt told Gabriel that Bathsheba has and has had many sweethearts. Gabriel’s original intention of visiting the house is to ask for Bathsheba’s hand in marriage, so he is thoroughly over excited to see her running after him; “It was Bathsheba Everdene, Gabriel’s colour deepened.” When she confesses that she has only come forth to flatten the rumour about her many sweethearts, his hopes are once again dashed; “To run after anyone like this, and then say you don’t want him!”
Gabriel never stops loving Bathsheba, but his love differs from Boldwood’s because it is not pushy and desperate, but patient and accepting. Gabriel is the only one with which Bathsheba has a meaningful and growing relationship. He is always completely honest with her even when she does not want him to be, an example of this is in chapter twenty; ‘“Well what is your opinion of my conduct?” “That it is unworthy of any thoughtful, and meek, and comely woman.”’ He risks his life to save her farm by recovering her ricks in the midst of a great storm; “Then Oak went back again, ascended tothe top, stepped off the ladder for greater expedition, and carried on thatching.” When her flock are close to death, Gabriel is theonly one who can save them but Bathsheba has fired him in a haughty row. In this instance, he teaches her humility by forcing her to swallow her pride for the sake of her sheep; “He says beggars can’t be choosers” her word in reply being “Don’t abandon me, Gabriel!” These acts show that Gabriel’s love has always been pure, consistent and always growing, maybe this is why Hardy used the name Oak (Oak tree) as an appropriate fit for his guardian Angel (Gabriel) character.
After Bathsheba’s tragic ordeal being witness to Troy’s death, she decides to marry Gabriel. She decides to do this because Gabriel suggests to her that he is going to leave, ‘“I shall not be your mistress much longer shall I, Gabriel?” “Well no.”’ She realises that Gabriel is her best friend and after the tribulation she has been through, she finds out that he is the one she really wants along with the life he has to offer her.
In conclusion, I believe that one can account for Bathsheba’s choice of husband in Troy because his superficial appearance of gallantry complimented her vain and naive nature at that point in her life. However, as the book lengthens we watch Bathsheba grow into the mature and graceful woman who is ready for a steady relationship. I feel that Bathsheba and Gabriel should have a happy life together, appreciating love and each other. Bathsheba has changed a lot since his first proposal of marriage because the many effects love can have on the heart have tamed her wild shrew-life spirit. She has grown to know that lust, appearance and excitement are not everything. She has developed into a wise woman who knows the hardships of life and no longer wants the fantasy life she once expected from a man.
