There was a storm brewing in Weatherbury and Bathsheba’s Ricks were going to be ruined if they weren’t covered. It was Gabriel who discovered this and he went to the barn, where the village were celebrating Troy and Bathsheba’s wedding. Gabriel asked some one to send a message to Troy asking to speak with him for a moment, The sergeant said he could not attend so Gabriel said, ‘will you tell him then that I only stepped ath’art to say that heavy rain is sure to fall soon, and that something should be done to protect the ricks.’,’’Mr Troy said it shall not rain.’ Returned the messenger, ‘and he cannot stop to talk to you about such fidgets.’
Here we see Troy’s selfish, inconsiderate personality. He will not believe that it will rain because he doesn’t want to do any thing about the ricks and as long as he ignores the warnings he will not have to.
Troy looses more than a hundred pound betting on horses and when Bathsheba finds out she tries to discuss it with him, ‘and you mean, Frank that you have lost more than a hundred pounds in a month by this dreadful horse-racing? O, Frank, it is cruel; it is foolish of you to take away my money so . . .’ Troy then humiliates her by saying, ‘. . . turn on the water-works; that’s just like you.’ He says this because she is telling him that he shouldn’t have bet on the horses and he doesn’t like her being in command so he tries to make a fool of her so that she just dismisses what he has done. Troy then tells here that she has, ‘lost all the pluck and sauciness you formerly had. . .’ and then says, ‘if I had known what a chicken-hearted creature you were under all your boldness, I’d never have – known what.’ If he had known what she was really like inside he would never have married her, which shows how little Troy thinks of Bathsheba and shows how his love for her really mustn’t be real.
Bathsheba’s love for Troy: is it true or is it infatuation? Her love for Troy contrasts with the superficial love he holds for her, she does everything she has to so that he will not leave her; this is how their marriage is quick and sudden because she is afraid that he will leave her for another woman. This shows how he dominates her; she is scared that he will leave her but instead of consulting him about this she does what she can to keep him. Bathsheba’s love for Troy is obsessive and compulsive just like Boldwoods love for Bathsheba. Bathsheba’s vanity makes her prey for Troy’s flattery and although her reason tells her not to listen her vanity over comes her and makes her admit she enjoys it. She is fascinated and infatuated by Troy, ‘Clearly she did not think his bare faced praise an insult now.’ Troy constantly repeats the words ‘beautiful’, ‘pretty’ and ‘loveliness.’ His comments, ‘O these intolerable times; that ill-luck should follow a man for honestly telling a woman she is beautiful!’ and ‘And I would rather have curses from you than kisses from any other woman.’ lead Bathsheba to ‘a restless state between distress at hearing him and penchant to hear more.’
Troy is the dominant one in their relationship and Bathsheba is dumbfounded by his sword play and ‘over come by a hundred tumultuous feelings.’
Troy kisses her and she is aroused, physically and emotionally, ‘ that minute’s interval had brought the blood beating into her face, set her stinging asif aflame to the very hollows of her feet, and enlarged emotion to a compass which quite surpassed thought.’ She leaves all her dignity behind and follows her heart, she deserts her self-sufficiency and follows her desire, ‘she felt her impulse to be pleasanter guides than her discretion.’
‘Her love was entire as a child’s, and though warm as summer it was as fresh as spring.’ This shows that Bathsheba loves Troy greatly and it is as pure and real as a child’s. She puts Troy’s faults aside because they are deeply hidden underneath his attractive, flattering exterior, ‘Troy’s deformities lay deep down from a woman’s vision, whilst his embellishments were upon the very surfaced.’ This means that only Troy’s charisma and charm are present to a woman’s eye and his selfish, lying personality stays below the surface.
Bathsheba over hears her maids talking about her and Troy, they were discussing what would happen if Troy and Bathsheba got married, ‘if he marry her, she’ll gie up farming.’ After she listens for a short length of time out side the door, she then walks in and asks who they were talking about, there was a pause but then one of the maids replies with, ‘what was passing was a bit of a word about your self, miss.’ Bathsheba then jumps back with, ‘I thought so! Maryann and Liddy and Temperance – now I forbid you to suppose such things. You know I don’t care the least for Troy – not I. Everybody knows how much I hate him – yes,’
Liddy, Maryann now start to agree with her and say that they hate him too, then she snaps, ‘Maryann – O you perjured woman! How can you speak that wicked story!’ She goes on to say you were saying how admired him this morning and now you don’t like him. Her maid then calls Troy a wild scamp. Bathsheba takes offence at this and again snaps at her maids, ‘He’s not a wild scamp! How dare you to my face! I have no right to hate him, nor you, nor anybody. But I am a silly woman! . . .’ she continues defending him and criticising her and her maids. She says she doesn’t love him but threatens to dismiss any one who says any thing against him, here she is in an emotional turmoil.
Bathsheba then leaves the room and Liddy follows her, she says that she thought she did care about Troy but now has realised that she doesn’t at all, but Bathsheba then bursts out, ‘O Liddy, are you such a simpleton? Can’t you read riddles? Can’t you see? Are you woman yourself? Yes you must be a blind thing Liddy! O, I love him to the very distraction and misery and agony!’ This is the first time she admits that she loves Troy, as you can see she finds this hard.
During the storm she tells Gabriel that she married Troy ‘between - jealousy and distraction’ and its after this that she realises what changes she has undergone for Troy, ‘Aa! Once I felt I could be content with nothing less than the highest homage from the husband I should choose, now anything short of cruelty will content me yes! The independent and spirited Bathsheba has come to this.’ She has given up everything, her freedom, her dignity and her independence so that she can be with Troy, ‘her pride was indeed brought low by despairing discoveries of her spoliation by marriage with a less pure nature than her own.’
Troy does not love her as she loves him and you see this in his actions and he does not return her affection. She finds it hard to cope with her hasty marriage to Troy and it deeply affects her when he regards Fanny morally as his wife.
Boldwoods love for Bathsheba is obsessive, possessive, and deeply true. Boldwoods obsession for Bathsheba leads to his madness his passion becomes consuming, and his constant hopes and disappointments prove too much for him when he goes insane. Boldwoods love is unchanging, like Gabriel’s, no matter what Bathsheba does or says he still loves her, nothing she does can stop his love for her. Boldwoods first appearance in the novel at the corn market, ‘one characteristic pre-eminently marked him – dignity’. Bathsheba notices him at the corn market only for the one reason that he is not gazing at her as all the other men there are. The corn exchange was over she immediately rushed back to Liddy, ‘but there was one man who had more sense than to waste his time upon me.’ Rushing back to Liddy shows that she is piqued about this and she says this to Liddy in such a way we know she thinks it’s strange for a man not to look at her. It was at this time approaching valentines day, so she decided that she would send Mr Boldwood a valentines card merely because he had not noticed her that day at the corn market, she wrote on the valentines card ‘marry me’. We know that she sends this card as a joke but she does not think about what the consequences may be before she does so. Mr Boldwood does not find any humour in the card and he asks her to marry him for the first time. He becomes obsessed after this and tries to bribe Bathsheba into marriage several times. He becomes so pathetic and desperate he asks for Bathsheba’s pity, ‘God’s sake, yes – I am come to that low, lowest stage – to ask a woman for pity! Still, she is you – she is you.’
Boldwood’s anguish is also shown in his temper and bitterness, he tells Bathsheba she is heartless, ‘His unreasonable anger terrified her.’ He says, ‘– this woman’s folly indeed.’ After Bathsheba tells him that she is in love with Troy, he curses him, and tells her to keep Troy away from her because if he sees him he will kill him,’. . .I pray God he may not come into my sight, for I may be tempted beyond myself. O, Bathsheba, keep him away, yes keep him away from me!’
When Troy and Bathsheba return from Bath after they are married you can see how instable Boldwood is when first he tries to kill Troy but then he offers money so that Troy will marry her. This shows how little he thinks of himself as long as Bathsheba is happy and she has what she wants despite his suffering and humiliation.
When rumours of Troy being dead appear in Weatherbury Boldwood becomes selfish and tries once again to persuade Bathsheba to marry him. He uses forms of blackmail even though acceptance will lead to her unhappiness. When Troy returns Boldwood shoots Troy on his arrival at the Christmas celebration. This of course leads to an execution but because of Boldwoods instability he is sentenced to life imprisonment.
Gabriel’s love for Bathsheba is also unchanging as is Boldwoods, Gabriel is loyal, devoted and truly loves Bathsheba in a way Boldwood couldn’t. He endures and accepts all of Bathsheba’s faults, and he puts her happiness before his own.
Gabriel gives us all the first insight into Bathsheba’s character – vanity. He loves her for her boldness and his love is confirmed when she saves his life in the fire. Gabriel does not hesitate when it comes to expressing his feelings for Bathsheba, ‘I love you far more than common.’ When he asks her to marry him but gets turned down he is truly moved, ‘his large brown hands perceptibly trembled.’ He then says to her, ‘I shall do one thing in this life – one thing for certain – that is love you and long for you, and keep wanting you till I die.’ You can see he respects her and he does not hold a grudge against her as at the end of the chapter he says, ‘very well . . . then I will ask you no more.’
When he starts to work for her he is surprised by, ‘the remarkable coolness of her manner’ but threatens any one who speaks against her. He sees Bathsheba at the sheep shearing with Boldwood and assumes something is happening between them and he becomes, ‘constrained and sad.’
Bathsheba then confides in him that Boldwood wants a conditional promise to marry him. Gabriel then shows again his unselfish, noble self and he acknowledges that Bathsheba will be truly loved if she married Boldwood.
Gabriel is pushed to the side when Troy enters Bathsheba’s life, he knows Troy’s motives and tells Bathsheba to be, ‘more discreet in your bearing towards the soldier’ and shows that he is still attached to her when he says, ‘I love you and shall love you always.’
Gabriel is the one who deals with her emotional and practical crises.
‘Gabriel had almost constantly preceded her in this tour every evening, watching her affairs as carefully as any specially appointed officer of surveillance could have done;’ this shows that every night he follows Bathsheba to make sure she is safe and Thomas Hardy compares him to a police man.
When the storm is present we see who actually loves Bathsheba, Gabriel tells Troy that the ricks need to be covered or they will be ruined, but Troy dismisses his warning simply by saying ‘it will not rain.’ Gabriel realises that the ricks will be destroyed if he doesn’t do some thing about it. He gets the ricks covered with a little help from Bathsheba and none at all from Troy because he lay drunkenly asleep in the barn, ‘I will help to my last effort the woman I have loved so dearly.’
When their engagement takes place Hardy says, ‘theirs was that substantial affection evanescent as a stream.’
Bathsheba’s love for Gabriel is more of a companionship though she does love him dearly. When she saves his life in the fire of the straw stacks this is the start of their relationship. She then recognizes him as the man who proposed to her and feels obliged to offer him a job, this shows that she wants him to be near her and likes the fact that he has come to find where she moved to. When Bathsheba needs Gabriel to help her with the swollen sheep she sends him a note saying, ‘don’t desert me Gabriel’ which plays on his feelings. When Gabriel tells Bathsheba that he will be leaving for California she begs him to stay because she will not only be loosing her ‘super intendent’ but the man for whom she holds a personal regard for.
Bathsheba does not marry with the passion and excitement that she did with Troy but she has an affectionate regard for Gabriel and a feeling of absolute security. She has suffered the betrayals of love and now looks at a man of strength and fidelity.
Bathsheba and Gabriel shared experiences and memories for a long while before any of the other characters. Gabriel’s true, unselfish and loyal personality finally pays off for him. ‘‘Leaving England!’ She said, in surprise and genuine disappointment. ‘Why, Gabriel, what are you going to do that for?’ This quote shows us that she really is upset when she finds out Gabriel will be leaving. She knows if he leaves she will never see him again and is really affected by this. ‘Yet now that I am more hopeless than ever, you go away!’ here she is saying that Gabriel is leaving when she needs him most, here she admits she is hopeless, which is not like her she usually is level headed and independent and if not she’ll pretend she is. She does not want to seem defeated but she trusts Gabriel and has been through a lot with him, so she can tell him honestly how she feels. ‘. . . Here’s long life and happiness to neighbour Oak and his comely bride.’ This shows that their neighbours approve of their marriage and are generally happy for them. He and Bathsheba go through a lot together, they share tragedy’s, happiness and death, Bathsheba realises she loves Gabriel a long while after they meet but she tells him before its too late.
