Themes Presented In Far From The Madding Crowd

where she loses her innocence. Troy shows a unserious attitude towards love which then shows his lack of responsibility which becomes clearer in marriage. When Troy meets Bathsheba for the first time he uses flattery. Bathsheba later mistakes this for love and then falls in love with him. Troy decieves her and uses her for a sexual relationship. Troy only truly loved Fanny and regrets his actions when she dies. Fanny plays an important role in Troy and Bathsheba's marriage. Fanny's demise at the hands of Troy showed what would inevitably happen to Bathsheba. The tragedy also led to Fanny being Bathsheba's rival when the truth was finally revealed to her. With every negative action that Troy made Hardy is showing Oak as a better alternative. This becomes obvious in the line "...but Oak was generous and true...". Oak is shown as her saviour throughout saving her many times after she saved his life at the very start. Oak is a naive, reserved and shy character. He eventually saves her from the tangles of Troy and Boldwood whose madness became apparent when he found out Bathsheba had married Troy. When Boldwood found out about the marriage he was very angry and then offered money to Troy to marry Fanny and not Bathsheba. He then changed his mind and offered money for Troy to marry Bathsheba to look after her because she obviously loved him. This shows Boldwood's crazy mind and how he gives up easily. Boldwood shows obsession with love and also maybe why he has never married before. Atmosphere is often used in "Far From The Madding Crowd" to portray the mood and set the scene to help show love in it's different aspects. Hardy is famous for using pathetic fallacy in his writing and uses it in his novel. Pathetic fallacy is when weather is used to reflect emotions. Hardy uses pathetic fallacy at the start of Bathsheba's marriage with a storm. This is a metaphor for a failed relationship. Hardy displays the mood following Fanny's death by using a dark and sombre atmosphere. This creates tension for the reader when the truth is finally revealed to Bathsheba. At the end when Bathsheba goes to see Oak the moon shines on his face like he is her saviour, the angel Gabriel. This metaphor is connected with Hardy's use of light and dark. This is shown when "Gabriel opened the door, and the moon shone upon his forehead". The red flames of the fire burning Bathsheba's farm are a representation of Troy throughout the whole novel. The red flames represent Troy in his red uniform. They are burning away at Bathsheba and Oak has to come and save the day as normal. The flames also reflect her desire for him sexually and her will for their relationship to succeed. Eight months later Oak is saving Bathsheba from the real Troy in the same spot but this time he is battling against water. "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 a futile love of the same woman. As for her - but Oak was generous and true and dismissed his reflections". Another example of when atmosphere is built up is when the farmworkers talking about Bathsheba and Troy as a couple and disapproving of Troy. Overhears them and becomes angry. This is the point where she realises she loves him but may not like him. This brings tension to the novel and worries to Bathsheba's mind. This is obvious when Batsheba says to Liddy "I suppose you only agree with me like that to please me. But Liddy, he cannot be bad, as is said. Do you hear?" Language is used throughout the novel to reflect both the times and the feelings of the characters. The nature and power of flattery has a huge part in the path love takes in this novel. Troy uses flattery on Bathsheba from when he very first meets her. It is what Bathsheba lives by and eventually mistakes for love. Hence the saying "live by the sword, die by the sword". Hardy's style uses vivid and evocative words. Where there is movement he puts it into verbs and when there is stillness he puts it into adjectives. He also uses the description of wind and nature to reflect the tumultous emotion to follow later in the novel. An example of this is "The air changed it's temperature and stirred itself more vigorously. Cool breezes coursed in tranparent eddies round Oaks face. The wind shifted yet a point or two and blew stronger". When Hardy's reflections are in dialogue they are normally shorter. Hardy uses dialogue to reveal true information about characters. Through use of dialogue Troy's deceptive nature is presented. He gives Troy a deceiving dialogue and clever use of word-play which helps him to disguise himself and conceal his feelings from Bathsheba when he really loves Fanny. This shows his ability to deceive and manipulate. Examples of this are when he says " And I would rather have curses from you then kisses from any other woman..." and "I said you were beautiful, and I'll say so still, by- so you are! The most beautiful ever I saw...". Hardy writes about a small rural community, characters are very reserved and respectful in their expression. Hardy shows through language that Bathsheba repents getting married to Troy and Troy's expression shows he has no masculine pride when he asks his wife, Bathsheba for money. Hardy shows a sense of calmess in the novel through the farmworkers use of dialect. The language they use is typical rural language showing the calm side away from heptic lives of the main characters in the novel. An example of this is when a farmworker says "Twill be a gallant life, but may bring some trouble between the mirth - so say I". There are many different aspects of love shown throughout this novel. The aspect of love between Gabriel Oak and Bathsheba is brotherly love. Gabriel's name shows what he is to her. Gabriel: Her guardian angel and he always comes back to save her. Oak: Something strong and firm that she can rely on. It is obvious how much she needs him when she says to him "Do not desert me, Gabriel!". She has had to ask for him to return to the farm days after she has told him to leave. This shows her need for Gabriel to always be there for her. Oak proposed to her early on in the novel, she quite liked the idea of marriage but only for the attention and the opportunity  and did not ant the responsibility. This is apparent when she says "a marriage would be very nice in one sense, people would talk about me, and think I had won my battle and I should feel triumphant and all but a husband...". The type of love shown between Bathsheba and Boldwood was only respectful love from Bathsheba's side but complete obsession from Boldwood. Boldwood proposed to Bathsheba after she had sent him a valentine card as a joke but Bathsheba never truely loved him. She revealed her feelings when she said "I feel, Mr. Boldwood that though I respect you much, I do not feel - what would justify me to - in accepting your offer". Boldwoods love for Bathsheba is really obsession. This becomes apparent when it is learned that Boldwood has stored clothes and jewellery with her name on. Rather than feeling love towards her he sees it as an acheivement to win her hand in marriage. He is ruled by passion and love. His madness is revealed when he shoots Troy and then attempts to shoot himself. "It was double-barrelled, and he had, meanwhile in some way fastened his handkerchief to the trigger, and with his foot on the other end was in the act of turning the second barrel upon himself. Lustful and passionate love was the type shown between Troy and Bathsheba. Sergeant Troy was playing Bathsheba at her own game and eventually tied the know with her. Bathsheba loved Troy but was worried she didn't like him. In the end Troy revealed that Bathsheba was nothing to him compared to Fanny and Fanny was his real wife. This is proven when Troy says to Bathsheba "You are nothing to me, nothing". The love between Troy and Fanny was the only display of true love throughout the novel. Troy felt guilty when Fanny died and wished he'd married her instead when he had the chance. Troy's love towards Fanny turned into paternal love when she died with his baby. Our opinions of the characters are given to us by Hardy. Hardy makes Bathsheba grow up very quickly through the novel. This becomes apparent when soon after working for Oak on his farm she has her own farm, makes decisions for herself and his having sexual relationships. His opinion here is that she can't afford to be immature in a world that is ruled by men. The way Hardy makes her handle incidents is evidence that he is judgemental of her and we make our own judgements through Gabriel. He doesn't let her learn from any mistakes of love causing her love life to be so tragic. Throughout the novel Hardy presents a negative and sinister view of love. We are presented with a fictional world where characters seem to get what they deserve. The final question which Hardy leaves us with is whether Bathsheba gets what she deserves. Hardy ended the novel in two ways, as a sad end for Bathsheba and a happy end for Oak. Love is potrayed very powefully in "Far From The Madding Crowd". The whole novel is based around the power of love and the main characters lives revolve around it. Hardy uses many different devices to show the power of love which I have used to show the power of love. Hardy uses peoples characters through the novel to show their feelings and reactions brought on by love. He uses atmosphere throughout the novel to potray the mood and set the scene to help show love in it's different aspects. Hardy uses language also throughout the novel to reflect both the times and the feelings of characters. Hardy also uses authorial intrusions to give opinions of characters through the story. All these topics help show the importance and power of love in "Far From The Madding Crowd". The story takes place in rural part of England at the end of 19th century. Beautiful country and good description of many people peacefully living there are great background for a love story.