Thomas Hardys Far From the Madding Crowd :: Thomas Hardy Far from the Madding Crowd Essays

Thomas Hardy's Far From the Madding Crowd The name Thomas Hardy gives to the hero of his novel, Far From the Madding Crowd, is not merely accidental. Hardy deliberately means to associate Gabriel Oak with the Angel Gabriel. God's hero lit up the darkness, and it is important for the reader to note that when Hardy's hero saves a situation from having disastrous consequences, nearly every time he does so in darkness. Gabriel's name is very significant in relation to his character, but he is not just meant to be a holy saint, whose sole purpose is to pour oil on troubled waters. He is a very real person with very human feelings, and this becomes obvious as his relationship with Bathsheba grows. To understand how the relationship between the two main characters has changed at the end of the novel, I need to explain how their relationship began. Previous to chapter four, Gabriel has seen and talked to Bathsheba on quite a few occasions, not least when she saves him from suffocation in chapter three. By chapter four, Gabriel has developed a deep love for Bathsheba and waits for her presence in strikingly the same way as "his dog waited for his meals". He is so captivated by her that he changes his opinion of an attractive woman to suit her features - such as "turning his taste over to black hair, though he had sworn by brown ever since he was a boy." Gabriel decides that marriage is better than his life of solitary isolation, a life which he has always lived quite comfortably before the arrival of Bathsheba, and declares "I'll make her my wife, or upon my soul I shall be good for nothing!" Using a motherless lamb as an excuse to visit Bathsheba to ask for her hand in marriage, he sets off for her aunt's house on "a fine January morning" having made "a toilet of a nicely-adjusted kind". He arrives in hopeful spirits, but it is not Bathsheba that he talks to - it is her aunt, Mrs Hurst. Gabriel's modesty comes through in his conversation with Bathsheba's aunt, and he leaves, mistakenly believing that Bathsheba has "ever so many young men" after her. However, as he is walking back along the down, he turns around to discover Bathsheba running after him. Erroneously he believes that she has chased after him to accept his proposal, so when she only wants to tell him that her aunt had made a mistake in saying she had several young sweethearts, he is understandably dismayed. Bathsheba has quite a flirtatious disposition and toys with Gabriel's