Is the
ending of ‘Far From the Madding Crowd’ consistent with the rest of the novel?
Support your answer.
The structure of Hardy’s famous novel
Far From the Madding Crowd suffers
from a few weaknesses. In the first place, the plot is rather thin and slight.
The entire story is about a woman, namely, Bathsheba Everdene who is loved by
three men. At the end of the novel, two of the lovers, Sergeant Troy and Mr.
Boldwood are removed and the scope is made for the third one, namely, Gabriel
Oak, to marry the heroine. To a host of critics, the way in which this end is
achieved is rather unconvincing and contrived. Oak is in reality, the first
lover of the heroine, though throughout the novel there is no sign of affection
for him on her part while she married Troy and promised to marry Boldwood after
the supposed death of Troy. Perhaps through this Hardy offers a reward to the
steady and from satisfying if thought from logical point of view. Moreover,
according to many critics, it does not suit the entire tragic foreboding of the
novel also. Throughout the novel, Hardy shows the struggle between man on the
one hand and an omnipotent and indifferent Fate on the other, which is malevolent
to all human hopes. The ending of the novel runs counter to this tragic bias.
However,
to consider the ending of the novel as totally tame and undemocratic may be a
misreading. In ending of the novel thus, Hardy had, in fact, a definite design
in his mind. We must not forget that Hardy was an architect by profession which
he felt for his literary career in 1870, and in all his novels he has developed
an architectural composition of story. In this particular novel also, he has
taken care to convince us of the appropriateness of the happy ending. Hardy has
removed, one by one all the characters who might have marred the happy effect.
Troy the villain is killed by Boldwood, who, equally selfish and destructive,
is also in jail, and Bathsheba is tamed, if not radically uttered, and
sufficiently wise how to create happiness for herself and others. Moreover, if
Bathsheba has learnt through suffering to value Gabriel for what he is and what
he represents, Gabriel has also proved himself through resourceful endurance to
be something more than an everybody type of man to be worthy, indeed, as a man
and as a farmer of Bathsheba.
