Examine Hardy’s characterisation of Bathsheba
in
Far From the Madding Crowd.
Answer: A born lover of the fair sex, Hardy took in his novels what is
called the old fashioned view of women. With the possible exception of his
portrayal of the character of Arabella in Jude the Obscure, in all his
novels he stresses their frailty, their sweetness, their submissiveness, their
coquetry and their caprice. Even when they act fault, he represents them with a
tender chivalry. The sufferings of Tess, of Elfride, of Marty, of Eustacia, of
Bathsheba are touched all the time with a peculiar pathos. Almost all his
novels, in some way or other, are the education of their heroines where they
learn through their experiences. Hence, studies of his woman characters well
serve a study of his vision of womanhood.
Bathsheba Everdene, the
heroine of his Far from the Madding Crowd, has generally been accepted
as “the most attractive woman ever penned by the novelist’s imagination”. Hardy
himself has said of her, “She is a fair product of Nature in the feminine
kind.” Moreover, she is not only physically beautiful, but is also made of “the
stuff of which great men’s mothers are made”. She is indispensible to high
generation – “hated at parties, feared in shops and loved at crisis”. To quote
Hardy again, she is “an Elizabeth in brain and Mary Stuart in spirit”. In fact,
the novelist has depicted her as the type of eternal feminity embodied in a
domestic shape for the guidance, consolation and illumination of the
generations to come.
At the very outset of the novel what captures our attention is that Bathsheba, is always conscious of her beauty as well as of her dignity. Oak believes, when he first sees her, that she is very vain. He gives expression to his opinion when he finds her consulting a mirror, while setting in a wagon.
