Talk:Far from the Madding Crowd

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[edit] Warning, Plot Details Follow But....

"Non-tragic"?? I would hardly describe the book's end as a classic happy ending.

"Bathsheba smiled (for she never laughed readily now)"...........I don't see how poor old Bathsheba making do with old Gabriel after the lovers she cared for did each other over is really a happy end! "Making do" is very much the key phrase here; she doesn't fall in love with Gabriel at the end, she turns to him by default after the dire consequences.

Tragic after all?

-BG 12/10/05

Even if the ending is heartbreaking the story is not necessarily a tragedy. Generally, a story needs other charactersitics such as hamartia and anagnorisis to be a true tragedy. Erroneous01 17:04, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

What?! Did you people read this novel? After a long friendship, the only real friendship Bathsheba has known, she finally realizes she has come to love Gabriel. And this is "tragic" and "heartbreaking"? Clarityfiend 06:52, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Boldwood and Bathsheba

The relationship between Boldwood and Bathsheba, while grotesque, is not quite the stalker-and-victim situation described here. Moreover, Bathsheba does gives Boldwood some encouragement beyond the flirtatious valentine. See the second half of chapter 23; Bathsheba, guilt-stricken over the passion she so carelessly roused, and yet perversely flattered by the worship of a man previously deemed an emotional fortress, gives Boldwood permission to continue to hope:

"I have every reason to hope that at the end of the five or six weeks, between this time and harvest, that you say you are going to be away from home, I shall be able to promise to be your wife," she said firmly. "But remember this distinctly, I don't promise yet."

"It is enough; I don't ask more. I can wait on those dear words. And now, Miss Everdene, good-night!"

"Good-night," she said graciously--almost tenderly; and Boldwood withdrew with a serene smile.

Bathsheba knew more of him now; he had entirely bared his heart before her, even until he had almost worn in her eyes the sorry look of a grand bird without the feathers that make it grand. She had been awestruck at her pst temerity, and was struggling to make amends without thinking whether the sin quite deserved the penalty she was schooling herself to pay.

Bathsheba, it would seem, is steeling herself to atone for her guilt by marrying this stiff; and Boldwood, in the selfishness of his passion, is willing to take her on those terms. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Ilyaunfois (talk • contribs) 18:25, 19 December 2006 (UTC).