A Study on the Causes of Bathsheba's Fate in Far from the Madding Crowd

Abstract

Far from the Madding Crowd is a novel by the English novelist Thomas Hardy in the early period. In this novel, Hardy used unique perspective and avant-garde ideas to create the female character Bathsheba in a new era, endowing her with dramatic fate. Most of the previous studies focused on the fate of Bathsheba, yet relatively few put eyes on what contributed to her fate. However, the causes of Bathsheba's fate had some profound meanings implied by the author. By means of analyzing Bathsheba's fate, this essay aims to find out the causes that contribute to the heroine's fate from three aspects, i.e. social background, the heroine's characters and the contradictions between objective and subjective factors. The result of this study shows that the factors in the above three aspects lead to the inevitability of Bathsheba’s contradictory life together. It will be not only helpful for fully understanding Far from the Madding Crowd and women’s fate in Hardy’s works, but also practical for thinking over the living situation and fate of women in contemporary age.