Mise en abyme in Far from the Madding Crowd

Abstract

The interest and attraction of the mirror scene in Chapter I of Far from the Madding Crowd is that it provides a kind of generic mise en abyme, which at this very early stage in the story amounts to the promise of a coming love affair. The possibilities of romance imbue this first mirror scene, whereas the possibilities of tragedy loom over the second more expanded one in Chapter XIV, when Farmer Boldwood places the Valentine in the corner of his looking-glass and then falls into a medley of vision, anticipation and sleep. Mise en abyme is a notion that should be discussed. The distance it causes is rarely what it is thought to be. Here, as often in fiction, it foregrounds the generic dimension and subtly reinforces the narrative grip on the reader. The revelation it seems to foreground is in fact part and parcel of our implicit reading contract with the novel. It works in the direction of make-believe and persuasion, and procures a kind of pleasure both suggesting and hampering actual distance.