“Unholy exclamations” : le fétiche des Écritures dans Far from the Madding Crowd

Abstract

This paper looks at how biblical scripture interwoven with folk belief functions as a form of fetishism in Far From the Madding Crowd (1874). Written in the wake of Edward Tylor’s Primitive Culture (1871), which popularized the concept of fetishism for a Victorian audience, the novel’s fetishized scriptural words are used in a variety of ways: to “magically” open doors, to threaten or curse – even to determine the spiritual state of these characters’ souls. Consistently, it is the uttering of the words themselves, rather than the spiritual or figurative message of the scripture that holds sway in Far From the Madding Crowd. While this novel lacks some of the more overt fetishistic practices such as waxen effigy burning found in Hardy’s later novel The Return of the Native (1878), its use of words as fetish is important to consider in the development of Hardy’s own concept of fetishism, which will become further realized in his later writings.