Thomas Hardy's Far From the Madding Crowd

Thomas Hardy's Far From the Madding Crowd

The name Thomas Hardy gives to the hero of his novel, Far From the

Madding Crowd, is not merely accidental. Hardy deliberately means to

associate Gabriel Oak with the Angel Gabriel. God's hero lit up the

darkness, and it is important for the reader to note that when Hardy's

hero saves a situation from having disastrous consequences, nearly

every time he does so in darkness. Gabriel's name is very significant

in relation to his character, but he is not just meant to be a holy

saint, whose sole purpose is to pour oil on troubled waters. He is a

very real person with very human feelings, and this becomes obvious as

his relationship with Bathsheba grows.

To understand how the relationship between the two main characters has

changed at the end of the novel, I need to explain how their

relationship began. Previous to chapter four, Gabriel has seen and

talked to Bathsheba on quite a few occasions, not least when she saves

him from suffocation in chapter three. By chapter four, Gabriel has

developed a deep love for Bathsheba and waits for her presence in

strikingly the same way as "his dog waited for his meals". He is so

captivated by her that he changes his opinion of an attractive woman

to suit her features - such as "turning his taste over to black hair,

though he had sworn by brown ever since he was a boy." Gabriel decides

that marriage is better than his life of solitary isolation, a life

which he has always lived quite comfortably before the arrival of

Bathsheba, and declares "I'll make her my wife, or upon my soul I

shall be good for nothing!"

Using a motherless lamb as an excuse to visit Bathsheba to ask for her

hand in marriage, he sets off for her aunt's house on "a fine January

morning" having made "a toilet of a nicely-adjusted kind". He arrives

in hopeful spirits, but it is not Bathsheba that he talks to - it is

her aunt, Mrs Hurst. Gabriel's modesty comes through in his

conversation with Bathsheba's aunt, and he leaves, mistakenly

believing that Bathsheba has "ever so many young men" after her.

However, as he is walking back along the down, he turns around to

discover Bathsheba running after him. Erroneously he believes that she

has chased after him to accept his proposal, so when she only wants to

tell him that her aunt had made a mistake in saying she had several

young sweethearts, he is understandably dismayed.

Bathsheba has quite a flirtatious disposition and toys with Gabriel's