Classics Retold

A dunce is a person slow in learning or intellectually dull.  It historically stems from the 13th century philosopher John Duns Scouts.  A class dunce typically represents the stereotype of the weakest student, often subjected to sitting in a corner wearing a cone shaped dunce cap as a punishment.  In Chapter 44 of Far From The Madding Crowd, the novel byThomas Hardy, Bathsheba while sitting alone in a thicket away from her home as a retreat to escape the shock of Troy's relationship with Fanny Robin, saw a dunce coming with a bag and a book. The book was psalter ( biblical book of psalms used for private prayer). The scene has several functions:  It provides comic relief.  Bathsheba has undergone the worst experience of her life.  Yet she is slightly amused by the boys absurd method of learning.  Even in deep distress there remains s superficial film of consciousness that notices trivial things.  Her ability to observe and smile at the boy sugges...

In Chapter 44 of Far From The Madding Crowd Thomas Hardy connects the life of Bathsheba to the poem "Ode to the Westwind" by Percy Bysshe Shelly.  The autumn wind violently scatters dead leaves, comparing them to terrified spirits fleeing a powerful magician.  Shelly uses this metaphor to establish the West Wind as a powerful, almost supernatural force. Here is the break down of the first stanza.  • The Enchanter: The fierce Westwind, acts as the untamable breath of autumn. • The Ghosts: The dead leaves of various colours (yellow, black, pale and hectic red) being swept away. • The Meaning: The wind acts as a destroyer and preserver. While it destroys the old, it carries the winged seeds to their winter beds, ensuring the rebirth in the spring. Because of its vivid imagery, it is frequently used to describe any mass exodus or frantic scattering of people, animals, or objects. The simile reflects Bathsheba's emotional condition after shocking discoveries about Sergeant Tro...

A brake of fern refers to dense overgrown thicket or cluster of ferns. The phrase combines the word "fern" with an archaic noun "brake"for  brushwood or thicket.  Depending on the context, the phrase can refer to: Dense Thicket: An area heavily overgrown with large, coarse fern (പന്നാദി, പന്ന) A specific plant variety:  The brake fern (pteris genus) is a popular, feathery evergreen fern often grown as indoor house plant or indoor shade garden. They are also called braken, and noted for their large highly divided fronds and are found on all continents except Antartica; their typical habitat is moorland or moor differently called as prairie in North America, pampas in South America, veld in South Africa, and steppe in Asia. They are characterized by short grasslands in semi arid climates.  Heathes and pastures are respectively shrublands and grasslands.

At a later hour of the same evening Bathsheba was sitting alone and cheerless beside the first fire of the season in the large parlour.  Liddy came and stood at the door with a chamber candle stick in her hand.  "Do you want me any longer, ma'am," inquired Liddy.  "No more tonight, Liddy."  "I will sit up for master if you like, ma'am.  I am not at all afraid of Fanny, if I may sit in my own room and have a candle.  She was such a childlike  nesh  young thing that her spirit couldn't appear to anybody, I am quite sure."  "Oh, no, no!  You go to bed.  I'll sit up for him myself till twelve o'clock, and if he has not arrived by that time I shall give him up and go to bed too."  "It is half past ten now."  "Oh! Is it?"  "Why don't you sit upstairs ma'am?"  "Why don't I?" said Bathsheba desultorily.  "It isn't worthwhile --- there is a fire here.  Liddy," she sudden...

In Chapter 43 of Far From The Madding Crowd, sergeant Troy makes one of the most revealing statements about himself when he says to Bathsheba: "If Satan had not tempted me with the face of yours, and those cursed coquetries, I should have married her."  And then turning to Fanny: "In the sight of Heaven you are my very very wife."  This reference of Satan and Heaven (God) have several layers of meaning.  1. Troy shifts blame on to Bathsheba When Troy says that Satan tempted him through Bathsheba's beauty, he is making biblical image of temptation.  In Christian tradition Satan tempts people away from the right path.  Troy is effectively saying:  Fanny Robin was the woman he should have married.  Bathsheba's beauty tempted him away from that duty. His marriage to Bathsheba therefore is a kind of moral fall. But Troy's claim is untrue and unfair. He is avoiding his responsibility for his own choice.  He chose to abandon Fanny and pursue Bathsheba, a...

In Chapter 43 of Far From The Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy the reference to the "Mosaic law" means the laws traditionally believed to have been given by Moses to the Israelites in the Hebrew Bible or Old Testament.  Mosaic simply means "of Moses."  Hardy uses the phrase in moral and emotional context connected with marriage, fidelity, and punishment.  The allusion especially evokes the ancient and severe legal code of Old Testament - a system associated with justice devoid of mercy and compassion.  In this chapter of the novel, the emotional atmosphere is dominated by Bathsheba's sufferings, Troy's cruelty and recklessness, and the shadow of Fanny Robin's death. Questions of guilt and morality pervade the emotional atmosphere.  Bathsheba see her fate as a retribution for the death of Fanny and her child. Fanny through her death takes revenge on Bathsheba.  There is an implied contrast between harsh Mosaic laws and soft Christian ideas of forgiveness and...