Classics Retold

In Chapter 48 of Far From The Madding Crowd, Bathsheba begins to wonder whether she has any secure claim to her uncle's property after her marriage to Sergeant Troy.  The foundation of her doubt lies in the legal position of married women in nineteenth-century England.  Under the doctrine of Coverture, a married woman's legal identity was largely merged with that of her husband.  Property that came to a woman could, in many circumstances, pass under her husband's control.  Bathsheba's knowledge of legal aspects was very limited, but she had some doubts that by marrying Troy she may have unintentionally surrendered rights that had once seemed unquestionably hers.  Her anxiety is intensified by Troy's disappearance and presumed death.  It raises uncertainty about her legal status. She realises that she never paid attention to the exact terms under which she inherited her farm.  She begins to suspect that there may have been legal conditions attached to i...

Troy wandered along towards the west.  A composit feeling of disgust towards himself, the monotony of a farmers life, the gloomy images of Fanny Robin who lay in the churchyard, remorse, and a general aversion to Bathsheba impelled him to seek a home anywhere, save Weatherbury.  At three in the afternoon he found himself at the foot of a slope more than a mile in length, which led to the range of hills lying parallel with shore and forming barrier between the basin of cultivated land and wilder scenery of the coast.  Up the hill stretched a  road, straight and white, two sides approaching each other in a gradual taper till they met the sky at the top. Throughout the length of this narrow inclined plane, not a sign of life was visible on this afternoon.  Troy toiled up the road with langour and depression.  The air was warm and muggy and the top seemed to recede as he approached.  At last he reached the summit, and a new and novel prospect burst upon hi...

In Chapter 47 Hardy describes that swimmers caught in the dangerous current had often prayed for rescue and like Gonzalo also, had been unanswered.  Here, Hardy refers to Gonzalo, a character in Shakespeare's The Tempest.  Gonzalo is an honest and good hearted counsellor who survives a shipwreck.  At one point in the play, he imagines and hopes for an ideal commonwealth --- a utopian society free from the corruption and hardships of ordinary life. His hopes are noble, but they are not fulfilled; the world does not conform to his wishes.  Hardy's allusion works on two levels.  At literary level, Troy is struggling in the sea, wishes desperately for rescue.  Like many swimmers before him, his prayers seem unlikely to be heard.  Ironically, Gonzalo's hopeful expectations were not granted simply because he had desired them. Likewise, Troy's wishing for safety has no special claim on fate.  Nature remains indifferent to human hopes.  The allusion ...

In Chapter 47 of Far From The Madding Crowd, Hardy describes the small cove where Troy goes swimming.  "Two projecting spurs of rock which formed the pillars of Hercules to this miniature Mediterranean."  This is a classical geographical metaphor.  The real pillars of Hercules  The pillars of Hercules were the two promontories flanking the entrance to the Mediterranean Sea at the Strait of Gibralter.  On the European side stands Rock of Gibralter. On the African side is Jebel Musa.  Greek mythology says it was created by Heracles (same as Roman Hercules) To the ancient Mediterraneans the pillars marked boundary between Mediterranean world and the  Atlantic ocean.  What Hardy means: The cove where Troy bathes is a tiny Mediterranean sea. Mediterranean sea is an enclosed basin of water. There are two rocky projections at its mouth, like the pillars of Hercules. Beyond this cove is Atlantic ocean. As long as Troy swim inside the cove, he is in shelte...

In Chapter 47 Hardy writes that when Troy reaches the top of the hill and suddenly sees the sea:  "A wide novel prospect burst upon him with an affect almost like that of Pacific upon Balboa's gaze."  This is a reference to Vasco Núñez de Balboa.  According to traditional account Balboa crossed the Isthmus of Panama and became the first European to view the New World.  The sight was so vast and unexpected that it became a symbol of discovery and revelation.  Hardy's comparison suggests several things:  1. Sudden expansion of vision  Troy had been trapped in a grief, remorse, and disgust with his life.  On reaching the summit the sea opens before him like an entirely new world.  2. A sense of escape and adventure  Just as Balboa saw new opportunities beyond the mountains, Troy feels the pull of a life beyond Weatherbury, Bathsheba and the memory of Fanny. 3. Irony Hardy elevates Troy for a moment by comparing him to a great explorer, yet ...

The tower of the Weatherbury Church was a square erection of fourteenth century date, having two stone  gurgoyle s on each of the four faces of its parapet.  Of these only two were working.  The others were closed by the churchwardens as superfluous, or being choked or broken.  The shape of the remaining gurgoyle was very queer.  It was not a dragon; not a man; not a fiend; and not even a  griffin .  This horrible stone identity was fashioned as if covered with a wrinkled hide; it had short erect ears, eyes starting from their sockets, and its fingers and hands were seizing the corners of its mouth, which they seemed to pull open to give free passage to the water it vomited.  The lower row of teeth was quite washed away, though the upper still remained.  Here and thus, jutting a couple of feet from the wall against which its feet rested as a support, the creature had for four hundred years laughed at the surrounding landscape, voicelessly in ...

In Far From The Madding Crowd (Chapter 46), the phrase "reprobates quarter of the graveyard" refers to part of a churchyard traditionally reserved for people whom society or the church regarded as morally suspect, disgraced, or outside the full religious acceptance.  The word reprobate originally meant a person considered rejected by God or morally depraved.  In nineteenth century rural England, a person who took his own life,  criminal, people who led a scandalous life, and unbaptized individuals were viewed as outside the church. All these persons were considered rejected by God.  The body of these persons, when they die were buried in an isolated place away from the common graveyard. Hardy often uses such expressions to reveal the harsh judgements of society.  In the context of Fanny Robin's burial, the phrase carries a painful irony.  Fanny is not truly wicked; she is more a victim of circumstances and of sergeant Troy's conduct.  Yet social conven...