토마스 하디의 『광란의 군중을 멀리하고』: 하디 주요소설에 있어서의 그 위치

Thomas Hardy's Far from the Madding Crowd: Its Position in his Major Novels

Thomas Hardy's main novels of the subtitle are Far from the Madding Crowd. The Return of the Native, The Mayor of Casterbridge, The Woodlanders, Tess of the D'Urbervilles and Jude the Obscure. If we make a survey of these sisx novels, most of heroes and heroines expose their wretched conditions before readersin the last of works. But it is brought to light that only Gabriel Oak, the hero of Far from the Madding Crowd enjoys happiness with his wife by demonstrating his perseverance. Bathsheba Everdene's fortune rises when she inherits her father's farm, whereas Oak fails in his sheep farming, so that when he chances to save her ricks from burning she can reward him with employment as her shepherd. On a quickly regretted impulse she sends a Valentine to her solemn neighbour, Farmer Boldwood, attracting first his interest then his violent infatuation. She is considering marrying him when suddenly she in her turn is bewitched by the practised love-making of Sergeant Troy and marries him. Tory's extravagance, gambling and ignorance of farming threatens their livelihood. Her dissatisfaction turns to outrage and she is more relieved than sorry at the report that he is drowned and is unable to resist Boldwood's renewed and feverish courtship. At Troy's sudden reappearance at a Christmas dance, the maddened Boldwood shoots him. Never quite sure of her rejected suitor Gabriel Oak, who has always refused to flatter her, Bathsheba is panic-stricken to hear he intends to emigrate, and at last takes the first steps in arranging their marriage. The distinction Hardy draws between romance and reality does not appear only at the end of the book; it is worked into the scheme of the whole. Boldwood is the dreamer himself, and the unreality is in the way he approaches Bathsheba realistically enough; but he seems to her a romantic figure, for Bathsheba has represented a certain social goal: propriety and respectability. But there is cruelty in the way he insists that she shall adhere to his idea of her. Boldwood suffers more than he makes Bathsheba suffer, and the wildness and unhappiness remains just as blind to realities when he gets to know her. After the disappearance of Troy, he again nourishes his love. Hardy is disparaging romance, the dream and the dreamer. He is suggesting, instead, that one should live---not in accordance with nature---but in accordance with reality. And this point is made clearly in Far from the Madding Crowd.