Thomas hardy Far from the madding crowd is a nineteenth century novel set in a provincial society. The theme of death in the narrative is represented by the murder of Sergeant Troy and the tragic end of his lover Fanny Robin. This article analyzes Fanny’s death, explores various narrative techniques and literary devices that Hardy employs, as well as evaluating certain genres to which the novel could be considered to belong.
Far from the madding crowd initially it appears to be a typical 19th century realist novel. However, a deeper analysis would reveal the multitude of genres subtly incorporated into its carefully constructed framework. It is this considered combination of popular literary forms, such as the pastoral tale, classical tragedy, and comic romance, that contributes greatly to the novel’s enduring appeal, undermining any dismissive categorization of realistic fiction. Consequently, it is difficult to determine exactly what genre Hardy’s novel could potentially belong to.
One of the literary devices Hardy uses most frequently is images. Far from the madding crowd it is a novel rich in intensely descriptive detail, a feature that is not merely arbitrary, but is part of a formidable pictorial design, drawn largely from the visual arts. Most of the chapters of the story are of a clearly episodic nature, partially implied through the name of each of them. ‘On Casterbridge Highway’ details Fanny Robin’s lonely journey to the nursing home where she later passes away. As with many others, this chapter functions as something of a stage piece, with Fanny’s arduous journey framed almost like a scene from a painting, with the author’s prose style occasionally alluding to the academic vernacular of art. pictorial.
This pictorial language manifests itself in a variety of ways, the first in this chapter being the description of Casterbridge Highway, which the reader is reported as “now indistinct in the gloom of the night” (XL, p.258) . The use of the word ‘penumbra’ is typical of Hardy’s artistic sensibilities, where various light effects and color gradations are employed to delineate certain characters and objects, along with the use of elaborate framing and shifting perspectives, all creating a complex visual image. choreography. The contrast is also evident in the description of the town of Casterbridge as a “luminosity appearing brighter” in relation to the “circumscribed darkness” of the “moonless and starless night” (XL, p.258).
Hardy’s imaginative design has much in common with contemporary Impressionist painting of his day, and it is perhaps most notably evident in this particular scene when Fanny glimpses a woman in a passing carriage. Although Fanny only saw his face momentarily, it is still described in detail: “the general contours were flexible and childish, but the finer features had begun to be sharp and thin” (XL, p.258). What Impressionist painting and Hardy’s prose seem to share is a quality of perception that suggests a fleeting apprehension of a certain object or event rather than a studied and resolved account.
The 19th century art critic John Ruskin believed that poets and painters routinely colored their landscapes with subjective moods and emotions, referring to this as “the pathetic fallacy.” In light of its imaginative design, this concept seems especially applicable to Hardy’s fiction, and is evident in the Casterbridge chapter. The vocabulary employed, with descriptive details such as “black concave”, “remote shadow” and “distant shadows”, effectively creates a gloomy atmosphere of isolation and despair that reflects Fanny’s situation. This impression is reinforced by the role of sound in the narrative: the manor house clock striking the time in a “small, attenuated tone” (XL, p.258). The sound of a bell is a recurring motif during Fanny’s death, repeated during the scene where her coffin is released from the asylum.
Hardy incorporates a variety of genres in his depiction of the dead Fanny Robin, such as goth, tabloid, and melodrama. These three stylistic devices are evoked during the scene in which Bathsheba looks into Fanny’s coffin. As with many of the locations in Far from the madding crowd, Bathsheba’s residence has been vividly described. The reader is aware that it is an “old building from the first stage of the Classical Renaissance” with “some pediments with finials and similar characteristics that still retain traces of their Gothic extraction” (IX, p.73), a suitable location for Bathsheba a morbid curiosity that suggests the old crumbling castles of 18th century Gothic literature. At night and by candlelight, Bathsheba’s dreadful suspicions – “I hope, I hope it is not true that there are two of you” (XLIII, p. 288) – are confirmed when she is greeted with the body of Fanny and that of the baby dead of the young maid. , a gruesome spectacle that smells of tabloid fiction. The narrative invokes the nature of the melodrama when, as if it were a signal, Sergeant Troy enters the house: “the front door opened and closed, the steps crossed the hall and her husband appeared at the entrance of the room” ( XLIII, p.291)), consolidated by the somewhat theatrical dialogue between the two characters. The use of these devices undermines any potential realist constructs, and by drawing attention to the artifice of his novel, Hardy’s writing often seems to question the very notion of realism.
The controversial aspects of Far from the madding crowd They are delivered through highly organized imaginative design incorporating a wide range of genres, such as the pastoral tale, Gothic literature, tabloid fiction, and theatrical melodrama.
