How far do you think is the title of the novel Far from the Madding Crowd

justifiable?
Titled after Thomas Gray’s renowned lines "Far from the madding crowd's ignoble
strife/Their sober wishes never learned to stray; /Along the cool sequestered vale of life/They kept
the noiseless tenor of their way” from the poem “Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard”, Thomas
Hardy’s novel Far from the Madding Crowd evokes the rural culture that, by Hardy's lifetime, had
become threatened with extinction at the hands of ruthless industrialization. The caption thematizes
the importance of man's connection to, and understanding of, the natural world. Gabriel Oak
embodies Hardy's ideal of a life in harmony with the forces of the natural world. Set in and around
Weatherbury “Far from the Madding Crowd has a solidity of setting and character which could only
come from a profound knowledge and an integrity of treatment based on truth to life as it is, or rather
was, in such small hamlets, for Hardy laments in his Preface the break of continuity in local history”
(Trevor Johnson).

The title of the novel in association with its charming phenomenal backdrop takes the readers
to a primitive and untouched corner of England with its hills and dales and luxuriating with the
beauties of Nature, where the scenes of the novel are laid. It is in perfect harmony with Hardy’s
revival of the ancient name of Wessex and the depiction of the drama of lives of the rustic played out
in its sleeping towns and lonely villages. The aptness of the title lies in its symmetry with the original
implication or poetic motive of Gray because just as Thomas Gray through the expression “Far from
the madding crowd” paid his heart-felt homage to the rural folk in opposition to those self-seeking
deceitful city people (referred to as “madding crowd”), so also Thomas Hardy celebrates and glorifies
the pure and elemental life style of the rustics. Only those characters in the novel suffer who are not
“far from the madding crowd”; rather, those who can be deemed as belonging to “madding crowd”
(namely Bathsheba, Troy and Boldwood) are the butt of Hardy’s tragic portrayal.

On the other hand the title of the novel can be considered as fraught richly with ironic
undertone as the novel mostly evokes and sketches the spectacle of endless traumatic torments of the
major characters. Whereas the novel in its title is suggestive of a pastoral blissful presentation of life
with all its romantic natural background, the plot is hardly about anything romantic or poetic. Rather
it is all about the tragedy of romance and love, pitted against which Boldwood, Fanny Robbin,
Sergeant Troy and of course Bathsheba Everdene are really puppet-like in their helplessness. Nature
here in the novel serves not as a coherent background to its theme but as a malevolent force which
aggravates and quickens the doom of the characters. Gabriel was a true child of nature and he was
both geographically and mentally aloof from the “madding crowd”, but ironically he loses his sheep
and his tie with nature as a farmer is severed. Consequently he roams across the streets in search for
job. His bond with the Norcomb soon loosened and he went to Weatherbury. Fanny’s death also
testifies this claim.

Yet the delineation of the rustics on the part of Hardy, the mental equilibrium of Gabriel, the
final outcome of the play with both Troy and Boldwood being removed from Bathsheba’s life leading
to the successful union of Gabriel and Bathsheba emphasize the appropriateness of the title and
justifies his artistic insightfulness. The transformation in the nature of Bathsheba, that is, what she
was in the beginning part of the plot and what she became by the end of the novel shows that she is
really free and far from the madness she had earlier. The dynamism of Bathsheba, therefore, speaks
well of the significance of the title of the fiction. As regards Gabriel, it is on him that Hardy modelled
his view of ideal Man.