Successful Beginnings

Respond to these quotes from Richard Carpenter's criticism:

"Bathsheba's problems do not arise alone from ambivalent desire; for, as with other protagonists, she is subjected to the influences of Chance and Time, which destroy the stable patterns of rural life and make breaches for character to expoit. Far From the Madding Crowd is not so donimated by these forces as is, say, Tess of the d'Urbervilles; nevertheless with them it could not take the course it does."


"Far From the Madding Crowd is, then, Hardy's first undeniably assured venture into the realm where he was to have his greatest success. In it he developed some of his most characteristic and effective modes, from the centrally tragic figure to the symbolic landscape to the rustic chorus. In it, especially, we see in clear form for the first time the mythic and psychological patters which he was to employ so effectively as he went on."

Superior plot

Far From the Madding Crowd is considered one of Hardy's lighter works. His treatement of characters as being destined to fulfill a tragic, or dramatic, purpose is not so forceful in Far as in his later works, like Tess and Jude.

Not only are the themes more digestable, but the plot (which at times lapses to melodrama) is also more believable than most of his contrived, complicated stories. Carpenter says of Hardy's plot in Far From the Madding Crowd "the plot is one of quality...which is demonstronably superior to his minor works, for it grows principally out of character and natural situations." Post evidence to support Carpenter's statement.