Gabriel Oak Essay Example for Free

Gabriel Oak Essay How do you account for Bathshebas choice of husband when she could have married either Gabriel Oak or William Boldwood? Bathsheba married Troy because he offered her an exciting lifestyle full of lust and venture. On the other hand, she rejected Oak and Boldwood because they offered her a secluded life of security in a traditional living. The book was written in episodes for a Victorian magazine. People of the times expected a happy ending, Hardy wanted to please his readers but incorporate the hardships of life at the same time. He structures the book so that Bathsheba is dragged through her misfortunes and undeserving men, whilst throughout the duration of the book the readers still feel that Bathsheba should ultimately be in wedlock with Gabriel. This is clever of Hardy because despite the tragedy of death there is love to sooth the mind. In the time in which the book was written, men and women were only allowed to be together if the Lady has a chaperone, this was the socially accepted thing. Therefore, if a man got a woman pregnant it would be unacceptable of him not to marry her. Hardy felt that women were treated badly in the eyes of society. He felt that when women were married, the behaviour and character of the man they were married to shaped their lifestyles. In the Victorian period, women who did not marry found it very hard in society. They depended on their own financial security and were looked down upon because they were not married. He felt that women were swept up in the excitement of new love and lust and when they were married without true love, they would regret the mistake for the rest of their lives. Scarlet fever was the nickname for the obsession that the local girls had for the officers in the regiment who settled in their town, their scarlet coats being the basis of this nickname. Hardys Aunt Martha was in fact one of the victims of Scarlet fever. She ran off with a cavalryman, John Breton Sharpe. This may have been his inspiration for the character of Troy: attractive and exciting on the outside but fickle and insecure on the inside. When Troy and Bathsheba first meet, in chapter 24, the corner of her dress gets caught in his spur and as they struggle to untangle themselves he is very bold and brazen to her. He makes flirtatious comments that appeal to her vanity, Thank you for the sight of such a beautiful face! Although Bathsheba is flattered by his compliments, she does not know how to handle his over confident behaviour and is eager to get away because she is alone with a single man in the dark; with a reputation to uphold. She suggests that he is only entangling her dress further so that he can keep her there, O, tis shameful of you; you have been making it worse on purpose to keep me here you have! After he finally looses the dress from his spurs, he is even as daring as to make a reference to marriage, I wish it had been the knot of knots, which theres no untying! This makes her even more desperate to get away and on her retreat he makes another remark that makes him ever more attractive to Bathshebas vane nature, Ah, Beauty; good-bye! When Bathsheba, returns home, she learns from Liddy that Troy is high-born and very intelligent; He was brought up so well, and sent to Casterbridge grammar school for years and years. , Hes a doctors son by name and an earls son by nature Nobility of blood will outshine even in the ranks and files. Already, Bathsheba is attracted to Troys Redcoat exterior and his bold flirtatious manner. At their next meeting, Troy succeeds in dazzling Bathsheba with his witty remarks about men and their love for women; Probably some one man on an average falls in love with each ordinary woman such a woman as you a hundred men will always covet and once again he showers her with compliments; I would rather have curses from you than kisses from any other woman. Troy finally achieves to bewitch Bathsheba in chapter twenty-eight. When Bathsheba and Troy meet in the ferns, Troy impresses her with his skill with a sword. He tells her that the sword he is using is blunt when really it is razor sharp; No edge! This sword will shave like a razor. Troy takes the liberty of slicing a caterpillar that had settled on Bathshebas chest and cutting a stray lock of her hair. At this point, Hardy may have been influenced by the poem written by Alexander Pope called The Rape of the Lock. In this poem, Pope writes about a man named Lord Fermor, who cuts a lock of hair from the Lady Arabella except for the loss of your hair, which I shall always name in reverence. This is a symbol of sexual achievement. Later on in the book, we found out that Troy is also in the possession of a lock of Fanny Robins hair, so this would lead us to suspect that Troy regards this as trophy collecting or personal reminders of all the women he has seduced. Troy is the first man to kiss Bathsheba and this has a definite impact on her. The minutes interval had brought the blood beating into her face And enlarged emotion to a compass which quite swamped thought He had kissed her. After this event, Troy travels to Bath and Bathsheba follows him for many reasons. One of these reasons is that when she is on the road one afternoon, she meets Farmer Boldwood. He is obsessively in love with her and shouts at her, threatening Troy and cursing his name; Ill punish him be he soldier or no if he were one hundred men Id hose whip him. Bathsheba is very frightened for Troy and thinks long and hard about what to do in her trivial situation. She decides to go to Bath. She will warn Troy not to come back and to see him one last time before she end their relationship; Her plan was now to drive to Bath during the night, see Sergeant Troy in the morning before he set out to come to her, bid him farewell and dismiss him. Although this seemed like the best thing to do to save anyone from getting hurt, Bathsheba talks with Gabriel about the reasons for her ultimate commitment to Troy; I went to Bath that night with the full intention of breaking off my engagement to Mr. Troy Well I was alone in a strange city, and the horse was lame I saw, at last, when it was too late that scandal might seize hold of me for meeting alone him in that way. I was coming away when he suddenly said he had that day seen a woman more beautiful than I, and that his constancy could not be counted on unless I at once became his And then between jealousy and distraction I married him. Here we see one of the main reasons that Bathsheba married Troy he made her desperately jealous by manipulating her emotions.