Love is an articulation of fondness and care towards another. It is a feeling that individuals cannot live without – regardless of where love comes from. It may be parental love, sibling love, friend love, or the kind that lasts forever and ends in marriage. There are those who are lucky in love, while there are still those who are deprived of it. That is the theme of the movie, "Far from the Madding Crowd", which explores the various kinds of love.
Far from the Madding Crowd is the story of Bathsheba Everdene, the young and beautiful mistress of a farm in Little Weatherbury and the object of affection of the three male protagonists, namely, Gabriel Oak, William Boldwood, and Frank Troy. She inherited the land when her uncle passed away and bequeathed the land to her. She is strong, passionate, and a bit vain about her beauty. Oak is the farm-owner turned shepherd who lost everything he owned due to an inexperienced dog sheep that lead his sheep over the cliff. He was forced to sell everything he owned and ended up penniless, causing him to find employment as a shepherd. Boldwood is the decent and wealthy farmer, besotted with Everdene's beauty. He was initially cold and aloof of Everdene, but since she played a trick on him on Valentine's Day, his usual cool and detached manner turned into obsession of Everdene. Finally, there is Troy, the flirtatious and seductive Sergeant whom Everdene married. Through them, Bathsheba experiences the different kinds of love. A subplot in the story that also revolves around love is the angle about Troy and Fanny Robin's love affair. Robin is a young servant in Everdene's household. According to the story, Robin is Troy's true love. His love for Robin is more than his affections for Everdene is and will be.
1. Bathsheba Everdene and Gabriel Oak
As strong as Gabriel's last name denotes, his love for Bathsheba weathers all types of storms. Theirs is the kind of love borne from knowing the rough sides of each other's personalities; and yet, there is the undeniable connection between them. Although Bathsheba would not acknowledge her affection for Gabriel and only refer to him as someone she likes, Gabriel, on the other hand, has, in several occasions expressed his love for her to the point of asking her hand for marriage.
Can true love exist even before one recognizes it has always been there and waiting? Gabriel has long been loving and waiting for Bathsheba such that he was willing to offer advices on whom to marry despite his own feelings for her. He is the perfect person for Bathsheba, but due to his financial circumstances and the fact that she only has a soft spot for him, but not enough love to marry him, she did not act on her feelings for Gabriel until after learning and experiencing other kinds of love from William Boldwood and Frank Troy.
The love they share is similar to Agape, which is the highest form of love that involves understanding with a compassionate heart (Which Type of Love Are You Cultivating?). He is the only true friend of Bathsheba. Tragedy after tragedy, Gabriel never really left Bathsheba's side although she did fire him once, and he left in terrible circumstances. He always came back to protect her.
Their love can also be equated to Storge, or affection – "the love a parent has for a child or a sibling to another sibling" (Which Type of Love Are You Cultivating?). Applying the context to a relationship between two lovers, storge means a deep and abiding affection that focuses on building empathetic, considerate, and emotional bonding between couples. It is similar to how one loves a friend, which is how Bathsheba initially felt for Gabriel.
2. Bathsheba Everdene and William Boldwood
The kind of love that Bathsheba and William shared is a one-sided love where all the loving and caring came only from William's end. In Bathsheba, William felt alive again and began pursuing her to the point of obsession (Far from the Madding Crowd). This is a classic example of another love known as Pragma, the need-based love. Pragma love is a "practical approach to love" where one uses reason instead of emotions when selecting a mate (The Experience of "Being In Love" Is Not the Same for Everyone). This also includes considering one's income, material belongings, personal possessions, and social status when choosing a partner. Among the men who fancied her, William was the most eligible and socially acceptable of the three.
A year after Frank disappears, who was believed to be dead already, William pursues Bathsheba again, asking her if she is "interested on marrying again" (qtd. in Far from the Madding Crowd). Out of guilt, she reconsiders and tells William she will do so after seven years when she is totally free from Frank – in case he comes back and claims her once again. Frank does comes back and in William's eyes, ruins everything for him again. This drives him to shoot Frank in a moment of insanity, which is another form of love called Mania love. Considered as the worst kind of love, Mania love is borne out of jealousy, obsession, insecurity, and compulsion, among other extreme reactions and feelings (The Experience of "Being In Love" Is Not the Same for Everyone).
Although William's love for Bathsheba is real, had she accepted his marriage proposal, it would have been an emotional suffocation for her. She does not love him, is a free spirit, and is the type of girl who values her independence so much.
3. Bathsheba Everdene and Frank Troy
Bathsheba met Frank one night as he was returning to Weatherbury. Although the initial meeting was not a love of first sight meeting, soon, Bathsheba's defenses were slowly falling down as she became smitten with Frank's seductive words and manner because he was a great flatterer. Frank was not in love with Bathsheba, but more appropriately, he was "in lust" with her – using seduction to gain her attention.
This relationship is borne out of physical attraction that ended up with the two of them getting married. Considering the circumstances of their love affair, the type of love these two shares can be considered as Eros, or sexual love (Which Type of Love Are You Cultivating?), the love that gives importance on romance, physical appearance, attraction, and desire. It is mostly about eroticism; and how it guides relationships to become physically satisfying. However, the problem with this is when the passion dies down; the possibility of the relationship to survive is slim.
Putting into perspective Bathsheba's and Frank's love affair, the irony is that, this time, it is Bathsheba who is "in love". As Bathsheba said once to Liddy, her trusted house cleaner, "I love him to distraction" (qtd. in Far from the Madding Crowd). This also serves as Bathsheba's experience on heartbreak as Frank is the first man that she considered her "love", whereas Gabriel is the one she "liked" as she fondly told Liddy one time.
4. Frank Troy and Fanny Robin
Despite his marriage to Bathsheba, Frank's real love is Fanny, Bathsheba's young servant, who left her employ to go after Frank. This is a subplot in the story that revolves around the love triangle involving Bathsheba, Frank, and Fanny. When Frank saw the coffin bearing Fanny and his baby boy, it prompted him to say, "This woman is more to me, dead as she is, that ever you were, or are, or can be!" (qtd. in Far from the Madding Crowd). He said this when Bathsheba stopped him from kissing Fanny on the lips, even saying that Fanny is just her servant.
Although this love angle between Frank and Fanny is also about Eros, as several of their scenes together involved kissing and making out, it is also about real love. Frank's tenderness towards Fanny and the dead baby as well as his comments to Bathsheba about the state of his feelings towards her all support this claim.
Each character in the story shows differing levels of passion when it comes to expressing their love to another. In the case of Gabriel, his was the strong and silent manner of loving a person to the point of sacrificing his love just to keep Bathsheba happy. He was always willing to wait and was very dependable. This is the kind of loving relationship that Bathsheba needs. Although Bathsheba initially refused his moves, in the end, it was still true love that triumphed over hardship. For William, the kind of love he offered Bathsheba is the kind that will keep her fortune greater. His love was a one-sided love affair. He knew he could make her love him if only she gave him a chance. Frank's love was destined to fail from the beginning considering that he was in a relationship with other women, his heart was always with Fanny.
In "Far from the Madding Crowd", all the male protagonists were passionately in love with Bathsheba (although in varying levels). On the other hand, other love story such as "Wuthering Heights" is about the true love between Catherine and Heathcliff who both met while they were still young. Their story is more like one destined to fail from the beginning because Heathcliff proved to be a huge threat to Catherine's brother, Hindley. He made it difficult for both Catherine and Heathcliff to be together. Somehow, Catherine bears some resemblance to Bathsheba in terms of how she regarded the importance of society in choosing her lifelong partner. All similarities end there as Bathsheba is a strong willed and free-spirited woman, while Catherine lacks the self-confidence that Bathsheba has.
Another story worth mentioning is "Romeo and Juliet" where protagonists both die, one by drinking poison and the other by stabbing herself to death. Like "Far from the Madding Crowd", "Romeo and Juliet" is also a story about true love with a tragic ending. But through the tragedy, both warring families, the Montagues and the Capulets, decide to end their familial feud after witnessing how the love story of their doomed children ended. On the other hand, in "Far from the Madding Crowd", the tragedy is through the deaths of Fanny (while giving birth to her child with Frank), Frank (shot by William), and William's insanity claim for shooting Frank.
Through all the tragedies, true love still prevails in the end. As it is depicted in the three novels, love reigns whether here on earth or in another dimension.
Works Cited
Far from the Madding Crowd. Dir. Nicholas Renton. Perf. Paloma Baeza, Nathaniel Parker, Jonathan Firth, Nigel Terry. Granada Television. 1998. Film.
McWilliams, Barry. “The Five Kinds of Love”. N.d. Web. 16 November 2012.
< http://www.eldrbarry.net/marriage/clas/bm04.pdf>.
"The Experience of "Being In Love" Is Not the Same for Everyone." Truth About Deception. N.d. Web. 15 November 2012. < http://www.truthaboutdeception.com/relationship-issues/love-styles.html>.
"Which Type of Love Are You Cultivating." Productive Flourishing. N.d. Web. 15 November 2012. < http://www.productiveflourishing.com/which-type-of-love-are-you-cultivating/>.
