- Bathsheba Everdane’s relationships with Farmer Boldwood and Sergeant Troy do not succeed.
- There is no true love between Bathsheba and the two men.
- Although she takes long to realise it, Bathsheba’s true love is Gabriel Oak.
- A good marriage is founded on mutual love between the partners.
- Body
- A marriage should be based on honesty, patience, forgiveness and the willingness to help each other.
- People who plan to marry to ensure that they are both truly in love with each other.
- Relationships that end in lasting marriages are strong and the partners are mature and ready to marry their partners
- Conclusion
A lasting marriage is based on patience, understanding, honesty and the willingness for each partner to help the other.
Introduction
Love and marriage are interesting issues. Marriage can work when the man loves the woman and the woman also loves the man. But marriage cannot last long when it is only one of them who love the other. In the story about Bathsheba, she gets into a relationship with two men she does not love. One of the men is Farmer Boldwood and the other is Sergeant Troy. Before meeting the two men she meets a man called Gabriel Oak but they do not become strong friends. When Bathsheba breaks-up with sergeant Troy and Farmer Boldwood, she gets married to Gabriel Oak. A marriage can last when people truly love each other by showing understanding, patience, honesty, helpfulness and willing to forgive each other.
A marriage should be based on honesty, understanding, patience, forgiveness and the willingness to help each other. When Bathsheba first met Gabriel, he was a shepherd. Later Gabriel’s farming business collapses and Bathsheba employs him in her farm. When Bathsheba first met Gabriel she refused to get married to him because she never knew him well. She also felt that she did not love him. Gabriel is patient with Bathsheba and he gives her time to accept to marry him. At the time Gabriel is employed in Bathsheba’s farm, Bathsheba gets into a relationship with Farmer Boldwood and Sergeant Troy. This does not prevent Gabriel from loving Bathsheba. Gabriel patiently waits for his time to show how much he loved Bathsheba. He also forgives her for ignoring his love and he agrees to marry her. In Bathsheba’s relationship with Farmer Boldwood there is jealousy. When Boldwood finds out that Bathsheba is interested in Sergeant Troy he gets enraged. The relationship between Bathsheba and Gabriel is therefore the best because each of them is honest and willing to forgive the other.
People who plan to marry to ensure that they are both truly in love with each other. Bathsheba meets Boldwood when she moves to Weatherbury where they become neighbours. The relationship between Bathsheba and Boldwood is not based on true love. Bathsheba sends Boldwood a valentine asking him to marry her but she is not serious. Boldwood becomes obsessed with Bathsheba and proposes to marry her but she refuses. Bathsheba is only attracted to Boldwood because he is rich and handsome. Boldwood likes Bathsheba because she is rich and beautiful. In fact, Bathsheba admits that she never loved Boldwood (Hardy, 1894). Their relationship does not last long and she frees and gets into another relationship with a soldier named Troy. Their relationship is not based on mutual love. Troy is being hypocritical as he had impregnated another girl named Fanny but he did not want Bathsheba to know about that issue (Hardy, 1894). The relationship between Bathsheba and Troy angers Boldwood because he considers Bathsheba to be still engaged to him at that time. The relationships that Bathsheba had with Sergeant Troy and Boldwood do not last long because there is no true love in any of them.
Relationships that end in lasting marriages are strong and the partners are mature and ready to marry their partners. Although the two of them meet many challenges they overcome those challenges and finally get married. Although, Bathsheba tells Gabriel that she does not love him at the point they meet it seems that their love grows with time and they later discover that they truly loved each other. This leads them to marry each other. It takes so long for Gabriel and Bathsheba to get married because Bathsheba had been involving herself in other relationships. In that time, their love is maturing and each of them was trying to discover their true love in life. There are several issues about marriage that people can learn from the novel Far From the Madding Crowd. Although Bathsheba is involved in three relationships but only one worked. She gets into a relationship with Troy and Boldwood for other reasons other than love. She is attracted to the men because they are rich and handsome. The novel brings about situations that show that for love to work it has to be mutual. Troy and Boldwood are the only ones who are in love with Bathsheba but she does not love any of them in return.
Conclusion
The novel Far From the Maddening Crowd shows that marriage should be based on true love. When people truly love each other they are patient, honest, helpful and willing to forgive each other. In my opinion, true love should never be based on material or physical attraction only but rather on the character of the person one plans to marry. While physical beauty and riches are important, the character of a person affects a marriage more than any other factors. It is also important for people to give each other time to discover the kind of people they would want to marry.
References
Hardy, T. 1894. Far From the Madding Crowd: New York and London: Harper and Brothers Publications.
