Far from the Madding Crowd | The Distinction Between Romance and Reality
In the following essay, Morrell explores the distinction Hardy draws between romance and reality in Far from the Madding Crowd.
This novel is more typical of Hardy than a casual reading and a simplifying memory might indicate. The end, for example, is emphatically not a romantic happy-ever-after affair. We need not take Joseph Poorgrass’s final “it might have been worse” at quite its long-face value; and we can see the title of the final chapter (“A Foggy Night and Morning”) as perhaps Hardy’s way of touching wood: there is, indeed, a suppressed and sober, but none the less noticeable, elation about the tone of the end; but the fact remains that Gabriel is no Prince Charming for a girl of three- or...
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