Christopher Booker is a scholar who wrote that every story falls into one of seven basic plot structures: Overcoming the Monster, Rags to Riches, the Quest, Voyage and Return, Comedy, Tragedy, and Rebirth. Shmoop explores which of these structures fits this story like Cinderella’s slipper.
Plot Type : Comedy
Far from the Madding Crowd isn't exactly funny ha-ha, but there are definitely enough comedic elements in it for us to call it a comedy. At the point at which he wrote Far from the Madding Crowd, Thomas Hardy was making a transition from writing comedy to writing tragedy.
So even though the book ends up as a comedy, you'll often find it almost tipping into tragedy, then tipping back into comedy at the last second. We'll show you what we mean in the following breakdown:
Shadow of Confusion
In the beginning, things aren't looking good for Gabriel Oak. He has lost all of his money in a freak accident involving a flock of sheep and a steep cliff, and the woman he loves (Bathsheba) has turned down his proposal of marriage. Despite the rejection, though, Oak promises Bathsheba that he'll love her until the day he dies. This is a pretty common thing for a lover in a comedy to say, and there's a good chance Oak will make good on this claim.
On top of these problems, comedy also tends to involve a character that needs to undergo some sort of change. In this instance, Gabriel isn't your man. Instead, it's Bathsheba who needs to change, since her pride is what has kept her from marrying a man who she actually really loves. Beyond that, her pride is also what will ultimately make her fortunes turn for the worse when she marries the handsome and superficial Sergeant Troy.
Nightmarish Tangle
As we mentioned in the last stage, Bathsheba's vanity ultimately leads her to marry Sergeant Troy. First, because he is good looking; second, because he is a smooth talker; and third, because he is constantly flattering her with compliments. Bathsheba doesn't see through his act, though. It's only after they're married that she finds out Troy has gone through this same routine with a woman named Fanny Robin. The difference is that he left Fanny Robin (along with their baby) to die in the street while he got rich by marrying Bathsheba.
Bathsheba's marriage to Troy doesn't just break the heart of Gabriel Oak. It utterly destroys another one of Bathsheba's suitors, the old and respectable Farmer Boldwood. At this point in the book, it's pretty clear that nobody's happy, not even Sergeant Troy, who realizes that he truly loved Fanny and that he'll always regret what he did to her.
Joyful Union
As with any good comedy, Far from the Madding Crowd ends with secret identities being revealed and with soul mates finally being united. The path Hardy takes to get to this result, though, is a lot more violent than the one many traditional comedies take. For starters, Sergeant Troy comes back and pulls off a disguise after leading everyone to think he was dead. He is rewarded for his trouble, though, with a deadly shotgun blast to the chest. The man who pulls the trigger is Farmer Boldwood, who goes to jail for the rest of his life.
Now that Boldwood and Troy are out of the way, the path is clear for Bathsheba and Gabriel Oak to finally be together, since Oak has inherited the command of Boldwood's farm and is now rich enough to marry Bathsheba. When they get married at the end of the book, everyone is pretty happy, but not totally joyful. After all, it's taken more than one ruined life to get things to where they are.