Hardy uses personification to describe the day that Gabriel chooses to propose to Bathsheba:
On a day which had a summer face and a winter constitution—a fine January morning when there was just enough blue sky visible to make cheerfully disposed people wish for more, and an occasional sunshiny gleam of silvery whiteness, Oak put the lamb into a respectable Sunday basket, and stalked across the fields to the home of Mrs Hurst the aunt [...]
The day itself is described as having a “summer face” and a “winter constitution,” an interior and exterior that do not match, in the same way that the appearance and manner of a person may not match. In the most literal sense, the day appears warm because some blue sky is visible, but it ultimately remains wintry and cool.
The incongruity between the day’s reality and appearance is thematically resonant in a book in which appearances often reveal a character’s interiority. Hardy describes Gabriel earlier on as midway between the “beauty of Saint John and the ugliness of Judas Iscariot,” another way of saying he is neither strikingly beautiful nor hideously ugly (and neither truly good or bad). This is a reference to long-held, religiously informed conventions in art that hold that beauty is good and ugliness is evil. Gabriel’s physicality reveals something about his character.
While no moralistic reference is made in physical descriptions of Bathsheba, there is a noted discrepancy between her physical appeal to men and her internal insistence on independence. The personification of this morning, the morning she will reject Gabriel’s proposal, could echo (in perhaps a misogynistic way) Bathsheba’s inner coldness toward the idea of marriage or commitment.
This act of personification also foreshadows what the day holds for Gabriel. Upon first glance, the day looks auspicious. The weather is beautiful, and he expects his proposal to Bathsheba will go over well. However, the day is not as welcoming to his efforts as he suspects, and what looks like a change in the weather turns out colder than expected.
In a heavy handed moment of foreshadowing, Bathsheba sends her future suitor a gag valentine with the words “Marry Me” printed across it:
A large red seal was duly affixed. Bathsheba looked closely at the hot wax to discover the words. “Capital!” she exclaimed, throwing down the letter frolicsomely. “’Twould upset the solemnity of a parson and clerke too.”
Liddy looked at the words of the seal, and read—
“MARRY ME.”
In this scene, Bathsheba and Libby play a game using the Book of Ruth, trying to predict who Bathsheba will marry. It is implied that she thinks of Boldwood while undertaking it. Then, Bathsheba writes a very silly valentine, seals it with a stamp saying “Marry Me,” and addresses it anonymously to Boldwood. Bathsheba is tickled, saying that the valentine would “upset the solemnity” of even a parson.
The Bible and key game that the two women play is something like Spin the Bottle—a lighthearted party game. The game and the valentine are both in good fun, but the latter is incidentally prophetic. Bathsheba is unaware of it, but this valentine will spark a romantic obsession in Boldwood that wilk last years, over the course of which he will propose several times. She never marries him, but the intensity of the valentine is predictive of the intensity of his attachment, from which Bathsheba has to work to free herself.
In a moment of explicit foreshadowing, Bathsheba sings a song about jilted lovers at a dinner held in her house:
Subsequent events caused one of the verses to be remembered for many months, and even years, by more than one of those who were gathered there:—
For his bride a soldier sought her,
And a winning tongue had he:
On the banks of Allan Water
None was gay as she!
Bathsheba sings a song called “The Banks of Allan Water,” a ballad about a soldier who breaks a girl’s heart with his false promises. The young girl ultimately dies. The narration makes an explicit connection between the song and the future of the characters without specifying who (“Subsequent events”). The song ultimately foretells Bathsheba’s relationship with Troy, a soldier who wins her and disappoints her (though he is the one who ultimately dies at Boldwood’s hands).
Interestingly, the song also reflects the arc of Fanny and Troy’s courtship. The song resembles their story almost perfectly, as Fanny eventually dies after being neglected by Troy. In this way, this piece of foreshadowing connects the two romantic arcs and frames Fanny as a precursor to Bathsheba. Fanny’s story is almost a mirror to Bathsheba’s, with a fate she might have shared if not for their difference in class (and Fanny’s accidental pregnancy). This moment of foreshadowing adds tension and stakes to the upcoming scenes and informs the reader that Bathsheba has not seen the end of her troubles (or of her suitors).
