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Similes
Key Examples in Far From the Madding Crowd
Chapter 3
Explanation and Analysis—Bathsheba's Manner:
In this scene, one of many occasions on which Oak watches Bathsheba without her knowledge, Hardy’s use of situational irony tells the reader something about Bathsheba’s relationship to her own beauty:
She came, the pail in one hand, hanging against her knee. The left arm was extended as a balance [...] There was a bright air and manner about her now, by which she seemed to imply that the desirability of her existence could not be questioned; and this rather saucy assumption failed in being offensive because a beholder felt it to be, upon the whole, true. [...] It was with some surprise that she saw Gabriel’s face rising like the moon, behind the hedge.
Related Themes:
Chapter 4
Explanation and Analysis—The Forwardest Thing:
After Gabriel Oak leaves Bathsheba's aunt’s farm, Bathsheba chases him down to let him know that she has no other suitors. He proposes, and she rejects him immediately. In a moment of situational irony, she admits that if she truly wanted to marry him, she would never pursue him outright:
Unlock with LitCharts A+“ [...] Why, if I’d wanted you I shouldn’t have run after you like this; t’would have the forwardest thing! But there was no harm in hurrying to correct a piece of false news that had been told you.”
Related Themes:
Chapter 18
Explanation and Analysis—Boldwood's Moods:
After Boldwood has become the target of Bathsheba’s joke valentine, the narrator reveals that, beneath his veneer of apparent calm, Boldwood is a deeply emotional person. This description is actually an instance of situational irony, as the unassuming Boldwood is revealed to be full of passion:
Unlock with LitCharts A+That stillness, which struck casual observers more than anything else in his character and habit [...] may have been the perfect balance of enormous antagonistic forces—positives and negatives in fine adjustment. His equilibrium disturbed, he was in extremity at once. [...]Bathsheba was far from dreaming that the dark and silent shape upon which she had so carelessly thrown a seed was a hotbed of tropic intensity. Had she known Boldwood’s moods, her blame would have been fearful, and the stain upon her heart ineradicable [...] she would have trembled at her responsibility.
