The tone of Far from the Madding Crowd is tragicomic, weaving together sorrow and humor. After Troy tells Bathsheba that she is nothing to him, she flees into the woods to hide from her life and her feelings. There, she crosses paths with a schoolboy practicing his prayers:
“‘O Lord, O Lord, O Lord, O Lord, O Lord’: That I know. ‘Give us, give us, give us, give us, give us’: That I know. ‘Grace that, grace that, grace that, grace that’: That I know.” [....]The boy was of the dunce class apparently [....]. In the worst attacks of trouble there appears to be always a superficial film of consciousness which is left disengaged and open to the notice of trifles, and Bathsheba was faintly amused at the boy’s method, till he too passed on.
The boy, who is a terrible student (“of the dunce class”) is memorizing his prayer with great difficulty, line by line. His lack of self-awareness is comic, as he walks along muttering the words out loud, unaware that he is being watched and listened to. Bathsheba, even in the midst of her despair, cannot help but feel amused.
Hardy writes that even in the ugliest moments of life, there is always a level of our consciousness that is “disengaged and open to the notice of trifles.” The deliberateness with which this little schoolboy is included, despite his uselessness to the greater plot, signals the importance of the commentary in this section. Hardy makes a point of revealing his device to the audience explicitly, reminding the reader that humor and strife can (and often do) exist side by side.
Far from the Madding Crowd explores issues of class and gender, as well as fate, contingency, and circumstance. All of these struggles are imposed on the characters from without and are impossible to eliminate from their lives. But all the characters are capable of opening up to “trifles” (as Hardy says) and exhibiting a sense of humor while undergoing these. In this way, humor empowers Hardy’s characters, even as they wrestle with uncontrollable events and forces.
