This book, written by Thomas Hardy is a story of a pretty woman, Bathsheba Everdeen, the men she encounters, the choices she makes the & their outcome. Set in rural England, where all of Hardy's novels are set, it describes the scenes of sheep shearing, Thanksgiving festival, autumn in the forests, soldier's sword manoeuvres with great eye for detail. Bathsheba Everdene is portrayed as a pretty young woman, quite aware of her own good looks, but practical and independent. She meets a young shephard Gabriel Oak who has just started his independent sheep farm & he becomes enamoured with her & proposes to her. She refuses him as he is too homely and unassuming for her fancy. She inherits her uncle's farm after his death and moves away from the place. She takes charge of the farm and decides to run it herself as the bailiff is found to be a thief. By a misfortune Gabriel Oak loses all his sheep in an accident and becomes penniless. By a curious coincidence of fate he obtains the shephard's job at Bathsheba's farm. Bathsheba, now a rich woman finds admiring male eyes everywhere she goes. Her vanity is piqued when she notices that a rich farmer in the neighbourhood Mr Boldwood, is the only man who is not moved by her good looks. In an idle moment she sends him a valentine card. Her object is soon attained when Farmer Boldwood not only notices her but starts getting obsessed with her. He proposes marriage to her. By this time Bathsheba meets a young, dashing soldier Francis Troy who soon sweeps her off her feet and she marries him. Initially their life is blissful but Troy gives up soldiering and leads an idle and dissipated life on his wife's money. Her farm, which she had earlier managed herself, suffers neglect at the hands of her uncaring husband. In difficult times it is Gabriel Oak who comes to her assistance again & again. Unknown to her Troy had been about to marry her servent Fanny Robin and would have done so but for a cruel stroke of fate where Fanny and misheard the name of the church they were to get married in & waited in vain for her groom in a different church. Fanny's fate is a sad one as she dies of starvation & exhaustion. Troy on coming to know of Fanny's fate, regrets not marrying her & mourns for her & her unborn child. He leaves Bathsheba and goes off by himself He is presumed to be dead when his clothes are found by the beach. Bathsheba who is prostrated by grief and shock by these events , recovers slowly and tries to once more get to normalcy. Farmer Boldwood once again pursues her with dogged determination & forces her to enter into an engagement with him. On the day the engagement is declared Sergeant Troy reappears once more to claim his wife & Farmer Boldwood shoots him dead. At the end of the book when Bathsheba hears that Gabriel Oak will be moving away to America, she feels deserted by her steadfast admirer, and agrees at last to marry him.
The vivid descriptions of pastoral life, conveys its rural, rustic charm to the reader. Bathsheba's transition from a slightly vain, rash, impetuous girl, to a lovelorn, heartbroken, married woman, to a wiser, chastened person at the end of the book is skilfully narrated. The characters of the three men are each different. Troy, as the flamboyant, skilful swordster , who is charismatic but unreliable, persuasive but untrue. Farmer Boldwood is a perfectionist, who gets unhinged and loses his mental balance in the throes of emotion. Lastly Farmer Oak, who like the Oak tree, is simple and without pretensions, but reliable and trustworthy.
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