Allusion And Illusion:An Archetypal Reading Of Thomas Hardy’s Far From The Madding Crowd

Published in 1874 as Thomas Hardy’s first literary success,Far From the Madding Crowd is the first novel of Hardy’s Wessex series,set in Weatherbury of Wessex district in the Victorian period in Britain,unfolding the love tangle of Bathsheba Everdene and three men.In the novel,Hardy adopts numerous biblical and mythological elements in characterization and narration,leading to the intertextual relation between the novel and other literary texts,enriching the meaning of the novel,and augmenting more possibilities for interpretation.Targeted at the allusions in the novel,this thesis attempts to analyze the thematic and artistic effects these allusions produce within the text,further discussing their cultural implications.The source and original meaning of all the crucial allusions are investigated through close reading,followed by a comparative study of the original text and the appropriated allusions in the novel to reveal the denotation of allusions in the framework of archetypal criticism and intertextuality theory.It is found that Hardy’s use of allusions establishes a forceful and significant connection between characters in the novel and their historical archetypes,reinforcing the expression of the novel’s theme.The most prominent theme is the archetypal pastoral life in Arcadia in ancient Greece and the Garden of Eden in the Bible.However,the pastoral life delineated in the novel is an illusion because the social development of British society and the estrangement from traditional moral values alienate people from this idealized lifestyle farther and farther.Nevertheless,the pastoral world constructed by Hardy reflects his reminiscence of simple rural life in his hometown and dissatisfaction with current society,expressing an idealized living condition via allusions to the ancient text.The thesis consists of an introduction,three chapters,and a conclusion.The introduction mainly puts forward the life and literary achievements of Thomas Hardy,the writing of Far From the Madding Crowd,and the related research,introducing the theoretical framework and the structure of the thesis in detail.Chapter one scrutinizes the hero Gabriel and the heroine Bathsheba.Through analysis of relevant allusions,this study discovers that the archetypes of Gabriel are biblical Gabriel the angel,Moses the prophet,and Jesus,the savior.The archetypal identities of Bathsheba are biblical Bathsheba,Eve,and Diana in Greek mythology.Chapter two discusses another two crucial figures:Troy and Boldwood.The archetypal identities of Troy are Paris of the Trojan war and Satan in the Bible,inferring his infidelity within marriage and moral depravity.The biblical archetypes of Boldwood display the dynamic movement of his mentality.He is identified with Daniel and Adam at the first emotional phase of indifference and awakening to love,while his archetypes shift into Jacob and Jonah at his second emotional phase of idolization and the consequent despair.Chapter three focuses on the cultural implications and reflections on the allusions as a whole,arguing that the archetypal pastoral world built by biblical and mythological allusions turns out to be an illusion,an imagined world.The pastoral life in the countryside incarnated in the land of Arcadia and the Garden of Eden only exists in an imaginary sphere.