An Analysis Of Far From The Madding Crowd From The Perspective Of The Spatial Criticism

Thomas Hardy was an important regional novelist and poet of the Victorian age(1837-1901). His fame chiefly rests upon his Wessex novels, also called novels of "Character and Environment". His novels reflected three stages of development of his literary thoughts. Far from the Madding Crowd, published in1874, was an overwhelming success, marking a turning point in Hardy’s literary life.The Spatial criticism is a new trend of literary criticism which is a combination of cultural geography and literary works. In the spatial criticism,"space" is not subsidiary to time and sace is not a static passive container. It is a strong power formed on the basis of certain culture. Henri Lefebvre and Michel Foucault are the early founders of the spatial criticism who have contributed the most to the spatial criticism. Mike Crang contributes a lot to Cultural Geography. According to Lefebvre, any socially produced space is composed of a dialectically interwoven matrix of what he calls’representations of space’,’representational spaces’, and ’spatial practice’. In literature, the spatial criticism refers "space" to the abstract and metaphorical landscape, which is a symbolic system of social culture and value. The "landscape" includes material landscape and non-material landscape. The former includes what the people can feel through sensational organs:the color, the form and so on in the city, building, characters and so on; the latter includes a variety of factors such as ideology, view of the world and political elements. With the application of the spatial criticism, we can explore the deep social significance of the literal works.This thesis explores the deep social significance in Far from the Madding Crowd with the spatial criticism. There are different spaces in this novel such as architectural space, scenery space. The architectural and scenery landscape have implied relationships and the relationships regulate human being’s ideology and behavior.The architectural spaces include Mrs.Hurst’s Cottage, the Corn-market at Casterbridge, the great barn and the churches. Mrs. Hurst’s cottage was the living space of Bathsheba when she came to the Norcombe Hill from an outside town. A cottage in the country means a small house. Women who lived in the cottage were not rich enough to pay a man to attend to the sick cows and to milk the cows. They had to do manual work by themselves. Compared with the manorial hall in Weatherbury after Bathsheba inherited her uncle’s farm, Mrs. Hurst’s cottage, was an inferior living space. And the inferior living space suggests an inferior social status. The Corn-market at Casterbridge was representations of spaces of gender inequality. The Corn Exchange was a public space and this place implied the male gender privilege in the patriarchal society. In the patriarchal society the social spaces are generally divided into two parts:the center, public, and dominating space is distributed to the male class; whereas the peripheral, private and subordinate space to the female.Women are generally confined to the private space, mainly home and kitchen. Bathsheba’s doing business with male farmers in the corn-market was an unconventional conduct and the unconventional conduct crossed the invisible boarder line of the male and female spaces, thus insulting the male farmers to some degree. They could not bear it. Here, the Corn Exchange functions the surveillance and represents the power that regulates women’s behavior. The great barn was more than four hundred years and it was the most natural and well-reserved old building in this parish. Its structure and antiquity made it comparable with the church. The great barn implied the traditions in this patriarchal society. The churches in this novel resemble religiousconfinement and religious doctrines regulated person’s behaviors. Those persons who abode by religious doctrine were blessed by God and had good endings; those who violated the doctrines were punished by God and dot bad endings.The scenery space include the meadow, the wood, the lightening and thunder. The meadow as a space concept, refers to an vast, open space of grass and the space was vigorous. The space concept signifies Boldwood’s wakening of love. And the meadow is the stage for the love. In contrast with this beautiful landscape of love, the author presented a gloomy scenery of poor Fanny Robin’s death. She died in the Casterbridge Union house and was put in a plain elm coffin. When the funeral wagon carried the poor girl’s coffin toward Weatherbury, the wood space in the fog was just like a monster that watched the poor girl’s misery, indifferently. In this relatively enclosed depressing space, death atmosphere haunted. The lightening and thunder was a space of might and human beings had to learn how to survive in this space.Bathsheba came to Norcombe Hill to take shelter in her aunt Mrs.Hurst’s cottage. Then she went to Weatherbury to inherit her uncle’s farm and became independent in economy. She tried to pursue independence in love and marriage but her inappropriate choice of marriage forced her to surrender to patriarchy and religion. Her marrying Oak finally was a surrender to this parish which was a space with implicit power and relationship.The novel narrates a love story among Bathsheba, Oak and Boldwood. This novel describes the manners and customs, religion and economy in Wessex, expressing the author’s positive attitude toward patriarchy and Christianity in the pastoral society. Bathsheba was young, wealthy, unwilling to be husband’s property readily. She resisted the patriarchy and tried to maintain her independence in love, marriage and economy. But she was punished by life because of her impulsiveness and vanity. Actually, Bathsheba had to surrender to the patriarchal society due to deep social causes.Through the exploration of architectural space and scenery space in Far from the Madding Crowd in the perspective of the criticism, we draw a conclusion that spaces regulate a human being’s behavior with its implicit power and relationship. We should explore and understand the implied power in the space and the social significance of literary works.