Far from the Madding Crowd is set in Victorian England, which means that you're going to get a double dose of religion. More specifically, this novel observes the way in which religion shapes people's moral codes. Whenever someone needs to make sense of a difficult situation, they often do so by referring to a passage in the Bible that tells of a similar situation.
One of the funny things you'll find throughout this book, though, is that characters who can't read well are constantly misquoting the Bible, meaning that they take comfort from expressions that aren't in the Bible to begin with. But that doesn't change the fact that these people still find comfort in thinking that they're quoting the Bible.
Questions About Religion
- Do you get the sense that any character in this book is truly religious, or do they tend to quote from the Bible without thinking deeply about the words mean?
- In what types of situations does Hardy's narrator drop Bible references into this book? Why?
- What lie does Sergeant Troy tell Bathsheba to explain why she never sees him in church on Sunday? Does it work?
Chew on This
In Far from the Madding Crowd, Hardy shows us that life would be a lot easier if people just followed the Bible's guidance.
In the end, Far from the Madding Crowd tells us that people might quote the Bible often, but that very few actually think about what the words mean.