Their paths crosses again, and she ends up hiring Gabriel as her new shepherd. Bathsheba, on the other hand, inherits her uncle's prosperous estate in Westbury. Gabriel's fortunes take a worse for turn, when his inexperienced sheep dog drives his flock of sheep over a cliff, bankrupting him. Valuing her independence too much, Bathsheba refuses and their relationship cools down. Although the pair develops a close friendship, Gabriel falls in love with Bathsheba and eventually proposes marriage. She meets Gabriel Oak, a former shepherd who has leased and stocked a sheep farm. The story begins with Bathsheba living on a farm with her aunt, Mrs. *Sergeant Francis 'Frank' Troy - a dashing Army sergeant, who turns to Bathsheba not long after his planned wedding to a local girl named Fanny Robin fails to take place. *William Boldwood - a prosperous farmer and Bathsheba's neighbor, who develops a romantic obsession toward her *Gabriel Oak - a failed sheep farmer who is hired by Bathsheba as a shepherd for her farm Possessing a vain, yet independent and naïve personality, Bathsheba finds herself torn between three men who wish to marry her: This led me to try Hardy again and so, I focused my attention on the 1998 miniseries, 'FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD'.īased upon Hardy's 1874 novel, 'FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD' told the story about a young woman named Bathsheba Everdene, who had recently inherited her late uncle's prosperous estate. As I grew older, I discovered a tolerance for stories with a downbeat or bittersweet ending.

I found the latter rather depressing and suspected that most of his other works possessed the same downbeat tone. My attitude sprang from my reading of his 1886 novel, 'The Mayor of Casterbridge', when I was in my late teens. This has nothing to do with how I felt about the quality of his work. 'FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD' (1998) Reviewįor years, I had made an effort to avoid any novel written by Thomas Hardy and any movie or television production based upon his works.

Far from the madding crowd about