Naivety and tragedy in Far From The Madding Crowd.

There is plenty to write about today. A big story is the government inquiry into the grooming gangs, which is the biggest scandal in Britain. It involved the mass rape and psychological torture of girls by men who had predominantly originated from Pakistan. The crimes were hushed up by the government and mainstream media dismissed the whole (ongoing) scandal as a racist bandwagon. The inquiry will be challenged by Rupert Lowe’s independent team that will hold the government to account. I trust him as he has people like Raja Miah on board.

Another big story is that politicians have voted on the right to abort until birth. Our current ruling which had sensible limits with regard to abortion worked for the majority of the British public but we’re all about minority rights these days. At 3 months of pregnancy, I had my first scan which showed a very vague image of the life growing inside of me but by 6 months, this life had a sex and we could see her limbs. I believe that extra effort should be put in to supporting human life, including babies, the ill and the elderly as opposed to regarding them as an inconvenience. I can see the government going full on Marxist and disregarding human life for the sake of an ideology that regards people are mere commodities.

When the world around me goes mad, I take solace in the arts and so I spent my afternoon watching the period drama, Far From The Madding Crowd. I actually searched for this because I wanted to see more work from the late actor, Nigel Terry (Excalibur legend). Nigel plays Mr Boldwood in this adaptation of Thomas Hardy’s famous novel. Mr Boldwood is a distinguished older gentleman who falls in love with the main character, Bathsheba Everdene.

Bathsheba is new to the farm that she inherits. She is beautiful, headstrong and naive. She is still a girl who has yet to learn many things. Unfortunately, she has not grown out of her childish jest and so she makes the mistake of sending Mr Boldwood a teasing Valentines note. However, he takes that note very seriously and keeps pressing Bathsheba for marriage. To be fair, to counter his own foolishness. she should have been honest and admitted her mistake. He would have been sad but could have adapted to the truth over keeping faith in something that was started as a lie by Bathsheba.

Meanwhile, there are other male contenders for Bathsheba’s affections. One is Sergeant Troy who meets a tragic ending in the story. I had some empathy for him but he was as foolish and even more destructive than Bathsheba. They are both wilful and impulsive characters compared to the stoic man in Bathsheba’s life. He is suitably named Gabriel Oak.

Gabriel is like an angel who sees Bathsheba as a flawed human from the start but loves her anyway and looks out for her. He helps with the farm and stays around even when she tries to defy him. I can tell Bathsheba was under pressure and wanted to prove herself. She wanted to show strength to the madding (chaotic) crowd and sometimes that meant she acted defensively. I have empathy for her also but it broke my heart with regard to Mr Boldwood. He just kept on loving her, planning for when she would eventually say yes to marrying him and even committed an act that would free her from potential harm but place him in prison.

The man was devoted to her and so it was painfully obvious that she was wrong to not nip that in the bud. By the time we see Bathsheba’s story end on a calm and happier point, we see the weariness in her eyes and the understanding that what we don’t own up to in life, comes back to haunt us.

For now, I will leave this here. Thank you for reading.