HARDY FORUM ARCHIVE HO3037 5/22/03 "DISCARDED CHAPTER IN FFMC"
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Date: Thu, 22 May 2003 16:24:58 -0400
From: John Gould <jgould@andover.edu>
Subject: A Discarded Chapter in FFMC


Dear List,

I have a question (or a series of them, actually) coming from an
appendix in Rosemarie Morgan's Penguin edtion of FAR FROM THE MADDING
CROWD. Hardy roughed out a chapter that he ultimately did not use;
Rosemarie includes it at the end of the book.

The omitted chapter is fascinating. After Troy has been married to
Bathsheba for some time (presumably between the wedding-party storm
and the racing day at Budmouth), Gabriel notices that the "fatting"
sheep have grown surprisingly quickly. Suspicious, he checks closer
to discover that they are actually suffering from "rot," which
condition first fattens, then kills them. Doing a little midnight
detective work, Gabriel discovers that Troy has been deliberately
exposing the sheep to some nasty feeding grounds in order to infect
them. He confronts Troy, wrestles with him, and drives him away,
standing guard over the sheep all night. As he leaves Troy tells
Gabriel he's fired, but the next day Troy (sheepishly?) returns to
withdraw the firing, saying that Bathsheba can't run the farm without
Gabriel.

My students are all writing term-papers on FFMC, some about
shepherding and Gabriel as a good, even super, shepherd; some about
Troy, that "wicked soldier hero." I know they would be interested in
answers to the following questions:

-- What is "rot"? Does it exist? Is Hardy giving an accurate
description? Can it be spread the way Hardy says it can?

-- What can we learn from Hardy's decision NOT to use this chapter?
Does it tell us anything about his intentions for Troy? For Gabriel?

I shall forward any salient comments on to the classes.

Thanks and best wishes to all,

John

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Date: Thu, 22 May 2003 18:43:44 -0400
From: Rosemarie Morgan <rosemarie.morgan@yale.edu>
Subject: Re: A Discarded Chapter in FFMC


Interesting questions, John but I'm not sure the answers are easy. In my
investigation into "rot" I came up with 2 plausible responses:

1. That a form of Foot-and-Mouth disease was capable of bloating out sheep
and making them look fat. But you'd have to take them to market mighty
quick once infected.

2. That Hardy invented this "rot" condition to help the aggrandisement of
Oak as the good shepherd.

Fragments abandoned because:

1. Hardy realised that no-one among his middle-class urban readers would
want this stroke of harsh realism shattering their "pastoral idyll."

2. Hardy realised he would be vilfied among the farming community for
revealing this kind of scam (which, in like form, did go on-- the market
selling of "rotten" stock -- I think the Agricultural Fair has something
minor on this; the watering-down-of-milk-scam in the milk trade -- I think
it's mentioned in TD).

Oh yes! -- from the evidence & provenance of the fragment it appears this
piece was composed before the major epsiodes you mention. Hardy would
compose small set-pieces and send them into editor L Stephen for his
approval as things-in-themselves (later to be inserted into the novel
proper). The Great Barn was once such set-piece (LS loved it!). It would
make sense that this fragment was composed at the stage when Hardy thought
he was going to write a "pastoral" of the UGT kind (as Stephen certainly
expected) into which elements of myth and fairytale (heroes and monsters)
would be incipient if not prevalent.


This last should be kept to yourself (not for your students--don't want to
shape their reading).

I came to the general conclusion, after studying the ms changes throughout
(see *Cancelled Words*) that Hardy grew increasingly attached to Troy and
his strongest efforts to degrade him --in order to create a "wicked soldier
hero" -- (his words) -- failed miserably in many cases, the sheep rot scene
being the worst! (readers will see why when they read the piece for
themselves). Same time, Oak was to become less than heroic as Hardy's work
proceeded -- his interest in Oak waned considerably. General tendency of
the narrative is that marrying Bathsheba off in a "happy marriage" at the
end was not the original drift of the novel-- but superimposed in the race
to the finish (TH losing interest in the "happy ending", of course).
Efforts to "noble-ise" Oak and to make him more attractive to the reader
were often half-hearted -- question would be, would this scene help? Doubt
it. As you can see Oak, here, becomes prissy and smug. There is also the
factor (for which I have no evidence aside from ms pickings), that it does
not reflect well on Bathsheba to have Troy quite this evil. Your students
will no doubt be deeply moved by the way this young girl deals with the
killing of her young husband; this kind of heroism in his heroine is
something that caught at Hardy's heart also (how do we know this? from his
sensitively-revised & painstakingly re-revised passages of poetic prose and
of deep psychological probings- as opposed to the melodramatic pieces which
Hardy tossed off in a milisecond) . Ditto her psychological breakdown-- the
way she handled that (no Prozac in those days) reflects a silent courage
and spiritual power that might be diminished by this "flashy" episode.

We are (unfortunately), judged by the company we keep.

Good Luck! I'd very much like to hear what others have to say--

Cheers,
Rosemarie

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Date: Thu, 22 May 2003 22:56:49 -0400
From: John Gould <jgould@andover.edu>
Subject: Re: A Discarded Chapter in FFMC


Dear Rosemarie,

Thank you so much for this response. The kids will love it. Some of
them are suspicious of Oak, some of Troy, some of Bathsheba: they
are all reading critically and with great interest. This will give
them lots of food for thought!

I hope others on the list will toss in some contributions as well.
The responses can all serve as sources for the students' research,
which means that the emails will be cited in the papers. For some of
them, such as the ones writing about the skills of shepherding,
sources are hard to come by.

Best, John

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Date: Thu, 22 May 2003 23:39:08 -0400
From: Rosemarie Morgan <rosemarie.morgan@yale.edu>
Subject: Re: A Discarded Chapter in FFMC


One of the skills of shepherding is that no shepherd would ever feed a
newly-dead lamb to his sheepdog-- as does Oak. Bloodlust is dangerously and
easily triggered even in a highly -trained canine. Oak gets his
come-uppance (his entire flock is over-driven by the excited dog) --
Hardy hasn't included this episode for no reason.

(oops! seems to be only you-n'me John!)

Cheers,
Rosemarie

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Date: Fri, 23 May 2003 07:25:30 -0400
From: Robert Schweik <schweikr@localnet.com>
Subject: Re: A Discarded Chapter in FFMC


John,

One point about that cancelled chapter not so far noted: four passages from
it were adapted to use
in an entirely different circumstance in the novel--the description of the
swamp that Bathsheba
sleeps near after her flight from Troy in chapter XLIV. Those were, "It
was a magnificent aureate
mist . . . .," "Desc. these fungi thus. . . . .," "a nursery of pestilences
. . . .," and "Iridescent bubbles
or dank subterreanean breath . . . ."

Bob Schweik
schweik@fredonia.edu
schweikr@localnet.com

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From: "Michael Barry" <michaelj.barry@talk21.com>
Subject: Re: A Discarded Chapter in FFMC
Date: Fri, 23 May 2003 04:19:09 +0100


Shepherding skills - an unusual literary topic! However your students might
be interested in a personal cult writer of mine, a major Scottish writer,
James Hogg (The Ettrick Shepherd) - who graduated to shepherd from cowherd!
His works include the substantial "A Shepherd's Calendar", which might be of
interest. Contact me on michaelj.barry@talk21.com if you need more info.
MB

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Date: Fri, 23 May 2003 09:59:50 -0400
From: Rosemarie Morgan <rosemarie.morgan@yale.edu>
Subject: Re: A Discarded Chapter in FFMC


This is true-- thank you Bob. In my introduction to the Appendix I have
made a note of this "culling". Another culled segment of the "sheeprot"
fragment occurs with Troy's words to Gabriel after their skirmish, "Now...
remember that I am her husband & injuring me is injuring her..." Adapted
for the MS these now become Troy's words in his skirmish with *Boldwood*
(XXXIII). A similar culling occurs with Troy's threat to fire Gabriel --
this becomes in the MS Bathsheba's threat to fire Oak before the
sheep-gas-blasting event. There are more instances of culling from this
fragment which time and space do not afford mention of here (but see
Appendices to FFMC, Penguin Classics, 2000, 398-412).

Cheers,
Rosemarie

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From: Thudecki@cs.com
Date: Fri, 23 May 2003 12:46:04 EDT
Subject: Re: A Discarded Chapter in FFMC

Hi....I have long wondered about the validity of that recently mentioned
scene in FFMC with the newly killed lamp being feed to the sheep dog. Thanks for
the insite, Rosemarie. I thought it cruel, as well, that he then killed the
poor young dog, perhaps shifting the blame from himself and alleviating his own
guilt. I felt he had failed in having a lack of attention to the flock that
night - I recall he had fallen alseep prematurely....if my memory serve me
right. In an earlier scene he he had fallen asleep without opening the vents in
his hut and nearly suffocated if it had not been for Bathsheba intervening to
save him. Perhaps Hardy right off wanted to show Oak's human tendencies and
shortcomings in that way, thus introducing the author to other possibilies in the
future of his character development. Otherwise the reader might sympathize
immediately, holding fast to a preconceived notion or picture of him as the
unsung hero, thus perfect and with out any error in actions or situations that
would arise in the future.
Janine T

Artist

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Date: Fri, 23 May 2003 14:38:36 -0400
From: Rosemarie Morgan <rosemarie.morgan@yale.edu>
Subject: Re: A Discarded Chapter in FFMC


I like your points about Oak's dozing off inappropriately, Janine. Aside
from noticing his laziness in sleeping prematurely instead of attending to
his duties I hadn't actually pieced together the other instances you cite.
These are important points, particularly in the light of twentieth-century
"feminist" criticism that Tess invites her own downfall by falling asleep
at inappropriate moments. I had always felt this (last) to be what Richard
so astutely observed the other day to be patriarchal attitudes cloaked in
feminism: after all, the exhausted 16 year-old girl can hardly be blamed
for laxity when worked to death most days of her life and naturally enough
extremely needy of sleep. But now that you've discovered Oak -- a
fully-grown man and *not* worked-to-death -- doing the same -- hmmm ..
methinks patriarchal-feminism might have to review its readings.

Thank you for your contribution,

Cheers,
Rosemarie

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From: "Michael Barry" <michaelj.barry@talk21.com>
Subject: Re: A Discarded Chapter in FFMC
Date: Fri, 23 May 2003 10:03:24 +0100


I don't know if it helps - (I'm finding it difficult to follow the feminist
implications in sleeping shepherds!) but the young lad in "What the shepherd
saw" regularly sleeps on the job - while his boss the old shepherd slips
back home for a kip, leaving the boy in charge of the about-to-lamb ewes.
The goings-on of the Duchess and Captian Ogbourne soon wake him up however!
Michael B

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Date: Fri, 23 May 2003 16:31:00 -0400
From: Rosemarie Morgan <rosemarie.morgan@yale.edu>
Subject: Re: A Discarded Chapter in FFMC
: list
Status:


I'm finding it difficult to follow the feminist
>implications in sleeping shepherds!
>Michael B
>

As well you might, Michael. I'll try and put it in a nutshell
(incidentally, Oak has gone home to his bed---he's not sleeping on the job
but he *has* omitted to pen, for the night, the half-trained sheepdog in
question).

It's not a question of sleeping shepherds but of falling asleep at
inappropriate moments. A certain 1970s school of (patriarchal) "feminist"
critics, tending to the view of Hardy-as-misogynist, argued that his
heroine, Tess, is the passive victim of both man and fate and therefore not
drawn from the pen of a "feminist" author concerned with the condition of
women. Among the points raised about passivity was that Tess falls asleep
at inappropriate moments: she is thus weak, passive, in effect
disenfranchised by her author.

(This "nutshell" may have glossd over salient points but it's the best I
can do for now without going on ad nauseam...)

Best

Rosemarie

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From: "Michael Barry" <michaelj.barry@talk21.com>
Subject: Re: A Discarded Chapter in FFMC - with Tess reverberations!
Date: Sat, 24 May 2003 00:29:50 +0100

Thanks Rosemarie - I wasn't being too entirely serious - because this brings
us back to the discussion about Tess we had in 2001 (when my production of
Hardy's script was on), and I tended to see Tess as definitively raped (and
beyond moral transgression) because she was asleep - though I think this
turned out to be a contentious issue (and from memory Hardy was particularly
vague on the detail!). However I'm not wishing to resurrect the issue!
Except perhaps to say that surely "succumbing" because you are asleep is
infinitely less "weak" or "infirm" or blameworthy than succumbing when you
are awake?
Cheers
MB

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