Essay | Gabriel Oak's Encounters with Bathsheba Everdene and Fanny Robin

There is contrast between Gabriel Oak's first encounter with Bathsheba Everdene and his short meeting with Fanny Robin in Thomas Hardy's Far From the Madding Crowd. In the encounter with Bathsheba, "a woman, young and attractive" (Far From the Madding Crows 3), being enchanted by her beauty, Gabriel spies as she traverses the road near his fields, and observes her actions, but never communicates with her. In his meeting with Fanny, Gabriel accidentally kicks a stone which unsettles her and starts the conversation. Unlike his encounter with Bathsheba, Gabriel, entranced by Fanny's "unexpectedly attractive" (45) voice, participates in a full conversation with her. Though the set-up for each scene is similar in that Gabriel encounters a woman because of her attractiveness, the nature of these scenes themselves is different. Conversely, both scenes exemplify Gabriel Oak's generosity, perceptiveness, and wisdom.

The nature of Gabriel's...
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