Fate in Thomas Hardy’s Far From the Madding Crowd

Abstract

Fatalism centers human feeling and sentiment towards the negative view of the life or the dark side of human beings. It,instead of fulfilling human desires, suffers them heavily andtakes no heed to them. It shows that human beings,in their lives,play a perpetual hide and seek game with divine power till human beings come to realize their defeat and give up their happiness. Human beings, throughout their lives endeavor towards one end, destiny towards another. Finally, it is destiny which decides what is to happen. Man cannot modify the will of destiny but vice versa is improbable because it has something hidden sense of inevitability which is out of reach and control of human beings. In the novelFar From the Madding Crowd,Hardy’s characters are shown as controlled byunforeseen forces. When they desire one thing but they cannot get it and remain unfulfilled. When the characters wish to get something, chance and coincidence diverttheir efforts to opposite directions.Through his characters the novelist tries to showthe event taking place in their livesare the outcomesof divine will rather than individual will. Hardy’s philosophy on fatalism leads us to note that lives of all human beings and characters presented in this novel are dominated and conditioned by the fate beyond human imagination and thinking.