Summary
After his arrest, Boldwood pleads guilty and is sentenced to death. However, it is discovered that in his house there are many dresses and jewelry purchased for Bathsheba and set aside for their eventual marriage. Many of the local townspeople argue that he should be found insane, and thus not criminally responsible. In March, the judges meet to determine whether or not the sentence should be commuted, and Boldwood is sentenced to life in prison.
Bathsheba recovers very slowly from the traumatic events of Christmas. In August, she encounters Gabriel while she is visiting Troy’s grave; she has had him buried in the same grave with Fanny. Gabriel surprises her by saying that he is planning to move to California in the spring, and she objects that she will be lost without his help at the farm. She becomes more and more distraught to think of losing him as the months pass, and in the winter, he gives her formal notice that he will be leaving before the end of March.
That night she goes to his cottage and asks if he is leaving because she has offended him. He explains that he is not going to leave England, but he is going to be leasing Boldwood’s farm beginning in March. He notes that this doesn’t mean he couldn’t still work for her at the same time, but he is uncomfortable since rumors have started that he hopes to marry her and thinks it would be better if he did not work for her anymore. Bathsheba’s objections spark Gabriel’s curiosity, and he admits that of course he still loves her. The two of them joyfully realize that they mutually love each other.
A short time later, Bathsheba agrees to marry him, and the two marry in a small, private ceremony with only a few close friends present. Gabriel comes to live with her at the Everdene farm, and the novel ends with an optimistic view of a happy and loving marriage for them.
Analysis
The traumatic and violent events of the Christmas party seem to soften many of the characters into a new acceptance of their fates. Boldwood meekly accepts the legal punishment, but evidence of his insanity allows for him to be granted the small mercy of imprisonment. The discovery of the items he has purchased and set aside for Bathsheba reveals his obsessive hope: given that she only confirmed their engagement the night of the party, he must have been purchasing these items well before he knew whether or not she would agree to marry him. The discovery also reveals his fixation on wealth and status: when he tried to envision how he could best please Bathsheba, Boldwood assumed jewels and fine clothes must be the key to her heart.
With Boldwood and Troy both out of the picture, Bathsheba can finally live without the distraction of men trying to woo her. By this stage in the novel, however, it seems that some of her ambition and zest for life has been lost. She plays a less and less active role in managing the farm. Even when she learns that Gabriel plans to leave, she is not outraged and indignant so much as lost and afraid. She knows she depends on him both professionally and personally, and is afraid of what she will do without him.
Bathsheba does show some of her drive towards bold action by going to Gabriel’s cottage the night after he hands in his resignation. It would be considered quite improper for a woman to go alone to a man’s home after dark, even though as a widow Bathsheba now has more freedom than she did as an unmarried woman. The two have always seemed to communicate honestly and freely, and Bathsheba seeks out that frankness by trying to determine why Gabriel feels compelled to leave. However, what becomes clear is that the two have actually misunderstood each other. Bathsheba took Gabriel’s unwillingness to ask about her feelings as a sign that he no longer cared for her, while he assumed that her initial answer had been a final one.
The establishment of a romantic relationship, and then the marriage between the two seems to signal that partnerships best arise out of mutual respect and getting to know one another over a long span of time while working towards shared goals. The marriage seems to show some promising signs of being egalitarian in that it is rooted in the partnership of running the farm, and Gabriel will be moving in to Bathsheba’s house. At the same time, for the marriage to come about Bathsheba seems to need to have been tamed by her experience of loss and betrayal. She is no longer the proud and willful woman she was at the beginning of the novel, and it is only once she becomes more docile and more resigned to requiring the assistance of a man that she can accept a relationship with Gabriel. In the end, "in allowing Oak the positions of both phallic male and castrated male, while awarding Bathsheba the contradictory position of powerful and dependent female, Hardy denies power and sexuality to neither sex" (Shires 177).
