This thumbnail sketch is only part of the Troy that Hardy wanted to present, for throughout the novel Hardy takes various opportunities to mitigate Troy's bad character. When Boldwood comes to him and offers him considerable sums of money to marry first Fanny, then Bathsheba, Troy throws the money in Boldwood's face, demonstrating, after a fashion, a sense of honor. Hardy even added a chapter to the story when it was published as a novel. In Chapter 16, "All Saints' and All Souls'," Troy shows up at one church to go through with the marriage; Fanny goes to a different one. Hardy was aware of his character's ambiguity. In a conversation with his editor, Leslie Stephen, he referred to Troy as "my wicked soldier hero"(Millgate, 157).

      To what extent are Troy's decisions influenced by his military background? First and foremost, he is a soldier. During the Harvest Ball he says, "I shalt continue a soldier in spirit and feeling as long as I live"(298). A rigid codified life influenced his behavior, and through an understanding of the Victorian military life and its hostile attitudes towards women and family we can better understand this soldier-hero's wickedness.

      Since military customs vary from era to era, our first step in determining the influence of the military world view of Sergeant Troy is to connect it to historical events. The Mayor of Casterbridge can help. It can be dated exactly because Hardy built the plot around a visit by a Royal Personage to Casterbridge about three months after the protagonist Henchard goes bankrupt. This visit actually occurred when Prince Albert passed through Dorchester in 1849(Seymour-Smith, 15). Boldwood appears here as one of Henchard's creditors, described as a young man. Since Boldwood is in his forties in Far From the Madding Crowd, we can date the novel roughly in the 1850'-60's.

      A more exact date is possible if we look at Chapter 10. Fanny has just run off, and Billy Smallbury is sent to the Casterbridge barracks, where Fanny's lover has been recalled. Billy finds the regiment "gone to take the places of them who may [go off to war]"(132). The British Home Army, which Troy's regiment, the 11th Dragoon Guards, was part of, fought in a limited number of conflicts during the 1800's. Only one conflict that the Home Army took part in occurred during the 1850's-60's: the Crimean War. Fortunately this conflict lasted only from 1854-5, so a close date is possible, assuming Hardy was using a historical setting(Farwell, 68).

      Before discussing the process by which the interaction of military policy and Troy's character combined to produce the Sergeant's shameful behavior towards Fanny and Bathsheba, we should consider what Troy's life as a Dragoon would have been like. His barracks in Casterbridge was likely situated directly above the stables for the regiment's horses. Conditions in the average barracks then were "wretchedly bad; most unhealthy"(Skelly, 29). Each man was supposedly allotted 450 square feet but this goal was rarely met. Compare this figure to the Scottish poorhouses where the guests were allowed more than 480 feet(Skelly, 33). There was no provision for exercise, and little for play. The living areas were kept hot in the summer and cold in the winter, inadequately ventilated, equipped with poor sewage systems, and above all cursed with overcrowding. In the winter windows would be shut and the ventilators stopped, cutting off all fresh air. Plumbing was nonexistent and in some extreme cases the wooden urine tubs were washed out and filled with the morning's rations(Skelly, 29). These rations were not the pride of the army, either. Troy would have been allotted a pound of bread and three-quarters of a pound of meat per day, and was expected to supplement this with his meager wage of about three or four shillings a day(Skelly, 63). Most of that money would have gone towards drinking, gambling, and whoring. Such insignificant material circumstances would permit the survival of one person, but they were scarcely adequate to support a family.

      The two aspects of military life that affected Troy's treatment of the woman he jilted and the woman he married are the barriers that the British Army placed in the way of marriage and advancement of enlisted men. We can't say that military restrictions determined Troy's behavior, for he certainly exercised his free will. However, the flaws in his character were compounded by misogynistic policies of the military. A good description of these character flaws can be found in chapter 25 "The New Acquaintance Described": "With [Troy] the past was yesterday; the future, to-morrow; never, the day after"(219). "He was moderately truthful towards men, but to women he lied like a Cretan"(220). This describes Troy's two major flaws: he cannot plan for the future, because he cannot comprehend it, and he lies to women and generally treats them poorly. When these traits are combined with the military's policies we have a recipe for romantic disaster.

Troy and Fanny

      Troy's behavior in the "All Saints', All Souls"' chapter when he refuses to go through with his plans to marry Fanny because she has kept him waiting seems absurdly capricious, one of the actions key in painting him in a bad light. Still, in addition to his character flaws there were institutional factors that complicated his ability to complete his engagement. The first obstacle to his marriage to Fanny would have been getting the military to acknowledge it. In 1854 only one out of every two cavalry sergeants was allowed to be married(Skelly, 197). It's fifty-fifty whether Troy's marriage would have been "on strength," or supported by the military, but it is here that Troy's inability to plan for the future would weigh against him. Because he likes to procrastinate, the chances are he would be unlikely to plan out the marriage and get approval from the officers. His conversation with Fanny outside his barracks supports this reading. Fanny asks,

      "You have the permission of the officers?"
      "No -- not yet."
      "O -- how is it? You said you almost had before you left Casterbridge."
      "The fact is, I forgot to ask" (138).

      It seems unlikely he would have gotten official permission. Consequently, there would have been no provisions made for housing Fanny (or the kids, when they arrived), and no extra money. Fanny would have to live in separate, rented housing near Troy's barracks. She would have to work as a seamstress to supplement whatever pittance Troy could spare. If he were posted overseas she would have no way of following him, unless she could afford an expensive ticket on a ship. If Troy died, she would receive no pension. Even if he did get permission to marry, Fanny would have lived in the barracks with nothing to protect her but Troy and a curtain. Their male children would have been raised in the barracks around the carousing and the debauchery of the soldiers. The female children would haw been sent off to work at around age eight. All the while Troy's salary would remain the same despite his family. Perhaps Troy did not consider these things consciously, yet they surely would have weighed on his mind in some way.

      The British Army's refusal to accommodate the domestic arrangements of its men was just one aspect of the hostility toward women pervasive throughout the institution, which could account for the mistreatment of women by soldiers. In India brothels were built and maintained by the military for the soldiers, encouraging the men to view women as objects for their pleasure only. Ten years after Troy's stint in the military, the Contagious Diseases Acts were passed. This legislation required that any woman found within a15-mile radius of a barracks, who a policeman testified was a prostitute, was subject to a five-day incarceration and a mandatory hospital stay to be tested for venereal disease(Skelly, 55). Not only did they violate the women's rights, the tests were painful and dehumanizing. Perhaps as a reflection of the military's attitudes towards women, Victorian society frowned on "proper" women having anything to do with the military. Florence Nightingale and her colleagues were the only ones to break this taboo.

Troy and Bathsheba

      Given Troy's reluctance to many Fanny, why then did he move so quickly to marry Bathsheba even though, as he states after Fanny's death, "This woman [Fanny] is more to me, dead as she is, than ever you were, or are, or can be"(361)? The obvious answer is her money, which provided him with the means to buy his discharge from the army. So why would this career soldier forsake his profession? One possible explanation is that his failure to marry Fanny awakened in him an awareness of the inequities of life in the 19th-century British Army.

      Prior to analyzing the role of wealth and class in the British Army and the barriers they placed on the advancement of talented enlisted men such as Troy, we must consider the positive side of the military's contribution to Troy's circumstances. Clearly his military finery and accomplishments as well as his smooth talk enabled him to attract and win Bathsheba. Both Troy and Gabriel Oak are interested in Bathsheba, but Troy -- who succeeded -- had the resources of a large institution to support him, whereas Gabriel had only his integrity and agricultural skill. Two good examples of the effect of his military prowess and glamour emerge at Bathsheba and Troy's first meeting. "The man to whom she was hooked was brilliant in brass and scarlet. He was a soldier"(214). The sword drill finishes cooking her goose. "Never since the broadsword became the national weapon had there been more dexterity shown in its management than by the hands of Sergeant Troy"(240). Additionally, Troy as a military man offered Bathsheba an escape from the constricted rural social circle in which she found herself. He spiced her life with a touch of excitement. Before Troy's arrival, two men who held no appeal to her were competing for her hand. Now she was in love.

Above is a clip from Far From the Madding Crowd (510K), with Terence Stamp as Troy and Julie Christie as Bathsheba. "The sword drill finishes cooking her goose," as Paul Flynn writes.

Movie clip is in QuickTime format. If you do not have QuickTime soft- ware, you may download it by clicking on the icon below.

      Troy's success in overcoming Bathsheba's reluctance to become involved with a soldier stems in part from the fact that he is quite different from an average Victorian soldier, In 1857 20.5 % of the rank and file could neither read nor write. Only 4.7% had a "superior education"(Skelly, 87). "Superior" here is a misnomer, for the majority of soldiers included by the term had a fourth-class education. Only one-half of one percent had a first-class education. There is a clear class split between the officers and the enlisted men. The officers were almost all gentry, and there were practically no gentry in the lower ranks. Simply, this split was caused by money. To become an officer, one had to buy a commission, which in the dragoon guards went for a minimum of 840 pounds and maybe another 500 pounds for his uniform and other accouterments(Harries-Jenkins, 63, 88). This huge amount of money was beyond all but the gentry. Promotions from the rank-and-file to officer status were few to none in the first half of the 1850's. The lower classes consequently made up the rest of ranks of the British Army. They were poor and uneducated before they enlisted, so much so that some officers argued that there was no need to change the conditions in the barracks because they were an improvement for the vast majority of the soldiers. After a year in the army, they had learned little, except how to perform drills. These average soldiers had no grasp of the tactics used to determine the way they fought and thus, they had little hope of advancement.

      Troy is another story. Liddy tells us that he was "sent to Casterbridge Grammar School for years and years. Learnt all languages while he was there; and it was said that he got on so far that he could take down Chinese in shorthand ... he rose to be a sergeant without trying at all"(217). Troy had the advantage of a formal education and his knowledge of so many languages contrasts sharply with his fellows. Having been raised by a doctor and born the natural son of an earl, Troy was about as close to the gentry as he could get without being a part of it. Unlike the officers who could buy promotions, Troy rose to the rank of Sergeant through merit alone. This would have required a grasp of tactics and a knowledge of how to manage men.

      The major difference that Troy would have seen between Fanny and Bathsheba was money. When he married Bathsheba, he bought his discharge from the army. Discharges were expensive because in 1854 the minimum term of enlistment was 21 years. This may be a somewhat reprehensible reason to marry someone, but we might consider the case from Troy's point of view. He knows that he is of noble blood, yet he can reap none of the benefits from his birth because he is a bastard. To achieve the lifestyle he may feel himself entitled, he joins a profession that includes much of the nobility. Through the military he can come near to the class that he feels he deserves to occupy, as an officer in the cavalry. He demonstrates his strengths and rises in the ranks to sergeant. But here he stops. The average number of promotions from the ranks of the cavalry to second lieutenant in the 1840-50's was two or three per year. This would rise dramatically during the Crimean War due to battlefield commissions, but generally this condition would not truly change until after World War I. To Troy there was nowhere to go in the military. Still aspiring to the gentry, he found himself stuck in the crowded, filthy barracks with dreams he could not fulfill. Through his marriage to Bathsheba he could, with her wealth supporting him, live the life of an Earl. We may find him guilty of using Bathsheba, but at least we can guess at why.

Troy Redeux

      Another action we may disapprove of, though it is not necessarily an immoral one, is Troy's return to Bathsheba after his assumed death. He knows that she is at Boldwood's party, and may well surmise that Boldwood is in a vengeful mood. We can only guess at what made him go to his misery, if not his certain doom. He still holds no love for Bathsheba, so why did he return? He may be responding to two things: a sense of duty, and an utter disillusionment with civilian life. Since his discharge he has been a whipped husband; a teacher of gymnastics, fencing, and boxing; and a clown in a show. None of these situations have been half as reputable as the life he has been aspiring to. In this situation he can be expected to be depressed, and this may well lead to his decision to tempt fate.

Conclusion

      It seems clear that his military background has played a significant part in his actions. However, it is also clear that his own character has been busy as well. We can see from Chapter 25 that he is not a man of moral character who is corrupted by the military; instead he is a man already on shaky moral ground who is pushed over the edge by the military's effect on him. We might be tempted to take his own assessment of himself: "I have to say that I have been a bad, black-hearted man"(361). Perhaps we should temper that judgment just a bit with understanding, as well: a "wicked" man, Sergeant Francis Troy, but something of a "soldier hero," too.

-- Paul Flynn © 1997