Playing Games with Time: Temporal shifts and Changes in Thomas Hardy's Far From the Madding Crowd: a Narrative, Stylistic Investigation

Narrators resort to various maneuvers to trap time agents and toss time references backwards and forwards, left and right so as to create the temporal mosaic of the narrative. however, time changeability is not randomly contrived but performs themes-related functions. far from the maddening crowd is a novel that seems to pivot on time and its ongoing course. though, it employs the conventional time template in that it does not ruffle the tidiness of temporal progress or mess with its linearity, still its plot makes use of time innovations quite significantly. events are disrupted and entire episodes are buried in cavities of the past to be excavated later. others are disguised so that they pass unnoticed. time references abound occasionally, a circumstance that makes time focalized but they appear other times scanty and sporadic