'Love is a possible strength in an actual weakness.' Beautiful, impulsive and spirited, Bathsheba Everdene's fortunes are changed forever when she inherits her own farm and becomes a woman of independent More... means. Set in Hardy's evocative Wessex countryside, Bathsheba is pursued by three very different suitors. The reliable and humble Gabriel Oak, the vain and impetuous Troy and the reserved yet determined Boldwood. With the morals of rural society weighing heavily upon her, it is through these relationships that Bathsheba experiences the torture of unrequited love and betrayal and discovers how random acts of chance and tragedy can alter the pathway of a life dramatically.