Bathsheba Character Analysis

Bathsheba is the narrator’s dentist and a married women with whom the narrator had an affair before meeting Jacqueline. The narrator’s relationship with Bathsheba was emotionally fraught and ended after the narrator asked Bathsheba to leave her husband and she instead left on a six-week trip with him. When Bathsheba returned, she informed the narrator that she may have given them a venereal disease, which meant Bathsheba had lied to the narrator about not having sex with her own husband. In the end, Bathsheba gave the narrator £10,000, which went toward financing a new apartment. The narrator’s relationship is significant for a few reasons. Firstly, it lasted three years, far beyond any of the narrator’s other relationships. In addition, the relationship’s unsavory ending motivated the narrator to have more self-respect, which contributed to the narrator’s subsequent interest in committing to Jaqueline as a romantic partner, even though the narrator desired her very little. And while contemplating beginning an affair with Louise, the narrator earnestly considers how this infidelity might affect Jacqueline, attributing their desire to “do the right thing” to the heartbreak they themselves experienced with Bathsheba.