Hardy's "Far from the Madding Crowd" draws trigger warning about "cruelty of ... rural life"

The Independent newspaper (United Kingdom) reported in August, 2022 in a story by Isobel Lewis.  An excerpt follows:

Students at the University of Warwick are being given content warnings about potentially “upsetting scenes” in Thomas Hardy’s Far from the Madding Crowd.

Released in 1874, the novel is set in the rural south-west of England and tells the story of a young woman, Bathsheba Everdene, living in the fictional countryside village of Wessex.

The novel is famed for its descriptions of agricultural life, including the graphic deaths of many animals. In one scene, a sheepdog drives an entire herd of sheep off a cliff.

Far from the Madding Crowd is taught as part of the English Literature course at Warwick, with students this year being warned in advance about the aforementioned moments in the story.

“Far from the Madding Crowd: Contains some potentially rather upsetting scenes concerning the cruelty of nature and the rural life,” the content warning reads (via The Telegraph).

I learned about the rise of trigger warnings in Britain from this column by Amna Khalid on Persuasion.   Khalid writes: 

Students across Britain seem to be in favor of trigger warnings. According to a survey published by the Higher Education Policy Institute last year, 86% of students support trigger warnings (up from 68% in 2016). More than a third think instructors should be fired if they “teach material that heavily offends some students” (up from just 15% in 2016).

Sadly, it appears that universities in Britain have fallen prey to the kind of corporate logic that is already firmly entrenched in the United States. This growing managerial approach with its customer-is-always-right imperative is increasingly evident in university policies.