This book studies Thomas Hardy’s portrayal of women in the Victorian period in England, still struggling for their essential human rights. Victorian women were willing to struggle for emancipation, even if it meant dying for it. They had to live under many societal constraints, which kept them subservient and shackled to their relationships. When women struggled for independence and vitality, they were crushed by an unbending Victorian society whose mores did not encourage personal growth and empowerment of women. The women characters—both major and minor—from all of Hardy’s fourteen novels have been presented and laid before the readers to offer a clear view of the female struggle and subjugation.
Another important aspect of Hardy’s women characters presented in this book is about the human predicament. The women in Thomas Hardy’s novels appear to have no dominance over their demeanour or their destiny. Hardy’s women struggle, seldom winning, often losing, but they are not docile puppets to be manoeuvred. Their resistance emerges in their character. This book attempts to resurrect Hardy’s heroines and restore to them the honour and charisma which Hardy sees as their birthright, but which the male-dominated world they inhabit seeks to deny them—both within and beyond the novel.
The book will be highly useful to the students and teachers of English literature and researchers in this field.