ABSTRACT
In redefining Hardy’s women, my first aim has been to resurrect his original conception of them: his humanly imperfect, unconventional, strong, sexually vital, risk-taking rebels. Each was unorthodox by Victorian standards of femininity; less than conventional, and, in the amalgam, less than feminine. I have also stressed their bitter, frustrating struggle to define themselves in a world that would deny them the right to shape their own lives, control their own bodies, explore their own needs and express their own desires.
