ABSTRACT
In contrast to the developmental complexity of Troy’s characterisation, Oak demands very little of Hardy’s revising pen. Some minor adjustments are made to reinforce his integration into the central action of the story, particularly at points where his role in the secondary action, which deals with farming life, assumes peripheral proportions slightly distanced from the major issues of Bathsheba’s relationships. But, in the main, he emerges evenly and consistently from a solid, labouring man with simple tastes-even at his most affluent possessing no proper accommodation for visitors-to grow from his troubled experiences a little stronger, a little wiser, and a little more refined in thought and feeling.
