Seeing women as men

Here, Sprechman examines the five major novels of Thomas Hardy as never before. The book studies the men and women who inhabit Hardy's world of Wessex, revealing the strength, independence and charisma of its memorable women and the physical and/or mental weakness of its subsidiary men. Sprechman asserts that Hardy clearly reverses the hero/heroine roles, and in so doing, showed the reading public that age-old stereotypes no longer held true and women could, in fact, be the true heroes of literature and life.