Hardy's heroines play a more dominant role in his novels than his heroes. They are the centre or the very pivot of the story. Bathsheba Everdene, Eustacia Vye, Elizabeth-Jane, Tess Durbeyfield, each one of them, is the mainspring of the stories. Hardy's heroines possess a delicate freshness and glow, an animation like tremulous spirit or life itself which are all Shakespearean. They are both weak and strong; we see them always in terms of helplessness or power but under a quivering balance rather than a law. They represent Hardy's philosophy of life, his humor, his grand style, his pessimism and above all his region the Wessex.