(i) Issues:
(a) The time in which Thomas Hardy wrote this novel was a time when large farmers fenced off land, bought machines and employed labourers.
(b) The old rural culture with independent farmers was dying.
(c) In his novel, Hardy mourns the loss of the personalised world.
(d) He also highlights the advantages and disadvantages of the new order.
(ii) The novel uses vernacular language spoken by different groups of people. This created the sense of a shared world between diverse people in a nation.
