Discuss the relationship between Rhoda and Gertrude in The Withered Arm.

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Nkechi Wagbaranta         English course work        Teacher: Mr Craig

Discuss the relationship between Rhoda and Gertrude in The Withered Arm.

The Withered Arm is a pre-20th century book by Thomas Hardy; the plot of the story is in and around the writers’ imaginary village of Holmstoke and town of Casterbridge.

        One of the main themes of The Withered Arm was Jealousy it was portrayed through Rhoda Brook, ‘a thin fading woman of thirty’ ‘that had once been handsome’, who had an affair with Farmer Lodge and bore him a son.

         Farmer Lodge left Rhoda to bring up their son on her own and later married a new wife, who was ‘years younger than him’, called Gertrude.

          In this essay I am going to discuss the relationship between Rhoda and Gertrude in The Withered Arm.

          The relationship between Rhoda and Gertrude is a triangular one.  It is between Rhoda, her ex-partner Farmer Lodge and his wife Gertrude.  

         Rhoda heard about the coming of Farmer Lodge’s new wife Gertrude through her fellow ‘milkers’ who were gossiping while at work.  She then sent her son several times to go and ‘give her a look’; she was mainly interested in the appearance of the new wife.  She specifically asked her son to see “if she’s dark or fair…show marks of the lady’ and to ‘notice if her hand be white…or are like a milkers hands like’ hers.

        It was obvious that Rhoda wanted to compare herself with Gertrude but was disappointed when her son came back with news of the new wife being ‘A lady complete’, ‘and her face as comely as a doll’s’ as she kept on asking her son questions like ‘Her eyes…not dark like mine?’ and ‘Is she tall?’ ‘as tall as I’.  All the answers Rhoda got about Gertrude were so positive that when she heard that Gertrude was ‘rather short’ she said to her son ‘with satisfaction’, ‘that’s all I wanted to hear’.

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        Even though the relationship between Rhoda and Lodge had been over for a long time before Gertrude’s arrival, Rhoda saw Gertrude as a rival who ‘supplanted’ her in the eyes of Farmer Lodge and ruined the chances of her dreamed marriage and respectability coming to past.  This was revealed to us by the importance of the ‘wedding ring’ with which the ‘spectre’ in her ‘vision’ tormented her.  The ‘spectre’ in Rhoda’s ‘vision’ was Gertrude, ‘with features shockingly distorted and… wrinkled by age’, now as ugly and old as Rhoda wished her to be.  In the dream ...

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