Eferring in detail to 2 short stories that you have read, explain what makes them examples of a 'good short story' - Thomas Hardy's 'The Withered Arm' and ' The Superstitious Man's Story'.

There are three main characters in 'The Withered Arm'. These are Farmer Lodge, Rhoda Brook and Gertrude Lodge (Farmer Lodge's new bride). Farmer Lodge is a very busy man who runs the farm and sells his goods from it. Rhoda Brook is a woman who lives in a cottage near by the farm and works for Farmer Lodge, milking cows. She has a son who is also Farmer Lodges son (he died at the end). Gertrude Lodge is Farmer Lodge's new bride so is his wife. She is new to the area and makes friends with Rhoda Brook and her son within the story.

The story has a mystery and slight-horror side to it, which makes the story interesting and more effective for the reader.

The story 'The Withered Arm' starts with a few milkmaids chatting about Farmer Lodges new bride. "Though they say she's a rosy - cheeked tisty - toasty little body enough." This gives you a description of Farmer Lodge's new bride using adjectives. It also only spends a short time setting the scene, "It was an eighty-cow dairy, and the troop of milkers, and regular and supernumerary were all at work". Thomas Hardy also describes a lot about Rhoda Brooks cottage using many adjectives and a simile, "like a bone protruding through the skin".

There is a really good description of Gertrude Lodge when she visits Rhoda in the dream, "that young wife, in pale silk dress and white bonnet, but with features shockingly distorted, and wrinkled as by age." This changes the readers susceptive of Gertrude's character.

The effective ending in 'The Withered Arm' is that Gertrude discovers that the hanged person is Farmer Lodge and Rhoda Brooks's son. This is known as a twist in the tale.

'The Superstitious Man's Story' is set at the home of William and his wife who are both the main characters.

'The Superstitious Man's Story' is about a married couple at home on Midsummer Eve, "Last night being Old Midsummer Eve." The man 'William' had gone to bed, and his wife who was up finishing the ironing. While she was hard at work 'William' walked downstairs and out of the house without saying a word, "no word was said either side, William not being a man given much to speaking, and his wife being occupied with her work." Later she decided to go to bed so she left a note on the door saying "Mind and do the door" but as she got into bed he was still lying there asleep. She didn't bother waking him so she to went to sleep. The next day she was talking to a friend and her friend said she saw him walking into the church and that this is what people who are soon going to die do on Midsummer's Eve.

Afterwards William dies while sleeping after work. He was seen at the spring where his son had died at the time of his own death.

In 'The Superstitious Man's Story' the main character is William because the whole story is based on him and his death. He is said to be a forgetful character in the story. The other character is Williams's wife, she seems to be playing the typical housewife in that time, doing the ironing and setting the table for her husband.

This story is a mystery and horror based story due to it being set in direct speech.

'The Superstitious Man's Story' starts by telling you information in relation to the main character. "William, as you may know, you could feel when he came near 'ee.

It seems to start right in the middle of the story and makes the reader feel as if he/she is eavesdropping on a private conversation, making him/her want to hear and read more.

There is also a brilliant description of 'William' at the start of the story, this tells the reader almost everything she or needs to know about the character in only a few words.

The story starts by giving clues away that it has got something to do with death, "he'd not known of the bell go so heavy in his hand for years - and he feared it meant a death in the parish."

There is a build up of tension when we find out his boots are still at the stairs even though he's just left the house, "to her great surprise, and might I say alarm, on reaching the foot of the stairs his boots were standing there as they always stood when the had gone to rest." This is effective because this moves on the story by the build up of tension.

When Williams's wife finds him asleep there is a good example of a simile, "as sound as a rock."

At the end when William actually dies his "fellow-mower" saw a miller-moth come from his mouth and fly straight away. The effective ending in 'The Superstitious Man's Story' is that William actually dies and his spirit is seen at a different place at the time of his death.

I liked both these stories because the same author wrote them both and they are both the same type of story (a mystery with a little of horror). They both had good examples of adjectives and similes within them and good story structures.