Rhoda asks the boy what the new wife is like and he is only 12 so he doesn’t know what her mother is going through so he tells her the truth about what he saw. He tells her that she is very good looking and is also very ladylike. Gertrude wants to offer the boy a lift home in the cart with them but farmer lodge doesn’t want to, as the situation would obviously make him awkward. He makes up an excuse that the boys round there are very strong and drives on. This bit also makes you feel some sympathy for Rhoda but in a bitter way as she is old before her time but is intelligent and hard working and farmer lodge has married a younger woman that seems pleasant enough and even tried to help her son, but admittedly didn’t know the situation.
Some time after the new wife has come to live with farmer lodge; hardy introduces the first hint of witchcraft into the story. The rest of the story is based on the vision chapter so it is possibly the most important and the following chapters could have been different. Rhoda is sat looking into her fireplace and is sat there longer than she at first realized. She sees an image of Gertrude and she doesn’t even know what she looks like. She is almost “scrying” for her inadvertently. When she comes back to, she goes to bed and falls to sleep. Gertrude comes to her in a vision and she looks strange and twisted. She holds her ring finger in front of Rhode’s face mocking and taunting her. Rhoda has nothing to do to resist her. She sees her assailants arm stick out in front of her and grabs it. Gertrude disappears and Rhoda awakes with a start. In allot of the other parts of the story you feel sorry for Gertrude and her afflicted arm but this chapter must be remembered as
Rhoda was scared and the vision gave an incorrect view of Gertrude she could not be to blame for Gertrude’s arm.
When the two women meet, they become friends. They are both alone as they don’t have a social equal. Rhoda is scorned as she gave birth to an illegitimate son and Gertrude is the farmer’s wife, which is quite an important position so she also has no social equal. The friend ship between farmer’s wife and milkmaid seems an unlikely one but in retrospect it makes allot of sense.
At this point in the story when the two women first meet you feel sorry for Rhoda more than Gertrude as you do not know the full extent of the injury and the only thing to feel sorry for her is the fact that she is a nice women who Rhoda hurt. Rhoda on the other hand has to live with the guilt that she hurt this woman who is being so nice to her and her family. She may not have meant to do what she and may have been scared and angry at the time but the fact remained that however the circumstance she was responsible for the arm.
When the afflicted arm gets worse you begin to feel more sorry for Gertrude as she did not deserve what she had got. She makes a sad confession to Rhoda that she thinks the arm makes farmer lodge “ dislike me – no love me less.” She is crying when she says it. She knows that farmer lodge only wants her for her physical beauty but she doesn’t mind but now she is loosing that.
Rhoda makes you feel sympathy for her as the people of the village are obviously talking about her because they tell Gertrude that Rhoda will know were conjurer Trendle is who is associated with magic. At first Gertrude did not want to go and see the conjurer as she did not believe in superstitious things. She eventually decided to go if Rhoda went with her. There was nothing that Rhoda would have liked to do less but she still went because she felt that she owed it to her. They were both scared as they walked to the place that they were to see Conjurer Trendel for different reasons. It is hard to decide at this point in the story whom you feel more sympathy for as they are both having a bad time. Rhoda is obviously scared that Gertrude will find out what happened and that it was her that did that to her arm. Gertrude is in allot of pain and she is desperate to find some sort of cure as Farmer lodge is fast loosing all interest in her. Conjure Trendel shows Gertrude in a mixture of egg and water the shape of her assailant and she sees Rhoda in the vision. On the way back she comments to Rhoda about the oddness that she suggested that they go there but doesn’t confront her about it, which she should have done.
It is at this point in the story that Rhoda leaves as Gertrude tells everyone it was she that made her arm go like that. This makes you feel sorry for Rhoda as she has been driven out of town and you, as the reader knows the full circumstances of the incident. Gertrude turns into a superstitious woman and farmer lodge hates her. We are not told what Rhoda is doing only that she has left. Gertrude began experimenting with her illness and she still found no cure so she decides to go and see Conjurer Trendel again. He tells her that she needs to touch the neck of a man that has been hanged. This idea fills her with disgust. She would rather do anything but this.
She has a problem to start with trying to get to the nearest town were hangings take place. In those times women did not travel far without men. The town is only about 15 miles away but that is still too far. She borrows one of the farm horses when Farmer Lodge says that he is away on holiday. You feel sorry at her desperation as she is only doing this so farmer lodge will like her for her physical beauty but she does not seem to mind.
The body that she touches happens to be Rhoda’s son and farmer Lodge is with her. You feel sorry for both the women equally as much at the end of the story but for different reasons. Rhoda has had her whole life taken away from her however little it was and Gertrude has now died as a result of trying to improve her physical beauty.
In conclusion I think that you can not feel more sympathy towards either woman as they are both in the same boat and it is because of each other that they had so much grief and hardship. If they had nether met or had anything to do with each other then they would not have been like they were. It was all a matter of situation and circumstances.