Hardy’s description Gertrude in the dream is so vivid and so unlike her it seems incredibly unrealistic, as well as the way he describes Rhoda as “maddened mentally,” adds to the fantasy. However, the dream is also described as an incubus which, in the 19th century, was an evil spirit who would visit you in your sleep makes us think that infact there was something or someone there that night. In the dream Rhoda reaches out and grabs Gertrude’s left arm in a fit of terror and proceeds to throw her to the floor, at this point Gertrude’s body disappears and Rhoda wakes up. The next day there is an explainable mark on Gertrude’s arm, which is shaped in the form of fingerprints. Rhoda also really believes that this has truly happened and it is described so vividly by the narrator, as if it actually did happen. We also may be led to believe it really happened by the excessive use of the word “vision”.
As would be expected, these markings have a phenomenal affect on Gertrude’s life. Subsequently over the next many years we are able to see the gradual but significant decline in Gertrude’s arm, as it withers away, we can also see the gradual decline in Gertrude’s marriage, moral and character.
Gertrude was a woman who once would never have even thought about going to see a conjurer, but as she becomes more and more suspicious as well as desperate she visits a man named Conjurer Trendle, who lives in Egdon Heath. There are many comparisons one can draw from Trendle living in Egdon Heath, such as the darkness of the Heath and the dark character that Trendle possesses, the only people who lived in where often recluses and people, who in the 19th century, would have been considered freaks. Gertrude is appropriately attired for such a visit, as she is “clocked and veiled”. Their visit seems to coincide nicely with the weather that day, “the wind was howling dismally over the slopes of the heath” and “thick clouds” where to be seen overhead suggesting perhaps that fate was watching over the events.
Over the six years that where to follow her first visit to Trendle she began to feel the guilt of her disfigurement more and more as her husband no longer found her attractive and their marriage took a turn for the worse. However Gertrude does not give up on the marriage and is constantly trying to please her husband in the vain hope that he will love her once again.
Since Gertrude’s disfigurement we can see how her morals have declined, at some points she seems worse and more desperate than others but we can see the gradual decline of her character throughout the story. When Trendle told her she could be cured of her aliment by touching the neck of a man who had been hung, with her withered arm, immediately after he had been cut down, she was so eager she began unconsciously praying to God for some “guilty or innocent person” to be hung soon.
Throughout Rhoda’s life she has gone through many different terrible ordeals. She is unmarried and has had to raise an illegitimate child, she is looked down upon by the other milkmaids and nearly everyone in society, she has also lost her looks, once beautiful she is now old and looks worn. She has little chance of ever finding love or getting married. Considering Rhoda has an illegitimate child she would have most defiantly been shunned, as this was a terrible sin the 19th century. Many would have thought of her as a witch. Since her dream she has begun to think that there is perhaps a bit of truth in these rumours.
From this moment on in the story Rhoda changes considerably. She no longs seems shy and meek but now she is much more confident and not nearly as weak as once thought, because of this we are not sure whether or not to believe that she has the power of witchcraft, also the fact that if she does have these powers, she gives the impression that she is quite pleased with herself and her new found craft but this is because society has never given her anything to be proud about.
Between Chapter 5 and 6 there is a six-year gap. At the end of chapter 5 Rhoda and her son move away. Hardy has put such a long gap in to make us think that Rhoda has left for good and to give the impression that she is not going to return. This also creates tension in the story, as we do not know what is going to happen.
Hardy get the tension in the story across magnificently, we can see just how much Gertrude has really changed when we see Rhoda at the end with Farmer Lodge. The difference is clear for all to see, it is almost as Rhoda and Gertrude have switched characters. When Rhoda and Farmer Lodge encounter Gertrude at the jail they clearly do not want anything to do with her “hussy to come between us and our child now!” At this point we can see that Rhoda’s dream has come true, “This is the meaning of what Satan showed me in the vision! You are like her at last!” This is more evidence that the fate of Gertrude that was seen in the dream has come true.
Each women had massive impacts on the others lives. Gertrude was Rhoda’s first real friend since she had given birth to her illegitimate child. They confided in each other and Gertrude showed true acts of kindness towards her by giving her things she thought Rhoda would be able to use. However, Rhoda had a much larger impact on Gertrude’s life. She scared her for the rest of her days with a withered arm, since that point Gertrude’s life was never the same again. However Rhoda regrets this but I feel that she was just used as a tool for fate and in fact had little to no control over what would happen in the end.
This story was filled with coincidences and chance meetings. It was by chance that Gertrude picked Rhoda to be her friend. It was by chance that the person who was hung was her husband illegitimate child.
Hardy makes his readers believe fully in the idea of fate throughout this story. There is a very strong sense of things being controlled or planned out, like fate, not everything happened just by coincidence.
