So we have a poor hard working milkmaid who has now come to find that in her beloved history with ‘Master Lodge’ she has been replaced by a new woman in his life who is apparently perfect according to her son. She then curiously sends her son in to spy on the newly married couple. After her son’s reconnaissance mission and his reporting back ‘Rhoda’ manages to picture ‘Gertrude’ and has a dream.
The supernatural is an important theme in this book and this dream seemed to conjure thought within the class. It was as if everyone saw it as something more than a book, and before I knew it words like ‘supernatural’ and ‘witchcraft’ were flying around the class.
The dream represents Rhoda having perhaps supernatural powers through her dream and the intensity of Gertrude, the new wife. It appears that Rhoda sees a decrepit, undesirable vision of ‘Gertrude’ and grips her arm and throws her, she claims it was more than a dream and at the same time, two in the morning, Gertrude wakes up with discomfort in her arm. She has previously been accused of such ‘Supernatural’ doings. It turns out the village people had all ready began suspecting Rhoda a while back of being a witch since her ‘fall’ when she had the illegitimate baby. This shows how superstitious people were in these times and how important virtue was in a woman.
The third chapter is a very intricate chapter. It is a big foundation for the book as it is where the commotion begins. The ‘vision’ arises much inquisitive suspense to the reader’s thoughts. It is like the base of the story, and all of the problems that present themselves seem to have been as a result of this chapter and the account of Rhoda’s dream.
We then move on to an outline of Farmer Lodge’s opinion on the ‘withered arm’. It appears that he only accepts Gertrude for their physical beauty as he does not seem impressed with the fault and tells Gertrude to ‘Keep your arm covered from sight’ and she also thinks that ‘he loves me less’.
Chapter five now presents a new character to the book named ‘Conjuror Trendle’. This mystifying character seems to place the blame on Rhoda after doing a psychic like trick involving an egg and water with which we are lead to believe gives some sort of idea to Gertrude that Rhoda is behind her arm injury as she sees a face in the bottom of a cup. This character reinforces the idea of a belief in witchcraft at the time when the story is set.
After this Gertrude is a lot more hostile and less revealing to Rhoda and is more concerned about removing her arms imperfection She is told she could be cured if she laid her arm on the neck of a hanged man who later turns out to be Rhoda’s and Farmer Lodge’s son. The characterization of the story is interesting because Gertrude changes during from the course of the book from a happy young wife to a bitter obsessed woman is so obsessed with being cured that she seems to lose the sense of her conscience.
The end of this book is the real highlight of its excitement because of the twist where you find out that Gertrude has come to lay her arm on the neck of Rhoda’s son, and how a prediction by Conjuror Trendle actually presents itself which is not really expected. The story seems to finish with a solemn conclusion when stating that Gertrude never makes it out alive and Farmer Lodge and Rhoda are symbolically shown as being closer at the end when their son is hung. The book also finishes cunningly as well, leaving it up to you as to where the reader’s sympathies should lie. I wasn’t really sympathetic for anybody really as all the characters seemed to commit sins of some sort. Rhoda began with her hatred for Gertrude which lead to Farmer Lodge ‘loving her less’ which then led to Gertrude becoming twisted and obsessed. Well I suppose my sympathies would have to lie in Rhoda’s son if anyone!