“Tony Kytes the Arch Deceiver” by Thomas Hardy “Tickets Please” by D.H. Lawrance

The title of the story leads you to believe that Tony is cunning and deceitful, maybe a clever man, but really he is a simple man and lies a lot to try and get himself out of the mess he tends to put himself in. Like in the story, he lies on numerous occasions to each 3 of the women and each time he gets himself into more trouble. The narrator describes Tony's appearance like this: "'Twas a little, round, firm tight face, with a seam here and there left by the smallpox, but not enough to hurt his looks in a woman's eye... So very serious looking and unsmiling..." So Tony wasn't the most good looking of men but still received a lot of attention from women and according to the narrator 'He was quite the women's favourite'.

Tickets Please

I will now bring into the essay the story of TP by D.H Lawrance. I am going to look at the main features of it and then describe the similarities and differences it has to TK.

TP starts with a very long sentence, possibly to get the story starting like a train, as most of the story is set on trains. TP is set in a small town where people tend to know each other but not necessarily get along. D.H Lawrance is good at describing people's appearance and their expressions hint toward the characters personalities and the way they deal with relationships. The main character in this story is John Thomas, who unluckily has the same name as a nickname for a mans genitals. Maybe this is a reference towards his inability to hold down a stable relationship, he only uses women to go to bed with them. This is quite a difference to Tony Kytes, who seems to be able to handle commitment and is in a long-term relationship with Milly. But both men fool around with more than one woman, although he gets caught in the end, John Thomas is a LOT better a getting away with seeing all these different woman. John Thomas is a lot more cunning than Tony Kytes is. The women in TP have to work in rough conditions, whereas the women in TK probably didn't have to work or couldn't get jobs. The only reason the women in TP had jobs was because at the time the story was set there was a war going on, and with many men at war, women had to do what were typically men's jobs. This brings up the question as to why John Thomas was not at war. Men who weren't at war were often scorned upon, but possibly John Thomas was ill or not fit to go to war, but there is no suggestion of why he couldn't or didn't.

The manner in which TP is told is a lot more serious than TK. I think the story is a lot more serious as well. Like at the ending to each story. TP ends with all the women lashing out and John Thomas ends up badly hurt. Whereas the ending of TK ends with all women confronting Tony on which one he will choose from them all. He ends up with Milly, after being rejected by Hannah and Unity. Milly is probably the weaker out of the 3 women in TK and suffers the most humiliation. All the girls in TK seem desperate for a husband and they secretly and openly show they would accept him, even though some rejected him. In both stories, the main male character gets rejected even though the women want him. This is strange and it seems there is no reason for why they do it. All the women lust after the men throughout the story and then when it comes to actually being chosen by them they say no.

How these Stories relate to the Modern Reader

Both of these stories show aspects that relate to the modern reader in a big way and others that are completely oblivious to the modern reader. For example, there are still men that go around just looking for women to sleep with, this is a bit like John Thomas. He doesn't want to make a commitment to a woman he just wants to use them for sex. And I think that asking your father who you should marry is something that wouldn't relate to the modern reader at all. Tony Kytes asks his father who he thinks he should marry, nowadays I think it would be very rare for a son to ask his father for advice on who he should marry.

Conclusion

Out of these two stories I prefer Tony Kytes the Arch Deceiver. I prefer it because I like light hearted and humorous stories more than I do serious stories. But I do like the way in which D.H Lawrance describes the characters and the setting in Tickets Please. I think that D.H Lawrance feels threatened by the increasing power of women at the time he wrote this story, and concludes by letting neither the men or women in his story having power over each other.