An Insight into literary - Thomas Hardy - Tony kytes, Arch Deceiver and The Withered Arm

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An Insight into literaryCookie: ASP, Thomas Hardy - 'Tony kytes, Arch Deceiver' and 'The Withered Arm'

At the beginning of the 19th Century, Thomas Hardy, now seen as a master of literature, wrote a series of short stories designed to appeal to the general audience at the time, giving accounts about country life in the community of 'Wessex' (Hampshire, Dorset and Devon). These stories can be viewed today with a quiet distaste, if not because of Hardy's style, which although fairly lightweight, is eminently readable, but rather the content of the pieces. The country environment which, almost two hundred years ago, formed the scene where Hardy wrote these pieces, was not quite so enlightened as many women would like to believe today's society is, and Hardy discusses the expectations and beliefs of the close-knit community without a hint of the necessary political correctness needed today. Women in the 1820's were not considered equals, and Hardy goes quite some way to explaining many grievances that women around the turn of the century fought against. It was, it seems from Hardy's pieces, more than just the difference in voting rights that separated men and women. Hardy, in Tony Kytes, Arch