Towards the end, Unity is shown to be strong and will not “take [Hannah’s] leavings” when Tony asks them both to be his wife. Yet she still likes him as she looks back to see if he follows her, as if she wants him to beg her to have him back. This backs up my point that Hardy is influenced by the old belief that women are inferior to men.
Next we meet Milly Richards, who is actually engaged to be Tony’s wife. Again Hardy focuses on the physical when he introduces her as “a nice, light, small, tender little thing”. He writes of her as an object, just as he did of Unity. This, again, shows that Hardy thinks that women should be admired for their looks.
Milly initiates the conversation, similarly to Unity, with a question. Although she also calls him her “dear Tony”, she is more demanding. “Surely you don’t want me to walk now I have come all this way?” They know each other so well, she is not afraid to question him, and he replies keeping their conversation more equal – they are on the same level with each other.
She is also flirtatious, as Unity was, and looks up at her fiancé “with a little pout”. She knows she already has Tony so does not have to worry about changing to impress him, but she is intelligent and knows that she must keep him interested as there are many girls willing to be in her position.
Towards the end of the story, Hardy touches again on the subject of women being weak. He shows that Milly, although she is intelligent, is weak because she agrees to marry Tony. “ ‘Hey, Milly?’
‘If you like, Tony. You didn’t really mean what you said to them?’
‘Not a word of it!’ ” She agrees even though she has witnessed all that has taken place with Unity and Hannah and knows very well that she is third choice. This again shows that, although Milly is portrayed as intelligent throughout the rest of the story, she is shown as weak. She does what the man wants and believes what he says even though she has seen for herself that he is very untrustworthy. This emphasises that Hardy was influence by the belief that women are inferior to men.
Finally we meet Hannah Jolliver, “the very first women Tony had fallen in love with”. Just like Unity and Milly, she is the first to speak which shows that she is forward. She is insulting and rude towards him, “How can you be so stupid, Tony?”, but quickly changes so that she can get what she wants. She is manipulative and knows how she can win his affections and plays on his weaknesses. She is very flirtatious, just as the other girls were, but it seems that, like Unity, she doesn’t have a right to seduce him as he is engaged. After she has got a ride home by being rude and insistent, she whispers to him, which shows an intimate and romantic relationship. He responds and they both seem to be in favour of what is going on. It also shows that the men are weaker in the sense that they are being controlled by the women.
Hannah also changes at the end of the story, and becomes angry with Tony for lying. This shows that she can change her mood quickly, which is something Hardy includes in many of his characters. Just like the Milly and Unity, she is portrayed as weak at the end as she “[hoped] he would ask again” when she refused Tony. Again, this emphasises Hardy’s belief that women are inferior to men.
In “Tony Kytes, the Arch-Deceiver”, the women’s attitudes change when talking to male and female characters. They are manipulative and nice to the male characters, yet they are mean and spiteful to the female characters. They are each portrayed as naïve and weak at some point in the story. This is because when Hardy was alive, even though he was highly influenced by women, it was believed that men were superior to women. But while this is hinted at in the story, it is emphasised even more that the men can be controlled by the use of womanly wiles.
The second story we read was called “To Please His Wife”. In this we meet two girls: Emily Hanning and Joanna Phippard. I am going to compare how Hardy portrays these two women.
First we meet Emily. She is introduced as a “slight gentle creature”. He focuses on her physical appearance, showing that he thinks appearances are important. I think he believes that women are supposed to be looked at and admired for their physical features. This comes from the old fashioned belief that men are superior to women.
She is also shown as being weak as she “lost her heart to the sailor”. She has strong feelings for him, but from Jolliffe’s point of view, “there was a tender understanding between them”. His feelings aren’t as strong whereas she appears to become part of him. This is another example of men being active and women being passive.
Emily is portrayed as a traditional, hardworking housewife. “Emily had tastefully set out – as women can...” I think this shows that Hardy thinks women are careful and tidy. This could be because he lived with his mother and two sisters within a society where it was expected of women to stay at home and look after the house.
Emily is portrayed as quiet and is described as a “gentler and younger rival”. She is portrayed as a shyer, more innocent woman. This information about her character could hint at her being nicer than the other girls in the story. Hardy writes that she “started back” and her “heart jumped” when Jolliffe came into the shop. This gives her the impression of a naïve little girl in love with a man who has being stolen away from her. You begin to feel sympathy towards her.
Emily is also virtuous. “You are going to marry Joanna next month, and it is wrong to –“ This shows that she knows that she should not respond to Jolliffe’s advances. This shows she is respectable and wouldn’t betray her friend. She is also kind and caring, “I shall never hate you, Joanna.” She wanted to help Joanna in hard times despite what Joanna did to her. This also shows that she is loyal.
Secondly we meet Joanna. She is introduced as a “tall, large-framed deliberative girl”. Again Hardy focuses on the physical. When Emily talks “shyly”, Joanna looks “straight at him with her dark eyes” This gives her a more sinister impression than the innocent one of Emily. Already we can see key differences between the girls and begin to warm to Emily.
Joanna is jealous of Emily throughout the story and therefore becomes scheming. She “contrived to wean him away from her gentler, younger rival”. She just wants whatever her friend has. This also shows that she doesn’t seem to be as loving as Emily as she talks about relationships as being things that you can give away. She was engaged to Jolliffe, but if she saw that Emily suffered because of it, she was willing to call the engagement off and “give him back” to Emily. Yet when she sees that Jolliffe and Emily are in love, she becomes “green with envy” and so pretends to be distraught when Jolliffe tries to call off the engagement.
She is very sure of herself and ambitious. When she realises she is stuck with a shopkeeper and Emily has a rich husband, she becomes jealous again. She holds grudges and will not accept help from the innocent girl. This shows hardy thinks that women are quite often spiteful or jealous of other women – this opinion could come from when his mother took him away from his female teachers because she thought they were too close.
In “To Please His Wife”, the women are shown as two contrasting characters. The harsh, spiteful character who was jealous of the sweet, innocent one. Hardy developed these contrasting characters through description and dialogue. He also used other characters reactions towards the two women to encourage us to like Emily more than Joanna. Also the women easily controlled Jolliffe – it was completely down to them who he ended up with. This may be because Hardy was surrounded by women while he was growing up and may have felt controlled by them.
The portrayals of the women in both “To Please His Wife” and “Tony Kytes, the Arch-Deceiver” seem to emphasise that even though Hardy believed men were socially superior, women were more intelligent and scheming. The men may have thought that they were in control of their own destiny but in fact were being manipulated by the women and this was shown through Hardy’s writing. His stories quite often show an ambitious woman jealous of a sweet innocent one. Another example of this occurs in the story called “The Withered Arm”. This interest in examining the results of ambition and jealousy could stem from when his mother, who was ambitious for him to be educated, was jealous of his relationship with his kind and caring teacher and removed him from the school.
Hardy’s interpretation of male/female and female/female relationships shows a mixture of conventions of the time and his own female dominated childhood.
