Compare the treatment of males and females in the two stories; Tony Kytes the Arch Deceiver and News Of the engagement.

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Compare the treatment of males and females in the two stories; Tony Kytes the Arch Deceiver and News Of the engagement.

In examining the two stories I will be approaching a sustained inference on how men and women are portrayed within each story. Looking at each story I will be able to summarise the way in which the writers deals with the sexes. Within each short story I will be dealing with different issues that emphasis the treatment of theses constituents. Evidentially, the characters are an important indication to what and how ideas are portrayed. I will be dealing with the characters and how they bond ‘male and female’ interaction or parental bonding ‘mother and son’. I will also be looking in depth on love and how that affects the people within each story.

     Tony Kytes the arch deceiver is a short story that has a very contradictory meaning. As expected the title would be an indication to how the story is structured. ‘The arch deceiver’ this immediately gives an implication to what is in expectance within this story. The idea that deceivers are dark schemer, have a clinical view of how things should be. However, ‘arch’ gives a clear indication that this character is the top, the highest by the way in which the title dominant within this story. It would be lead to believe that Tony Kytes is a person who has aspirations and has high standards that are planned to accuracy. Yet, his failure is his defeasance. The slackness of his planning leads him into his disaster ‘fate’ towards the end of the story. The prominence of the title could be the technicalities of the story. The Arch Deceiver is clearly a strong standing statement yet could it be that the writer is deceiving the reader rather than it imposing any inference on the story other than that it is a clear contradiction to who Tony really is.

The Arch Deceiver is a story based upon a man ‘Tony’ who is oblivious to what he needs to do- his intentions being to marry but to whom is the problem to what he cannot decide. Thomas Hardy the writer of the story has a structure how he sees life. Hardy was preoccupied with fate, giving an undercurrent with his own theories. The ideal of fate in the story is basically that Tony is set to marry. Hardy imposes his ideas of women within the story to how he has analysed the way in which women rotate. He sees women as shy, bashful people where vanity domains within their lives yet women were also plotters. Hardy believed that ‘no women can begrudge flattery’ which immediately complies with the story and how Tony Kytes is the flatterer. Hardy emphasises how women and men are schemers, no better than each other yet, are all set out looking for desire. However, he feels men lose more yet as a young man he was easily infatuated which therefore could be a reflection of him within the story.

       Tony Kytes is a simply a man who has a pleasant affect on the women of the village. He merely understands meanings and morals but follows his heart. He is very immature to how he treats the females of the village using sentiment to all, but he has such a way of entrancing his girls to believing anything that he banters on about. Tony is a flatter. His assets in his life are to please- to please women. His usage of flattery is a way of connecting to the girls in a more intimate sense. The girls are impressed by his out going attempts to make them feel special and he is not objective to take compliment from each of them. Tony is popular within the village yet physical appearance is his down fall. From young his face portrays scars from ‘small pox’. But this is not a barrier in the prospect of a ‘woman’s’ point of view. Although he is very ‘serious’ looking and has prominence of hardness about him, his face is hairless giving a ‘boyish’ asset to his looks. The emphasis of his looks is set to give a sense of reality to the story and clearly imposes to the reader that he is human. This also implies his vulnerability maybe his latter to lose the will to entrance these women, yet maybe his vulnerability is his advantage as the girls would be prone to accept the challenge of Tony. It is evident at we are given Tony’s character almost too soon within the story.  Tony is superficial he lacks self content and needs girls to fill the hole that is left within his life. Tony differs from other men within the village as expressed. His actions are seen as wrong maybe due to his very impetuous ways in how he upholds different relationships with different girls to possible gives him the wider view. It is clear that Tony loves the attention and maybe he thrives off the idea that the girls love him so this gives him reason to collaborate with more than one.  He coaxes each girl into submission by acting as if each one is unique, he flatters them by comparing them to previous girls to which is his cohabitating with. He seems to have selective memory to be blunt no short term memory at all. It is as if he has time lapse of all space, place and consequence but once he approaches a different girl he is a new person. His impetuous ways lead him to make promises – promises only to be described as ‘pie crust’ easily made easily broken. Although these promises are substantial they seem to overcome the girls and his immediate outline of life changes within this time. It seems that Tony is naïve however he is not stupid. His mere attempt to enchant each woman within his life seems quite imperative. Although it is examined that Tony is some what outer bounds in his actions he seems to have the upper hand of life yet his downfall being that he is making theses mistakes- making the promises to different girls and then realising that it is not the right choice in which case his disaster occurs towards the end.

    Tony has no immediate connection with his father. The rebellious antics of a child would be to go against parents which in Tony’s case his father. Tony has over thrown the traditional ideas of the life-style in the village and too his father this would be wrong. Tony is no commitment to the girls and to himself, his father therefore would have done being a gentlemen and not flirting with every girl in sight or reach. Tony is may seem a ‘player’ as it would be seen in modern day society. This being the ideal that a male cannot hold on to one relationship and it is his duty to have a chain of relationships which benefits him for his status or self content. But Tony is the gentlemen although he has different quirks in his life pattern; he still seems to have a biological response to how he greets women. It would seem that it is a ‘trigger reaction’ once he immediately sees a women it would be his duty to lower his gaze or ‘take off his hat’ as a mark of respect. However, this is contradictory to his previous actions when making the girls lower their status by climbing under the ‘tarpaulin’ as if they were sub-human and once they had followed his comment he merely forgets their there and focuses on his next lady.

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    Tony simply has no shame. He is so superficial with all the girls and when it is time to live up to his problem which inevitability is that all the girls have discovered that he’s been taking advantage of each of them they all leave expect Milly. Milly- being the one he engaged at the beginning but his father thus suggested that he have Milly and the irony of it that before Tony was against his fathers wishes but now he levelled with the idea and sinking into his depth he takes the chance of being with Milly ...

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