Compare the way the male characters are presented in 'Tony Kytes, the arch-deceiver', and 'Alison Ashworth' by Nick Hornby.

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Kajal Maisuria 11IW

Compare the way the male characters are presented in ‘Tony Kytes, the arch-deceiver’, and ‘Alison Ashworth’ by Nick Hornby.

The two stories ‘Tony Kytes, the arch-deceiver’ and ‘Alison Ashworth’, are both about a male character who is easily persuaded by the opposite gender into marriage or a relationship. In the two stories, both the male characters seem to have the females making their decisions for them, but the setting of the two stories seem to have great affect on the characters and how they react, because ‘Tony Kytes’ is written in 1895 and ‘Alison Ashworth’ is written in 1995, therefore each writer would have a different interpretation on the way they see life.

       In ‘Tony Kytes, the arch-deceiver’, the character Tony ‘was quite the women’s favourite’, and would ‘hurt his looks in a woman’s eye’. Tony would flirt towards any girl whilst talking to them, by using words like ‘darling’ to compliment them and to make them feel special. His attitude towards women would be ‘very tender’ and ‘as mild as he could’, to try and manipulate the girls to do what he wants. By using his wit and charms, the women felt overwhelmed and obliged to do what Tony asked. Tony’s character found it hard to say ‘no’, when any of the women asked for a favour. Unity asked ‘My dear Tony, will you give me a lift home?’ and as Tony couldn’t refuse, he replied ‘that I will darling’. Near the end of the scene, Tony’s father tells Tony ‘why if you mean to marry Milly Richards, do it and there’s an end o’t. But don’t go driving about the country with Jolliver’s daughter and making a scandal’. This shows that in the olden days once you’re engaged and to be married you can’t turn back or spend time with other girls. At the beginning of the story, the author wanted us to feel a bit of hatred towards Tony, because he keeps leading all these women on, but as we get ‘deeper’ into the play, we realise that the character Tony is ‘typically male’ and the women will do anything to have him.

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       The story ‘Alison Ashworth’ consists of two main characters, ‘Alison’ and the teenage boy. The teenage boy and his friends begin to experience feelings towards girls, but before it seemed as if ‘they weren’t there’, that they didn’t even notice them, but then they became more aware of the girls and ‘all these sisters had…become interesting…disturbing, even’ and ‘they were everywhere’. The way he started behaving around girls, was also different; he called this ‘an imitation of absent mindedness’, which was ‘whistling, chatting or fiddling with a cigarette stub or a box of matches’, or have a ...

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