The men in the stories are very different, especially in the way that they treat their women. In “Tickets Please” John Thomas is not fighting in the war and he is the only male around for a long way. John Thomas’s flirting is well known among colleges. John Thomas is a philander and he gets his thrills out of moving from one women to the next. John Thomas name means penis in slang. People at the time would have known this and this would have given an indication to his personality. John Thomas is described as ‘tall and agile’ ‘good looking’ ‘small brown moustache’ ‘ruddy’ ‘impudent’ and we are told that he smokes. This is a sign of a lower working class person. ‘Impudent’ is used to describe his manner. We know that his flirting behaviour as we know from this quote:
“Walks out with the newcomer”. This shows what he is like with women. John Thomas is also described as a ‘nocturnal presence’ in the lives of women. We are not told but we get the hint that John Thomas is having sexual relationships with the women but we never get told.
Tony Kytes is very different from John Thomas; he is very polite to the women in the story. He refers to them as ‘dear Hannah’ and ‘darling’. Tony Kytes does lie but when he lies he lies to protect the feelings of the women. Tony Kytes does promise all three women things. Tony Kytes does not mean to humiliate the women but in the end he does by proposing to each of the one after the other.
John Thomas and Tony Kytes are also different in that Tony Kytes has three women on the go at once but he never has sex with any of them, this is because in this time in society people would not have sex before marriage. John Thomas does not have more than one girl on the go at once but he does have sex with many of them. We are not told this but we get very strong hints that he does have sex with them. Here is a quote from “Tickets Please” that shows that John Thomas just went from one woman to the other:
“he hated intelligent interest”. This shows that John Thomas was not with the women so that he could marry them or stay with them forever he just wanted to remain a ‘nocturnal presence’ and just have a bit of fun. So the men in the two stories did have their similarities and they had their differences.
I will now examine the similarities between the women in the two stories. The similarities are that they all like the male character from the story. They all want a relationship as well and to settle down. That is one thing that has not changed from before 1900 to after it.
Women’s roles changed dramatically during world war one so there are more differences than similarities for the women. The women in “Tickets Please” are a lot more independent than in “Tony Kytes”. Women in world war one were earning there own money and needed not to marry so they could move out and live on there own. In “Tony Kytes” The women at that time did whatever there closet male relative told them to (dad or husband etc). The women in “Tony Kytes” were therefore desperate for a husband. They wanted to marry so they could move out and live with somebody else. Here is a quote from “Tony Kytes” that shows the women did what their father told them to, this is just after Tony proposed to Hannah and her dad says:
“My daughter is not willing” Hannah then agreed with her dad and walked off. She wanted to marry him but was trying to show she was strong and she had to listen to her dad and she agreed with him and said no. It says after her father tells her to say no:
“ She would not have refused Tony if he had asked her quietly”.
Here is a quote from “Tickets Please” to show that Annie Stone has a sharp tongue and more forward than the women from “Tony Kytes”:
“She is peremptory, suspicious, and ready to hit first,” She shows how women’s roles have changed, and this shows the similarities and differences between the women in the stories.
The similarities between the relationships in the two stories are the women just want to settle down with some and find a life partner and the men want some fun before they get married. The men want more than one woman where as the women just wants one man. The shows that men and women’s attitudes towards relationships have stayed the same before and after 1900. The men thought as long as they were honest about what they did it was ok to do it. The writers of both stories in their history it shows that they both thought that it were acceptable to ‘play the field’.
The differences in the relationships are that in the time that “Tony Kytes” was written when it was not acceptable to have sex before marriage. In “Tickets Please” John Thomas had sex with many of the women, even though he was not married.
The language used in each story is very different. The language used in “Tony Kytes” is ‘Dorset talk’. The story is set in Dorset so the people in the story talk like they are from Dorset. In “Tickets Please” the language is ‘northern language’. The language in both stories is very colloquial. Here is a quote from “Tony Kytes” showing the colloquialism:
“Twas a little, round…” and “…talking to ee” Twas and ee is local language from Dorset. Here is a quote from “Tickets Please” showing the colloquialism used in this story:
“Ay, he will…” and “ which tha likes”. The language is very different because of the colloquialism. Also in “Tickets Please” John Thomas means penis and so does his nickname 'coddy'. D.H. Lawrance does this on purpose because in the time it was written people would have known what it meant and it was done to tie in with John Thomas’s personality.
In “Tickets Please” the first sentence is 115 words and this is done for a reason, it is to pull the reader in. People will normally pick up a book and read the first few sentences, if the first sentence is a page long then the reader will probably read the whole thing as it is a short story any way.
The actions of the women are governed by the time in which the story were set in, because “Tickets Please” the girls didn’t take what John Thomas did to them kindly so they took revenge on him by attacking him and showing him up. This is governed by the time the story was set in because it was world war one and women’s roles had changed and they had started to take charge a bit.
In “Tony Kytes” the women’s actions are governed by the time it was set in, because Hannah only refuses Tony because her dad was there. Unity would have accepted if her asked her again and that is why she looked back. Molly accepts even tough Tony has just asked two other women right in front of her.
I prefer the “Tony Kytes" story and this is because it gives a bit of suspense all the way though the story and you never now when everything is going to go wrong and he is going to be found out. Both stories are good but I prefer “Tony Kytes the arched-deceiver”.
I have come to the conclusion that centuries start and finish, people come and go and war start and they are finished, but men and women’s relationships and attitudes towards relationships stay the stay the same. In both books the women want to find a man to settle down with and the men want more than one woman and they think as long as they are honest they can get away with it and everything is ok. So over the change of the century everything else has changed apart from men and women’s relationships and their attitudes towards them.
