Comparing three texts - 'Tony Kytes, The Arch-Deceiver' by Thomas Hardy - 'Our Love Now' by Martyn Lowery and 'One Flesh' by Elizabeth Jennings.

Authors Avatar

GCSE COURSEWORK – WIDE READING ASSIGNMENT

By

Gavin Tomlin

In this essay, I will be comparing three texts: ‘Tony Kytes, The Arch-Deceiver’ by Thomas Hardy – ‘Our Love Now’ by Martyn Lowery and ‘One Flesh’ by Elizabeth Jennings.

        ‘Tony Kytes the Arch- Deceiver’ was written in the 1890’s and was set in Dorset. Rural life then was very hard and marriage was extremely important for the woman in Britain because, they needed a husband to support them as it was very difficult to get a decent job that paid a sufficient wage for women in those days. The view I have from the story is that the women preferred a wealthy man with a stern look about them the ratio was three women to one man of this description. The tone of this story is very humorous knowing that there was two women hiding from one in the front seat of the wagon makes it comical. Narration is the most appropriate form for this story because it creates a more realistic theme for the story.

        Perhaps the best way of analysing the treatment of the theme of love in ‘Tony Kytes’ is by examining how ‘Hardy’ represents his characters and their relationships. Milly Richards is very considerate and loving towards Tony. She portrays this in her first prologue.

“My dear Tony” cries Milly, looking up with a little pout acting as he came near. “How long you’ve been coming home! Just as if I didn’t live at Upper Long Puddle at all! And I’ve come to meet you as you asked me to do, and ride back with you, and talk over our future home – since you asked me”

This prologue also show that she is quite angry with Tony for being late, as the writer uses exclamation marks to express her frustration, sarcasm is also used to portray her anger. Although this is all going on in this prologue it is still apparent she has strong feeling for Tony. As she says they need to talk about their future. We know that Milly is a considerate person because after all that had happened she still agreed to marry Tony. I believe this was the correct choice that she made because, Hanna and Unity forced themselves onto Tony and he was only trying to please everyone but his heart belonged to Milly from the start.

Join now!

“Unity Sallet, a handsome girl, one of the young women he’d been very tender towards before he’d got engaged to Milly.”

Unity is a very pushy person who appears to always get what she wants and is also very charming. We know this because as soon as Tony arrives in this wagon she asked him straight away “Will you give me a lift home?”

Then she goes on to say “Why did ye desert me for the other one?”

This shows that she is annoyed that he is engaged to Milly and not her. She is also charming as when ...

This is a preview of the whole essay