Discuss how Thomas Hardy portrays the role of female characters in society in at least two of his short stories.

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Discuss how Thomas Hardy portrays the role of female characters in society in at least two of his short stories.

Thomas Hardy was a prominent author as well as a poet who was born in 1840 and died in 1928. During his long life, he wrote about one thousand poems and fifteen novels. He lived for the majority of his life close to Dorchester. Hardy obtained assorted ideas for his stories whilst he was growing up. An example of this was that he knew of a lady who had her blood ‘turned’ by a convicts corpse and he used this in the story ‘The Withered Arm’. The existence of witches and witchcraft was acknowledged in his lifetime and it was not typical for several people to be executed for practicing witchcraft.

In this essay, I am going to explore how the writer Thomas Hardy portrays the role of female characters in society in at least two of his short stories. This social isolation is apparent often in Hardy's stories, the main character - now identified as Rhoda - isolated from society partly through choice but also due to rejection by others. In addition, this division is again shown by a comment Lodge makes later on in the story; Rhoda does not live with the rest of the village but instead outside it, "a mile or two off". The physical distance is symbolic of the social divide.

Rather than re-inventing herself in another part as perhaps a widow, she chooses to stick it out with the talk and allows it to happen. She also allows herself to be marginalized in her community.

We also read about the milkmaids gossiping concerning Rhoda's situation, "Tis hard for she" signifying a small hamlet environment where news spreads fast. The reason for the gossiping is that "Farmer Lodge" has just got married to an upper class girl, "He do bring home his bride to-morrow, I hear". Rhoda is outwardly silent but she has already developed a jealousy and burning hate for Farmer Lodge's wife.  She wonders what superior upper class girl he has married and sends her son to spy on the new arrival, "Well, did you see her?”

Another type of division particularly evident in "The Withered Arm" is class. The first signs of this are shown fairly early in the tale, Farmer Lodge refusing to address his own son because of the son's lower class. Instead, he simply rides past "...having taken no outward notice of the boy whatsoever." Class is the main issue that divides Rhoda and Farmer Lodge; despite his feelings for her and the fact that she carried his son, Lodge chooses to marry a woman of higher status (Gertrude) to preserve his status and respectability. This respectability was often, however, as in this case renounced by Hardy in his tales, preferring to show the lower classes as better and more respectable people at heart.

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Rhoda continued refusing to see the new arrival but inside the mental upper class image remained increasing in hatefulness until she dreams about her staring cruelly at Rhoda while sitting on top of her. This completely proves the upper class view of the time as Gertrude, "was sitting upon her [Rhoda's] chest as she lay" showing the upper class in control of the weaker lower class, Rhoda then, "seized the...obtrusive left arm" therefore awakening from her dream.
Gertrude, at the start of the story, shows a certain amount of confidence and independence. Although she is young and inexperienced, Rhoda's son says ...

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