“A narrow, dusty house, in a long, straight street”. This description of Sophy’s new home has a certain heaviness attached to it, achieved by a slow, almost plodding rhythm and the alliteration at the end of the description. I think that Hardy makes this description heavy to give a greater impression on how unpleasant her new location is.
In “Survival”, the most obvious way that isolation is displayed, is that there are fifteen passengers on board a space ship that is “whirling through space like a sizzled owl”. In creating a life threatening situation, almost fifty million miles away from Earth, Wyndham can create tension and also a microcosm of society in which he tries to depict patriarchy. In having a substantial amount of males but only one female on board the “s/r Falcon”, Wyndham is able to create isolation in two forms. The first being that Alice will feel isolated being the only woman on board and the second is that this isolation can be increased due to the fact that the society is male dominated.
One of the ways that Alice and Sophy suffer in a patriarchal society is their lack of power. In “The Son’s Veto”, after her husband’s death Sophy “was left with no control over anything”. Although it is not a result of living in a patriarchal society, the main way that Sophy’s lack of power is shown, is her wheelchair. As described before, the inability to transport one’s self can lead to a feeling of powerlessness and isolation. Sophy has little power or authority of her son; he actually has authority over her. This can be seen when he corrects his mother because she said ‘has’ instead of ‘have’, he said it “with an impatient fastidiousness that was almost harsh” but his mother “did not…retaliate” but “did not resent making it” she, after having being ‘told off’ by her own 12 year old son, didn’t comment on his “crumby mouth”. In the events leading to the vicar’s marriage proposal to Sophy, Sophy “became conscious of his lips upon her cheek” which implies that Sophy didn’t have any warning and wasn’t asked whether she would allow the vicar kiss her. Next, “he asked her to marry him” and Sophy “assented forthwith to be his wife” even though she “did not exactly love him”. Regardless of what Sophy felt, Randolph denied her the right to marry Sam. He later forced her to “swear that she would not wed Samuel Hobson without his consent” “before a little cross and altar that he had erected in his bedroom for his private devotions”.
In “Survival”, Alice also has little power since she is of a minority and considered to be of lower status. Alice knows her position and how little power and therefore “the few requests she made” were “through the intermediation of her husband”. An alternative reading of this may be that Alice had tried to get her point across but know one had listened until she had used her husband as her communication medium. When Alice comes to tell the Captain something, even though she approaches him and therefore would expect to start the conversation herself; he does. He immediately becomes in control he wants to maintain his authority.
The main issue raised in “Survival” is how women are stereotyped, in “The Son’s Veto”; this is not a major an issue as class but still exists. The difference between the two may be there due to the historical differences between the two texts. The passengers and crew on board the “s/r Falcon”, would have been very surprised to see a woman on board and maybe thought that she “ought to be … sitting in some village … knitting”. Alice must break away from this stereotype to be taken seriously by these men. At the very beginning of the text, two very stereotypical characters are created: Mr. and Mrs. Feltham – Alice’s parents. Mrs. Feltham is very emotional, very reliant on her husband, very frantic and very unreasonable whereas Mr. Feltham is the voice of reason, good sense and good judgement. Alice breaks away from the stereotypes of her parents. The journey to Mars can be viewed as a metaphor for leaving behind stereotypical expectations and become “real” to her.
Sophy enjoyed life as a working class parlour maid and was happy in keeping with a stereotypical working class life. When she marries the vicar she had to adopt a stereotypical middle class lifestyle – she found this hard to conform to and so longed to return to her former class. Sophy’s husband and son both wanted Sophy to be a stereotypical ‘lady’ but Sophy wasn’t comfortable with the pressure exerted upon her and so failed to fulfil their desires.
In both texts, there is a feeling that the main character has been displaced and does not belong in their new surrounding. Hardy creates a situation where Sophy is displaced and her natural state is in the countryside. Hardy makes the difference very clear in differentiating between the two settings. Gaymead, Sophy’s “native village”, which represents Sophy’s youth and vitality. This contrasts with her urban setting which creates a sense of loneliness, depression, and a place in which no-one knows anyone else:
“Abandoning their pretty home, with trees and shrubs and glebe, for a narrow, dusty house in a long, straight street, and their fine peal of bells for the wretchedest one-tongued clangour that ever tortured mortal ears.”
This is an excellent piece of text in depicting the new urban environment and contrasting it with that of the rural. The word “pretty” is a word that is almost childish and reflects the idea of the countryside symbolising Sophy’s youth. The list that follows emphasizes the positive aspects Hardy is describing by using a list and having ‘and’ in between each word. This is then contrasted with the “narrow, dusty house in a long straight street” which has a very slow, plodding rhythm, which combined with the alliteration creates a sense of heaviness. This is also contrasts with the description of the “fine peal of bells” which a sense of life back. Again, Hardy uses this positive statement to introduce the final part of the description which has the heaviness again.
Sophy is also displaced in terms of class: she should be living life as a working class woman but find herself living life as a middle class widow. Even when “she tried to feel that she was a dignified parsonage” she “could not keep it up, and the tears hanging in her eyes were indicated in her voice.”
Wyndham’s story has the same sense of displacement in placing Sophy on board a spaceship in which she becomes an outcast. She is only on the spaceship because she “must … become real to herself” and to maybe to prove that women are capable of anything that men are. In showing herself who she is, Alice maybe trying to show to society who she is and what she is capable of. There is a sense that she is trying to overcome people’s expectations of her and womankind.
Throughout both texts, the individuality is not recognised by the male characters within the story. Sophy’s individuality is not recognised by the vicar, her husband and her son. Randolph never cared about what Sophy felt or thought about Sam Hobson, the mere fact that he wasn’t a “gentleman” was enough for Sam to restrict his mother from marring him. Sophy’s husband also failed to recognise her individuality when imposing a marriage upon her. The two contrast with Sam who even begins to call her “Mrs. Twycott” once she had become a ‘lady’.
Alice’s individuality is not recognised by the passengers and the crew thought since Alice is a woman that she “could have caused great trouble aboard”. Wyndham also gives all the other characteristics such as “the man with the drawl”, the “small, wiry man”, “the small man” and “the big man” but Alice is seen as “the woman” with no other characteristic.
The stories resolve the tensions they depict in very different ways. In Wyndham’s story, there is a much greater sense of resolution in the way that Alice is the only survivor of the spaceship and gained the superiority through eating people. Hardy doesn’t try to resolve the tension that he creates instead he creates it, dramatises it but takes it no further. Wyndham tries to depict a scenario where the woman becomes powerful whereas Hardy doesn’t give Sophy a way out. The reason the difference exists is because is the social, historical and literary contexts that the stories were written in and the difference between them. In 1891, the time that Hardy wrote “The Son’s Veto” the roles of women and expectations of women were very different to those at 1956 – the time at which “Survival” was written. In 1891, working class women had to work but middle class women didn’t have to, women were not allowed on juries, they were not allowed in parliament because it was feared that they would gossip, they were refused education, they were not allowed appointments within the church and they could not divorce unless the man wanted one. By 1956 this had all changed, this is because whilst the men had been away during wars (in particular, the second World War), the women were left to perform their jobs – this gained them a lot of respect and employers realised that women would accept the same jobs as men but for less money. This gained them a lot of respect. Women were given the vote as the First World War ended in 1918 after long campaigning by the suffragettes. During the 1950’s girls were entitled to the same education as boys. During the 1950’s women were allowed to divorce a man if they felt that the marriage needed to be terminated. Wyndham’s story includes space travel which was a major part of the fifties. The major wars in prior to Wyndham’s text heralded a huge leap in terms of technology which was a major theme within “Survival”. If Hardy had created some sort of resolution to his text, he would have been deemed ridiculous by the society and no one would have taken his story seriously. Hardy actually prided himself on how radical he was in terms of depicting patriarchal societies.
A contemporary feminist reading of “Survival” would suggest that Alice is not really a powerful woman and that the only power she gains makes her grotesque. Alice becomes so intoxicated by the power that it corrupts her and leads her to eat the rescuers. Wyndham’s text actually shows how power corrupts women. A feminist may also argue that the fact that she gained any power at all is overridden by the fact that none of the events take place on earth but instead closer to Mars. Alice only induces the power by becoming a mother which is exactly what her mother wanted from her. These contemporary feminist readings show how Wyndham’s opinions are irrelevant and contradictory.
Wyndham’s failure to depict patriarchy to satisfy feminist readers reveals that Wyndham is quite afraid of the power and potential of women.
