Discuss the similarities and differences that exist between 'Growing up' by Joyce Cary and 'The Son's Veto' by Thomas Hardy.

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Discuss the similarities and differences that

exist between ‘Growing up’ by Joyce Cary

and ‘The Son’s Veto’ by Thomas Hardy.

   ‘Growing up’ by Joyce Cary and ‘The Son’s Veto’ by Thomas Hardy have two very different story lines.  The first difference that I noticed was that they were written in two very different times.  ‘The Son’s Veto’ was written in 1901 and ‘Growing up’ is quite a modern contrast as it was written in the later half of the 20th century.  One of the main differences is the language that is used in the two texts.  ‘The Son’s Veto’ has a Victorian style of language which is sometimes quite hard to read and understand whereas ‘Growing up’ is quite easy to read as the author uses more modern and up to date language.  In ‘The Son’s Veto’ Thomas Hardy decided to use testing vocabulary and write very long sentences.  For instance  “She told him the particulars of the late event, and they stood silent, these two young people, in that elevated, calmly philosophic mind which is engendered when a tragedy has happened close to hand, and has not happened to the philosophers themselves.”  Some words used in this story are not used today and people have edited the story and made some complicated words in bold with their modern definition in the margin.  I think that this story was definitely written for the more intellectual reader.   Although ‘Growing up’ is not hard to read, Joyce Cary sometimes writes quite long and descriptive sentences.  For instance “It had come to seem, for him, a triumph of imagination:  and this afternoon, once more, he found it charming in its wilderness, an original master piece among gardens.” Nevertheless, both stories are written in the third person, yet we get much more insight into what Robert Quick in ‘Growing up’ is thinking than we do with Sophy Twycott in ‘The Son’s Veto’.      

   When I read through the stories for the first time, I immediately knew that the most common element and main theme of both stories was about the relationship between parents and their children and who is in control.  Yet, both these stories are open for readers to make their own interpretation of the theme. I think that the main event of each story is that both parents have been made very upset by their children and neither of them are able to speak out, as they are too scared to hurt their children, even though they are hurt inside themselves.  Even though both stories have the same theme, they portray the subject matter in very different ways. ‘The Son’s Veto’ is about a lady called Sophy Twycott who is in a wheel chair.  The story travels back and forth through two sections of different time periods.  The story starts at the present time and then switches into the past to tell the readers about how and why she is in a wheelchair.  This section of the past properly introduces all the characters of the story.  It then goes back to the present and tells the story from there up to the point where Sophy Twycott dies.  This technique has been used effectively to help the reader to understand and enables readers to guess and ending to the predictable beginning.  I thought that Sophy would marry Sam and live happily ever after.  I was quite shocked to find that this was not at all the case.  

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   It is a very emotional story that follows Sophy through emotions of happiness, romance, sadness, disappointment, compromising love for security, hurt and lust. ‘Growing up’ is a much shorter story.  It has fewer characters brought into the story than ‘The Son’s Veto’ so, in consequence, there are not as many emotions.  On the other hand, other emotions, like surprise, anger, confusion and possibly loneliness, are included into this story.  An example of this is “He did not utter any reproaches.  He avoided even looking at the girls in case they could see his anger and surprise.”  This story is ...

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