In the short stories we have studied, Tony Kytes, the Arch Deceiver, The History of the Hardcomes, The Ice Palace and The Last of the Belles, the roles of the female characters are very different.

Wider Reading Coursework

In the short stories we have studied, Tony Kytes, the Arch Deceiver, The History of the Hardcomes, The Ice Palace and The Last of the Belles, the roles of the female characters are very different. Tony Kytes, the Arch Deceiver and The History of the Hardcomes were written by Thomas Hardy whilst The Ice Palace and The Last of the Belles are by F.Scott Fitzgerald. There are many differences and ways to explain the differences in the roles of the female characters. For example, the period the story was written has a big effect on how the female characters are portrayed.

In the two Thomas Hardy stories we have studied, Tony Kytes, the Arch Deceiver and The History of the Hardcomes, the female characters play a secondary role to the male characters. This reflects how society was in the time of Hardy. In the nineteenth century, girls were taught to be courted and not to court men themselves. This is one of the reason why Tony’s father is unhappy that Tony was alone with a girl he wasn’t engaged to in Tony Kytes, the Arch Deceiver. Their roles in life were to be a good wife and to please their husband. In the Victorian era, men were seen to be more important than women in society. Most of the female characters in the two Hardy stories reflect the society’s attitude towards women. For example, in Tony Kytes, the Arch Deceiver, one of the female characters, Unity Sallet, seems to be the strongest out of the three female characters in the story. She refuses Tony at her own accord but she does show that she is weak by looking back at Tony. This shows that general attitudes towards women are that they are generally weak by nature. In the nineteenth century, for women to progress in life, they need to have a husband to provide for her and that is why Unity Sallet seems to be stronger by refusing Tony. In History of the Hardcomes, Olive Pawle does not seem to fit the stereotype of the women in the nineteenth century. She liked to do things that were adventurous and is quite outgoing. It says that “Olive loved riding and driving and outdoor jaunts to a degree” and that she was “of a more bustling nature, fond of racketing about and seeing what was going on in the world”. Olive also shows that she is adventurous when she says “I should like to row in the bay!”. She is one of the few exceptions to the stereotype of women in the Hardy stories. The men were expected to propose to the women and the women were often expected to follow what their male relatives thought. For example, Hannah Jolliver refuses Tony because her father was there. It says in Tony Kytes, the Arch Deceiver “‘I have spirit and I do refuse him!’ says Hannah, partly because her father was there”. Also, the swapping of partners in The History of the Hardcomes was initiated by the men. The two female characters did not have any real say in the matter and just went along with the men. This again showed that men were the more dominant sex in Nineteenth century society.

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The role of an ideal women was given to a Mrs. Goodby of Leicestershire. At her death, people said that she carried out her duties of the mistress of a small family with “peity, patience, frugality and industry”. Moreover, "...her ardent and unceasing flow of spirits, extreme activity and diligence, her punctuality, uprightness and remarkable frugality, combined with a firm reliance on God ... carried her through the severest times of pressure, both with credit and respectability," (The General Baptist Repository and Missionary Observer, 1840). This showed that an ideal women in the Victorian era exhibited goodness and virtue whose life revolved around the domestic sphere of the home and family. Her role was described as “helpmeet and domestic manager”. This shows that the ideal women in the Victorian era were not the weak and passive characters shown in romantic literature. As in Emily Darth in The History of the Hardcome and Milly Richards in Tony Kytes, the Arch Deceiver. In the Victorian era, women were given little rights. They had rights over their children as the Custody of Infants Act was introduced in 1839. It isn’t until 1857 that women were allowed to have control over their earnings under the Matrimonial Causes Act. Under this Act, they could also obtain a divorce without an Act of Parliment. Women in the nineteenth century did not have a right to further education until 1874 when the London School of Medicine for Women was founded. Also, women were still not able to vote in Britain until 1928, the year of the death of Thomas Hardy. These fact show that women could not play a major role in society because of restrictions placed by the governments. Hardy lived in an age where girls were taught “how to go bout their household chores”, from Women and Victorian Values,1837-1910, and women taught their roles in society. Motherhood was their social responsibility. It was said “motherhood became something that was no longer natural but something that had to be learnt”. However, this was also the time when the Industrial Revolution occured in Britain and as a result, many more women started to work in big industrial cities such as Manchester, Bradford and Glasgow. It can be said that this showed a turning point in the roles of women in Victorian society.

The roles of the characters in the Hardy stories are very different from the roles of the female characters in the two F.Scott Fitzgerald stories we’ve studied. Fitzgerald’s stories were often set during or after the First World War and this is a time when the roles of women were starting to change. Women had gone to work during the war, were cutting off their long Victorian hair and freeing themselves from the constrictions associated with women in the Victorian era. Also, the main female characters we see in these two Fitzgerald stories are often from the South of America and their characteristics are different to women in the North at that time. The stories reflect the fact that the view of women in society was changing as the prominent characters are mainly female. However, it seems that women are more important in the South because they have high social standing. This is also because the Souhtern society was less modern. Especially in the War, Southern women were put in a higher place and adored by the men. For example, Andy, in The Last of the Belles, described Ailie Calhoun as “the Southern type in all its purity”. He also says that “she had the adroitness sugar-coated with sweet, voluble simplicity, the suggested background of devoted fathers, brothers and admirers”. This gives evidence to the less modern society talked of earlier. In The Ice Palace, Sally Carrol Happer is the main character and she is almost the opposite of the stereotype given to women in the Victorian era. However, traces of the old stereotype was still present. For example, Mrs. Bellamy disapproves of Sally Carrol’s bobbed hair and this bobbed hair is very much a symbol of female in the Jazz Age. Sally Carrol says of the girls in the North “If they weren’t beautiful, they’re nothing. They just fade out when you look at them. They’re glorified domestics.”. The Northern attitude to women is very much like the old views that they should be behind the males. An example of this is at the dinner party in The Ice Palace, Sally Carrol says “the girls sat in a haughty and expensive aloofness”. This supports what Sally Carrol says of the Northern girls. Whereas the Southern attitudes towards women were more modern. However, the Southern attitude can also been seen as less modern as their socirty is less modern. In the Jazz Age, women were more forward than before and this is what the women in the South were like. Even if they were engaged or even married, they still expected “the same amount of half-affectionate badinage and flattery that would be accorded to a débutante”.

Women in the South are looked at even more closely in the second story, The Last of the Belles where the main character is Ailie Calhoun. Ailie is very flirtatious and forward towards the men in the story and this is very much characteristics of the women in the Jazz Age. In a way, Ailie represented the South and the role of women in the Jazz Age. She flirts with numerous numbers of men in the story. For example, Bill Knowles, Lieutenant Canby, Andy and Earl Schoen. We’re also told she gets engaged to a man from Cincinnati and later gets married to a man from Savannah. Like Fitzgerald’s wife, Zelda Fitzgerald, Ailie had lots of parties and had beautiful expensive clothes. An example of the parties are the dances at the country-club and the watermelon parties. Ailie also had bobbed hair like Sally Carrol Happer.

From this you can see that the roles of the female character differ in the stories of the two writers. The differences come when the time changes and the view of the society changes. The war played a big part in the change of attitude towards women in society. However, the change was not always obvious in Fitgerald’s stories. For example, Sally Carrol said in The Ice Palace “Men are the centre of every mixed group” in the North. The change of roles for women helped create the era called the Jazz Age and F.Scott Fitzgerald and his wife helped promote this through their lifestyle and their writing. Thomas Hardy had a big impact on English Society and his stories helped create a picture of the Victorian era and its attitudes. Women had no big impact in society as they played a minor role and therefore do not feature prominently in his stories. For example, the main character in Tony Kyte, the Arch Deceiver is Tony Kyte and in The History of the Hardcomes, the two main characters are James and Steve Hardcome. However, they had a major role to play at home rather than in business. They had a big influence on their family life since they were at home quite a lot whereas their husbands were working to provide for the family.

There are many ways of explaining the differences between the roles of the female characters in the two sets of stories. Apart from the historical period, the writer’s background and views are also important. Fitzgerald is in the middle of an age where parties are common and a new generation of women are coming through. The icon for these women is his wife and therefore he has a very good insight into these women. Whereas Hardy lived in a male dominated society and therefore does not concentrate on the behaviour of the women but concentrates on the behaviour of the men.

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