In this essay I have been asked to read and deconstruct 6 Thomas Hardy stories.

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In this essay I have been asked to read and deconstruct 6 Thomas Hardy stories. These stories are called The Superstitious Mans Story, Tony Kytes the Arch-Deceiver, Old Mrs Chundle, Absent-Mindedness In A Parish Choir, The Sons Veto and finally Troys Sword Exercise. I will read and compare each story and see what similarities and differences each story shares. I will also focus on the themes, social, cultural and historical background.

The first aspect that I will be looking at is in the era and the way Thomas Hardy was bought up. Thomas Hardy was born in the village of Higher Bockhampton near Dorchester and he was born into a working class family although his mother was bought up in a middle class family. In this era it was considered extremely hard to go from working class to middle class and Hardy proved this was wrong. He lived in a small village with a population of around 50, so he grew up with his brothers and sister in a very rural isolated region. As he was born into a working class family this meant that his family could not afford to send him to private school and pay for his teaching and because Compulsory schooling was unknown in the 1840s his mother taught him to read and write as she felt her eldest sun should have a better education that what she had.

 In the six stories I have read Hardy writes about the microcosm, which are small individual communities, which are very lonely and isolated an example of this, would be Absent-Mindedness In A Parish Choir which is set in a rural town called Longpuddle which is also mentioned in the Superstitious Mans story line 53. In this time period women were treated very differently. They were not treated as equals and there duty was to stay at home and cook, clean and look after the children so when there husband comes home from work he would not have to do anything except for rest an example is in Superstitious Mans story where his wife would stay up and clean. Thomas Hardy had an interest in macabre (gruesome) this is thought to be because hanging was very common and he witnessed at least one in his lifetime. Religion made an enormous impact on Thomas Hardy life and this is reflected in his stories for example Old Mrs Chundle. Hardy even considered becoming a parson but this never happened because he began to loose his faith. You could see his interest in fate and the Supernatural in short stories like Tony Kytes the Arch-Deceiver and example of this is when Tony says to Milly

“It does seems as if fate has ordained that it should be you be you and I or nobody” there is also other example in The Withered Arm. During Hardys first marriage to Emma who was a middle class citizen meant that he lived in London for longer than what he would of liked. His stories about rural life significantly explains why he wrote about rural life so much.

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I am know going to write a brief synopsis of each story I will begin with Superstitious Mans Story.

This story was written by Hardy in 1984 “Superstitious Man’s Story”, is about a middle aged healthy man called William who goes to bed on Midsummer Eve like he would any other night. According to his wife Betty he went for a walk “he went out and closed the door behind himself” this came to surprise to betty as when he is unable to rest he often leaves the house to smoke his pipe this is stated on line 20 and ...

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