My assignment is to compare and contrast the two male characters in the stories, 'Tony Kytes the Arch-Deceiver' and 'Tickets Please'.

Amin Bedri

John Loughborough School

Centre number: 11213

English Coursework wider reading

Wider Reading

My assignment is to compare and contrast the two male characters in the stories, ‘Tony Kytes the Arch-Deceiver’ and ‘Tickets Please’. I found these two stories severely facetious. Firstly ‘Tickets Please’ was written by D. H. Lawrence. It was written in the 20th century. ‘Tickets Please’ is set in World War One as the narrator mentions “Since we are in war-time” The two stories, ‘Tony Kytes, the Arch Deceiver’ and ‘Tickets Please’ were set 25 years apart.
The plot for ‘Tickets Please’ is concerning a woman named Annie and a man named John Thomas who is was a good-looking man. But the down side to him is he is not the committed type. John dumps her the reason being that she took to much interest into him. Subsequently Annie now wants revenge. On the other hand in the story ‘Tony Kytes, the Arch Deceiver’ the male lead is anxious to marry and settle down.

‘Tony Kytes, the Arch Deceiver’ was set at the end of the nineteenth century in a rural community, which seems mostly unaffected by the modern things coming along; it remains traditional in both the way of life and the attitudes of the community. The members of the community are very calm in the way that they live, riding around in the carts, the scenes seem unhurried. Tony Kytes was set on a ‘large horse drawn cart’

‘Tickets Please’ was set 25 years later which had a much more urban setting with a complicated, faster lifestyle, with all the danger and thrill of the tramlines shown in the confident behaviour of the women who work on them. While the men were away at war and the women were doing jobs, which had previously been expected suitable only for men only. They had been given freedom and were entitled and able to take some freedom. They were started to think that they were equal in status to men, which resulted in the no longer acting in such a gentle and soft character. ‘Tickets Please’ is set on a long winding journey on a tram.

In ‘Tickets Please’ the prominent male character is John Thomas. It is not conspicuous why John Thomas is not taking combat in the war, as it would have been necessary to be in the war due to the number enrolled. The only idea I thought of was that his job was too significant because he was the ‘chief’ of the tram service. He was ‘good looking’ and ‘tall and agile’. John Thomas was very masculine in contrast to Tony Kytes. He had a ‘small brown moustache’. He ‘smokes’ and this is a sign of his lower working class. His face was ‘ruddy’ and the word ‘impudent’ is used several times to describe his manner. His flirtatious behaviour is well known. He likes to mess around and enjoys moving from one woman to the next “Walks out with the newcomer”. John Thomas has a ‘nocturnal presence’ and would only go out with girls during the night. The story is based around on his relationship with Annie.

In Tony Kytes there would definitely be no sex before marriage. The main reason for this is because of the community disapproved of this and parents would also not accept sex before marriage. Also the fact that parents would not want there to be a scandal about their family. If Tony Kytes were to live in the time period of John Thomas he may have had a sex before.

John Thomas is a ‘cock of the walk’ who loves attention from the women and is lighted in the presence of women “He seemed to be sunning himself in the presence ...

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John Thomas is a ‘cock of the walk’ who loves attention from the women and is lighted in the presence of women “He seemed to be sunning himself in the presence of so many damsels”

John Thomas had ‘all the arts of love making’ and he was ‘especially good at holding a girl’. I understand this shows his seductive charms and how much experience he has. Still John Thomas is lacks commitment and superficial. He was getting to know the women getting close to them, going out with them and left them distraught. He had no sense of commitment, which indicates him to be the literally the opposite of Tony Kytes. John Thomas ‘hated intelligent interest’ if girls where to clever and the committed type he didn’t want anything to do with them. He intended to remain a ‘nocturnal presence’. John Thomas who loves to be in the middle of attention from the women “He seemed to be sunning himself in the presence of so many damsels”.

John refused affections with Annie. He didn’t want to get to close to her. Also John didn’t want to become serious towards Annie.

I feel it is a historical culture that Tony Kytes was brought up to be polite and respectful towards women. He doesn’t like to degrade women. Tony Kytes lies to spare the feelings of the woman. On the other hand John Thomas is knowingly hurting the women as he has a cheeky and a more uncivil custom.

The strongest point in which Tony Kytes is different to John Thomas is the way in which he treats the women. Tony Kytes is polite and respectful and he addresses them using affections like ‘coming wife’, ‘darling’ and ‘dear Hannah’. He speaks more delicate towards the women. He doesn’t want to consciously hurt them whereas John Thomas is consciously hurting them.

John Thomas just uses them for his own pleasure. Tony Kytes wasn’t a flirt and mess around but he was still the ‘women’s favourite’. He is more younger looking than John Thomas and doesn’t have the manly features like the moustache which John Thomas has “There was no more sign of a whisker or beard on

Tony Kytes’ face than on the palm of my hand”

Another big difference between the men have very much in difference is that John Thomas is only interested in short-term relationships whereas Tony Kytes wants commitment and marriage. Overall both men enjoy their success with women. The turning point in the story is when both male leading roles are faced with the position where they have to pick and favour one of the female characters. The choosing takes place in a ‘rough but cosy’ waiting room and is subsequently longer than what Tony Kytes faced. Tickets Please is very vengeful, violent and vindictive and the women are very savage. The brutality shown towards John Thomas by the women is very severe and either unpleasant or satisfying depending on how the reader feels towards John.

It was compulsory that John Thomas should choose as according to the women. It was very extraordinary that he lacks control as he is the ‘chief’ and even though he tries to talk with ‘official authority’ to get the girls to open the ‘blasted door’, he is forced to choose a woman “You’ve got to choose”

“I choose Annie”. By doing this he brings an end to I all as it was Annie who started it and because he also says it “Full of malice”. This shows that he didn’t really want her, he just wanted to make her feel guilty as he realised she had been the ringleader. John Thomas declaring his authority while being cornered like an animal gets him nowhere but by choosing Annie he turns the tables. Whoever John Thomas chose, they would have to refuse. They knew that nobody would marry him and still they made him choose. The only reason why John Thomas chose Annie was so he could get himself out of the situation. He knew that by choosing Annie he would gain a victory and from his insecure position.

In Tony Kytes the whole ‘being in control’ is the opposite. He is not forced to choose and feels confident in choosing Hannah to be his wife. He wouldn’t loose out whichever one of he three women he chose. He chooses Hannah first, but she rejects him. Hannah did want to marry Tony but she did not want to let it be revealed that she had no pride, and also she wanted to make sure that it was her that he really wanted her shown by her “Thinking and hoping that he would ask her again”. I feel she did that because at that time, her father was there which greatly influenced her decision. This same behaviour was shown by Unity who he asked after Hannah, she also turned him down for the sake of not suffering more humiliation.

Unlike the rough, cocky manners shown by the women in “Tickets Please”, in “Tony Kytes” we see that there is a certain code of behaviour required from the women. They were supposed to respect their men and make him a good wife and they seemed to have accepted this “I would make you a finer wife” said one as she tried to get Tony to marry her. They did not do anything more energetic than walking about in the town and looking pretty because cause it was a very patriarchal society and it would have been improper for a woman to do anything other than this. Tony’s father shows this when he declares that he should marry Milly based on the fact that she was the only one which “did not ask to ride with him”. This was because women were not supposed to ask men because it would be thought as too forward, and they would not make the best wife, which was really what they were judged on. Also they were judged on how attractive they were.

Hannah and Unity do not want revenge on Tony and the way in which they show their anger is by not going to Tony’s wedding. Milly is asked last by Tony and when she is finally asked she responds by saying “You didn’t really mean what you said to them”

Tony swears ‘not a word of it’. Once again he is deceiving Milly and his charms get the better of her as she accepts him. Tony loses out in this story, as he did not get the most “dashing” girl for she refused which embarrassing him. Also he got the girl which his father said was finest, which he did not really want what his father recommended “…All things that could have happened to wean him from Milly there was nothing so powerful as his father’s recommending her”.

In Tony Kytes readers were satisfied with the closed ending, even though the feminine readers today would pity Milly’s decision we are left knowing that they did end up getting married. He didn’t get his first choice but as he is genuine to all three of the women he would’ve been happy with either women.

‘Tickets Please’ is left open-ended. The reader is shocked by the tremendous violence and we are left to question ourselves has John Thomas learnt his lesson. Will he give up his usual lifestyle and maybe settle down into a permanent relationship. The women proved their point and they feel they may have taught him a lesson but because he has always been a flirt he may never change.

I have come to a conclusion that in both these stories there is an irony in the fact that the women fall for the charms of these two men who both are lacking something. Tony is not good looking as he had “a seam here and there left by the small pox” and John Thomas is not at war with the rest of the men of his generation, he might be a coward or timid. Overall these two stories show how dramatically the roles of men and women changed in just 25 years around the time of the Industrial Revolution. They show because men being at war, the women were finally given the chance to show that they no longer wanted to be pretty wives and domestic servants, who had to behave a certain way and were frightened to have an opinion, like the women in “Tony Kytes”. They needed a chance to show that they were not inferior, and the absence of men. The ending of “Tickets Please” reveals although the women had demonstrated that the stereotypes of what they were capable of were far from the truth, they had not totally got one over on John Thomas. Here the author shows, not where one sex was superior in society to the other and that there is such a thing equal opportunities.