Hardy uses different dialect to demonstrate the personality distinction between Ella and Will. When Ella speaks, or when describing things that she does, Hardy uses far more sophisticated language than when referring to her husband:
“…the lady was best characterized by that superannuated phrase of elegance, ‘a votary of the muse’…”
Ella often shows her want for passion and sophistication; for example, she often talks French in the middle of a sentence, perhaps to prove how knowledgeable and romantic she is:
“…they were – phrases, couplets, bouts-rimes…’
Hardy uses this technique to show Ella’s need to seem of a higher social status. If one can speak another language, it would make them seem far more erudite and prestigious.
However, when describing Will, Hardy uses language that reflects his personality, using ‘squarely- shaped sentences’ and shorter, less refined words:
“The husband’s business was that of a gun maker in a thriving city northwards, and his soul was in that business always…”
This quotation also shows that Will’s soul was never entirely devoted to his relationship with Ella; his work and business was always on his mind and it was this that he threw himself into.
Hardy describes Robert Trewe on the other hand; as a ‘bachelor gentleman’ and the landlady goes on to expand on this description, by saying:
“You see, he’s a different sort of young man from most – dreamy, solitary and rather melancholy”
This describes Ella as well as Trewe; they have similar personality traits and are both prone to introspection.
It is evident from the beginning of the story that Ella’s fatal flaw is her imagination, using it to escape from reality and family. Ella’s imagination causes a lot of damage throughout the story, especially at the end. Will does not want evidence of his wife’s ‘betrayal’, although this treachery never occurred. The misunderstanding causes Will to reject his own child.
In another of Hardy’s stories, ‘The Son’s Veto’, a fatal flaw is also the downfall of the main character, Sophy Twycott; a women much like Ella Marchmill. In this story the central character Sophy is a widow from a humble background who has grown in status after marrying a vicar. She is a disabled young woman and was formally the reverends maid; he marries her out of pity and sympathy, hence their marriage was never one of true love. After Mr Twycott’s death Sophy is left with no financial or social responsibility, proving that her late husband thought she was incapable.
The story is told by an omniscient narrator and this narrator describes what he can see and can therefore manipulate the reader’s feelings for a certain character:
“She was an invalid young lady – not so much of an invalid – sitting in a wheeled chair, which had been pulled up in the front part of a green enclosure, close to a bandstand…”
The first image this narrator creates is one that the reader feels sorry for because of the disability described. Therefore Hardy is automatically taking control of our feelings when Randolph, Sophy’s son, enters the story. We take her side and pity her when he corrects her speech, seeing that although she wants to be a ‘lady’ and live up to her son and late husband, she cannot and will consequently always be of lower social status:
“When he had somewhat recovered from his paroxysm, he hastily went to his own room and fastened the door”
The word ‘paroxysm’ establishes Randolph’s education and class. Sophy feels alienated from her son:
“No I am not a lady, I never shall be. But he’s a gentleman, and that – makes it – oh so difficult for me!”
This significant declaration gives the reader an insight into how Sophy feels about her son. She says her son is of a different intellectual level and a different social status. The exclamation mark at the end emphasizes Sophy’s distress at the social differences between herself and her son. By law Sophy Twycott is a lady, but in her heart and to others around her it is clear that she behaves much more like the people she grew up with.
After Mr Twycott’s death, Sophy begins to think about her old friend Sam, a gardener f low social status who has once proposed:
“She had often wondered if life in a cottage with him would not have been a happier lot than the life she had accepted”
Hardy shows Sam’s status through his countryside dialect:
“Such a lady as ye’ve been so long, you couldn’t be a wife to a man like me”
Sam is besotted by Sophy however recognises that a relationship would be hard considering the difference in class.
Sophy begins to question her happiness in life after she is left with no financial independence, lame legs, and with a son who leads a very different life to hers. She wants someone to spend the rest of her life with so that she does not become lonely.
Seeing Sam again has a great effect on Sophy. She no longer feels neglected and lonely; she feels she has purpose in life. At first, when she only just starts seeing him again, she expresses the wish that she would see him more often:
“Her sorrow was that she could not accompany her one old friend on for a little way and talk more freely than she could so while he assed before the house.”
This is the first time in the story that Sophy thinks about her disability and how she wishes she did not have it. Perhaps this shows that she loves Sam and consequently wants to change the way she is so that she can spend time with him.
Although Sophy ultimately wants to be with Sam, her son forbids it, being too concerned with Sam’s social status; he emphatically reacts to the news of his mother’s choice in husband:
“The youth’s face remained fixed for a moment; then he flushed, leant on the table, and burst into passionate tears”
He is vexed of the effect the marriage would have on his own life, and not how it could improve his mother’s; thus proving he is selfish and self-righteous.
“The Son’s Veto’ deals with the individual desire to love, verses the duty Sophy feels towards her son. The tension in the story comes from the son’s social status, the traditional image of a parent having higher social than the child is reversed and there is conflict between the roles of parent and child. The tragedy concludes at the end of the story. Sam and Sophy could have led a happy life together but Randolph thought Sam not to be good enough. When Sophy dies, lonely and heartbroken, Sam watches from his shop, which has become highly lucrative, therefore making him a better man of higher social status and money to marry Sophy, consequently preventing her death of loneliness. Hardy intensifies the tragedy in the last few lines when describing Sam watching the funeral parade:
“He was the proprietor, but today, instead of his usual business attire, he wore a neat suit of black; and his window was partly shuttered”
Hardy is using striking imagery to deepen the tragic ending. Sophy’s fatal flaw was her XXXXXXXXXXX
‘A Tragedy of two Ambitions’ is a story where social class rules the tragedy. Link in ‘The Son’s Veto’, an omniscient narrator tells the story and begins with a description that triggers the reader’s senses:
“The shouts of the village-boys came in at the window, accompanied by broken laughter from loungers at the inn-door; but the brothers Halborogh worked on.”
The two protagonists in this story are Joshua and Cornelius, they, like Randolph, yearn for a higher social class-this is their fatal flaw. Joshua and Cornelius want to get rid of their father because they feel he will ruin their dream of a higher social status which will soon be gained through the marriage of their sister to a wealthy man, Squire Fellmer. The two brother watch their father drown, giving no help and giving no attempt to save him. The tragedy in this story occurs when the boys regret their actions and their sister does not marry Fellmer. Like in so many of Hardy’s stories, desire for a higher social class results in a tragic conclusion.
Although a few of Hardy’s stories have similar endings they are written in very different styles. In ‘An Imaginative Woman’ the ending is very sudden and unexpected of the character involved. However in ‘The Son’s Veto’ the story’s conclusion is drawn out and slow. It is subtle but conveys a powerful message as well as imagery. In ‘A Tragedy of two Ambitions’ he ending is not at all sudden and differs in style to the other two endings. In both ‘An Imaginative Woman’ and ‘The Son’s Veto’, there is a female protagonist and she dies before the tragedy occurs. In all three stories, one parent was a liability and all stories featured social class and family dilemmas.
Through his short stories, is Hardy criticising
