One afternoon, Gregory was doing some shepherding work on the farm with his dog, when his father sent the narrator on an errand. He was told not to return by the Fells, as it would be growing dark. Laziness and lack of obedience for his father, cause the narrator to ignore what his father had told him and returned home across the Fells. It was a cold, dark night, and the narrator was soon lost in the heart of the Fells. When he failed to return home his father and Aunt Fanny began to become increasingly worried and didn’t know what to do. When he heard what was happening Gregory forgot all the hatred that the family held towards to him, and set off with his dog to look for his half brother. After a while, he came across him, cold tired and scared. They tried to find the way home together but with no such luck they gave up. They huddled together and Gregory removed his coat and wrapped it round his brother to try and keep him warm. He then sent the dog in search of the way home to get his father and Aunt Fanny.
When Preston and Aunt Fanny eventually found them the following morning, the narrator was unconscious and Gregory was long dead from the cold. He had died looking after his brother who had hated him all his life. The family felt guilty, and were full of remorse for the way that they had treated Gregory all through his life.
“The Half Brothers,” shows the type of woman that was very uncommon amongst Victorian women. The fact that she had been married twice and had two children that both had a different father would have been highly disapproved. It shows the state of poverty that a lot of women especially those with families, would often suffer. Helen would probably not have been alone in marrying for money and a home, rather than marrying through love. It was this lack of love for her husband, which caused Helen to die.
Tony Kytes, the Arch-Deceiver
In the story of ‘Tony Kytes, the Arch-Deceiver’, five different characters portray their attitude and opinions towards Victorian marriage. They show us how different people and parts of society looked upon marriage and what they thought of it. The characters that I am going to look at are Tony Kytes, Unity Sallet, Hannah Jolliver, Milly Richards and Mr Kytes, Tony’s father.
Tony Kytes
Right from the beginning of the story, and the way that we are introduced to Tony, we can tell that he is not going to be society’s idea of the perfect man. Due to his handsome looks and appealing manner, he was very popular amongst the women. This popularity turned Tony greedy and instead of having just one woman to love and cherish, Tony liked to have lots of women all at one time.
“in return, for their likings he loved ‘em in shoals.”
This already shows that Tony is quite different to other members of society. Eventually, Tony became engaged to one of his many women, but this was more to do with the fact that it was what was expected of a man of his age, rather than the fact that this was the girl he wanted to spend the rest of his life with.
Throughout out the story, Tony shows rather a fickle attitude towards the concept of marriage. He has all of these women, but does not know which one to marry. Whenever he talks to a different woman, he changes his mind about whom he wants to marry.
“I haven’t quite promised her, and I think I can get out of it,
and ask you that question”
We can see that Tony is used to having lots of women all at one time by the way that he is able to change his affections from one woman to another without any difficulty or guilt. When he meets the first girl, Unity he tells her how much he loves her. He is very affectionate towards her, and if we didn’t know otherwise, we could be led to believe that this was whom he is engaged to, by the way that he behaves.
“I never knowed you was so pretty before!”
This is not the type of comment a man of this time would pass to a lady when he is already engaged to someone else. When Tony has Milly riding along side him, he changes his affections to Milly. He tells Milly how much he loves her and that he is lucky to becoming her husband. The way that he speaks to Milly is so surprising, because seconds earlier he had been telling Unity that he was thinking about marrying her not Milly, and now he is telling Milly how she is to become his wife.
“My dear Milly – my coming wife, as I may call ‘ee,”
Tony doesn’t just change his affections and the way he feels from Milly to Unity, he involves a third woman as well. The more Tony speaks to Hannah, the more affectionate he becomes towards her. He even starts to call her ‘dear Hannah’. This would have been acceptable if he was speaking to Milly, but not when speaking to someone else. He also tells Hannah that he wants to marry her.
“all to marry me!”
This transfer of affections so easily, proves that Tony does not meet the expectations of society of that time. We can also see that he is quite used to having lots of women at one time and often has to change his affections from woman to woman in this way. Each time Tony meets up with a different woman, he changes his mind about whom he wishes to marry. If he had met up with a fourth lady along his journey, he would have probably changed his mind about wanting to marry Hannah, and told the fourth lady that he wanted to marry her.
On a whole, Tony does not treat the concept of marriage with a fraction of the amount of respect that it should be treated with. This is proved in many ways throughout the story, the main one being when he uses it to persuade each of the women to do as he wishes. When Tony is driving along with Unity and he sees Milly, whom he is engaged to, up ahead, he realises that he should not be driving with Unity and tries to persuade her to hide. Tony persuades her to do this, by promising to marry her if she does. He does not think about what he is saying and how important marriage is. Also, he does not consider the fact that he has already committed himself to marrying Milly, so should not make promises to Unity that won’t come true.
“I shall put a loving question to you after all, instead of to Milly.”
Once Tony realises that the proposal of marriage will easily persuade women to do what he wants, he uses it again with Milly. Unfortunately for Tony, because he has already asked Milly to marry him, he cannot use the same proposal on her. Instead, he makes it sound as though it is her duty to do whatever he wishes just because he is going to marry her. Instead of using their engagement as a sign of how much he loves her and wants to devote the rest of his life to her, Tony uses it as a way of making Milly do what he wants.
“Milly, would you do me a favour – my coming wife as I may say?”
When he rides along side Hannah he grows to like her more and more. He is easily taken by Hannah’s flirtatious manner and words, and soon forgets about Milly and Unity hiding in the back of the wagon. He is easily attracted to women, and when Hannah tells him that she wouldn’t mind marrying him herself, he is so won over, that he decided he no longer wanted to marry Milly or Unity, and now wanted to marry Hannah.
“ask you that question you speak of.”
When we hear Tony continually asking women to marry him, we would think that it was because he was desperate to get married. This in fact is not the case. Tony is not yet ready for marriage, and it is because of this that he continually changes his mind about whom he wishes to marry. Tony is only getting married, because it is what society would expect of a man of his age. He is of marriageable age and because of this, he feels that he needs to get married even if he is not yet ready for the commitment of a marriage. Due to him not being ready for this commitment, he does not know which woman to marry. In each of the women he meets up with, he finds himself wanting to marry them instead of the others. He is so undecided; that he even asks his father which one he should marry.
“Now which would you marry, father,”
Being unable to decide for himself provides even more proof that Tony is not ready for marriage, regardless of what society thinks. When Tony asks Hannah to marry him and she refuses, he then turns to Unity and asks her, when she refuses, he has no choice but to marry Milly. He may not want to marry Milly but as she is the only one left he marries her just to live up to the expectations of society.
“their banns were put up the very next Sunday.”
Tony’s attitude towards marriage shows us that he does not care about the love or commitment only the fact that it was what was expected of a man of his age so he had to find someone. He continually changed his mind and although Milly was his third choice she was the only who would agree so he married her. By asking his father to decide which of the women he should marry, he was showing that he did not really mind who he married as long as he married someone. Even though Tony was already engaged to Milly, he still asked two other women to marry him. This shows that he does not fully understand what a marriage involves and what it means to be devoted to solely one person.
Hannah Jolliver and Unity Sallet
Hannah and Unity are both linked to Tony through a romantic background. Before becoming engaged to Milly, Tony had been very close and affectionate towards both of these women. Even though they both know that Tony is now engaged to Milly, it does not stop them from flirting with Tony when they meet up with him.
Tony comes across Unity first of all, and before she even has chance to speak to him, she asks him for a ride home which would be thought of in great disgust by Victorians. Throughout the journey, she continually flirts with Tony and questions him about why he left her for Milly. She speaks very boldly and even asks him if he thinks that Milly is prettier than herself.
“can you say I’m not pretty ,Tony?”
“Prettier than she?”
Unity’s behaviour towards Tony would not have been expected by any of the Victorian society.
When Tony comes across Hannah, she behaves in the same way as Unity. Like Unity, she also asks Tony for a ride home and doesn’t bother to wait for an invitation, which any respectable woman would have done. as they drive along, Hannah becomes closer and closer to Tony so that they end up with their shoulders touching, and looking as though it was Hannah that Tony was engaged to and not Milly. Like Unity, Hannah questions him about his relationship with Milly and if he is sure that he really likes Milly better than her. She even goes a step further than Unity, and tells Tony that if he asked her to marry him she would definitely agree to it.
“I wouldn’t say no if you asked me – you know what.”
This is even worse than how Unity behaved and would have been severely frowned upon by society. When Hannah hears Tony say that he is considering leaving Milly to marry her, she is overjoyed. Any respectable woman would not hear of it and be greatly ashamed of even thinking of marrying a man that is already engaged, but not Hannah. She cannot believe her luck and claps her hands in delight.
“Throw over Milly? – all to marry me! How delightful!”
Hannah and Unity are both very assertive women, and it is because of this assertiveness that society would have had a great disliking towards them. When Tony’s father suggests that Milly would make a better wife for Tony it is in fact because she is the one who did not ask for a ride home but was invited by Tony himself. Regardless of their behaviour when they were actually driving in the wagon with Tony their asking for the ride knowing that Tony is engaged, was bad enough. If anyone had seen them riding on board with Tony, it would have created a public scandal involving themselves and all their families.
“but don’t go driving around with the country with Jolliver’s
daughter and making a scandal.”
Women who asked men for a ride home were not approved of in Victorian times, and were certainly not considered to make a good wife. This is why when Tony asks his father which of the women he should marry, he replies straight away with the one who did not ask him for a ride home. Even if this had not had been Milly but one of the others, he would have told him not to marry Milly but the one whom only rode with him on his invitation.
“Whichever of ‘em did not ask to ride with ‘thee.”
At the end of the story, when Tony starts to ask the women to marry him, once again, Unity and Hannah react in the same sort of way. They both reject Tony’s proposals for different reasons, but it is clear to us that they really want to accept. When Tony asks Hannah to marry him, she refuses him partly because she is annoyed, and partly because her father is there and she knows that she would have been in great trouble if she had agreed to marry a deceitful man. As she turns Tony down and walks away with her father, she is sorry that she has refused him, and hopes that he will come after her and ask her again.
“she would not have refused Tony if he had asked her quietly
and her father had not been there.”
“thinking and hoping he would ask her again.”
After Hannah’s refusal, Tony turned to Unity and asked her to marry him. Like Hannah, she also turns down Tony’s proposal. This is not because she feels that the way Tony is behaving is wrong, but merely because she does not want to be second best to Hannah. If Tony had asked her to marry him first, then she would have readily agreed but she does not want to make herself look bad by becoming second best to someone.
“Take her leavings? Not I!”
just as Hannah had done a few minutes previous, Unity walked away regretting her refusal to Tony’s proposal. She wishes that he would ask her again so that she could say yes, and even looks back to check if he is coming after her, which he is not.
“though she looked back when she’d gone some way, to see if
he was following her.”
This clear longing for marrying Tony and their remorse at ever refusing him, gives us a fair attitude of what Hannah and Unity’s attitude towards marriage is like. They both see marriage as a stage in their life that all girls of their age have to undergo, and they can use the man they are marrying as a way of showing off to other girls. At first, Hannah does not want to marry Tony because she knows that he is so deceitful and has had lots of other women, but when she walks away, she realises how attractive he is and how it would make her look good in front of all the other women. Unity also refuses Tony at first because she thinks that by being second best to Hannah it is making her look bad. When she walks away, she realises what she has turned down and now wants to marry Tony because by him getting married to Milly, Milly will look better than her.
I think that Hannah and Unity’s behaviour gives off similar signs to the way that Tony behaves, and it is this behaviour that makes us feel as though neither of the girls, like Tony, are ready for marriage. They are not looking at what marriage is really about and just seeing it as a way of showing off and doing what other girls of their age are doing. They feel that by getting married, they are living up to what is expected of them by society of that time.
Milly Richards
Milly’s involvement with Tony, unlike Unity’s and Hannah’s, is much more innocent and would be expected by society. Right from the start of the story, we are aware that she is engaged to Tony. This is why we are so surprised when we see Tony driving around town with the other women, and why he makes Unity hide out of sight when he sees Milly in the distance.
“Tony got fixed down to one in particular, Milly Richards,”
“they were engaged and soon to be married.”
Milly is a very attractive girl and would be the perfect wife for any man. It is because of this that Tony will have been drawn to her and decided to marry her. At the time, he will of thought that she was prettier than most other women and as Tony doesn’t go on anything else, decided to ask her to marry him.
“a nice, light, small, tender little thing”
Throughout the story and from what little background we are given on Milly, she represents the stereotypical image of how a Victorian woman would be expected to behave. It is this behaviour, which differentiates her from Hannah and Unity. When Milly first meets up with Tony, unlike the other girls, she behaves in a manner that was thought to be much more ladylike. Whereas Unity and Hannah, who knew that Tony was engaged, asked for a ride home, Milly did not. Even though she was engaged to him, she still waited until he invited her for a ride home alongside him. If he had not asked her, Milly would probably have behaved in a way that would have been expected of her, and rather than ask for a ride, have walked home.
“To ride back with me, did you say, dear Milly.”
She has also behaved in the way that a wife would towards her husband by walking to meet Tony on his way home from work, as he had asked her to. With all the confusion of having Unity hiding out of sight, Tony had forgotten this.
“I’ve come to meet you as you asked me to, and to ride back
with you,”
When Tony meets with his father and asks him whom he should marry, his father tells him to marry Milly. This is because Milly did not ask for a ride home and was invited by Tony. As the other girls asked for a ride home and did not behave in a manner expected by society his father does not want him to marry them. Milly has behaved respectably and in a way expected by society of that time. Even though Tony is already engaged to Milly, if she had asked for a ride home, his father would have advised him to do otherwise.
“Whichever of ‘em did not ask to ride with thee.”
“That was Milly, I’m bound to say, as she only mounted by my
invitation.”
Milly is thought to be the better of the three by Tony’s father and probably the rest of society would have agreed all because she did not invite herself into Tony’s wagon. Regardless of how else she has behaved or whatever she might do, this is thought to be one of the most respectable ways in which a Victorian woman could behave.
“stick to Milly, she’s the best…”
At the end of the story, Milly watches Tony propose to two other women when he has already asked her and they are meant to be getting married. When Milly first hears this, she is devastated and begins to cry. She is utterly disappointed and cannot believe that she will no longer be able to get married. She feels as though she is not loved and not suitable for a wife as Tony no longer wants to marry her and Hannah and Unity would make better wives than herself. She feels ashamed and humiliated by the way that Tony is treating her in asking the other women to marry him.
“Milly was sobbing her heart out;”
“she crying in watery streams,”
When the other women refuse Tony’s proposals, he turns to Milly and pretends that he has not done anything wrong in asking the other two and asks her if she still agrees.
“what must be must be, suppose. Hey, Milly?”
The way in which Milly reacts to this question is not how we would have expected, from her previous behaviour. Up until now, Milly has always behaved in a very proper manner and the way in which Victorian society would have expected. Despite the fact that Tony has deceived her greatly and publicly humiliated her in front of other women and her future father-in-law, she still agrees. Most other women would have refused him at being his second choice, let alone his third, or even merely for one of the terrible things he has already done to her.
“Take her leavings? Not I!” says Unity”
Milly is more won over by the fact that Tony still wants to marry her. She is also easily taken in by Tony’s lies when he tells her that he will either be married to her or marry nobody at all and remain single for the rest of his life. She is also won over by the fact that he makes her believe that they were brought together by fate and it be for the two of them to marry each other only or not get married at all.
“fate had ordained that it should be you and I, or nobody.”
Milly will not like the idea of remaining unmarried, and knows that by getting married she is living up to societies expectations. She hopes that the fact that she is married will overrun the fact that she is marrying a deceiver who has asked half of the town to marry him before he would resolve to marrying Milly. Milly is rather gullible, and when Tony tells her that he didn’t really mean what he said to the other girls, and that he didn’t really want to marry them, Milly believes him and agrees to become his future wife.
“You didn’t really mean what you said to them?”
“Not a word of it!”
This behaviour that Milly portrays shows us that all she is interested in is the title that she will receive from marrying Tony and the fact that she has lived up to societies expectations. She does not care about the fact that Tony has been betraying and deceiving her ever since they became engaged, and probably before he even asked for her hand in marriage. She does not want to cancel the engagement because she knows that it would make her look bad. She is not interested in the love and faithful side of a marriage, only being known as someone’s wife and doing as every other girl of her age does and is expected to do. She does not want to let her family and herself down by not living up to this expectation and refusing to marry Tony. She wants to get married and does this, even though she has married a deceiver.
“their banns were put up the very next Sunday.”
Mr Kytes, Tony’s Father
Mr Kytes, is Tony’s father and we only meet up with him for a very short time. We are not given much information about him, only the fact that he is the father of Tony; we are not even given his name. Even though we only meet up with him for such a short amount of time, we are able to find out a lot of information about his overall attitude towards marriage and whom he feels Tony should marry.
Mr Kytes comes into the story, at the point of time in which Tony has two of the three women hiding in his wagon and the other, Hannah Jolliver, riding alongside him. He is standing in a field which Tony has to drive past to get home, and when he sees Tony, he notices that he is riding with Hannah and not Milly. We are not told this, but by his father’s reactions, we are able to make the presumption that he is aware of Tony’s engagement to Milly.
When Mr Kytes sees Tony riding with Hannah, he is greatly surprised and annoyed. He cannot understand why he is riding with her and not Milly. he immediately calls his son over to find out what is going on and to tell him what he thinks of him riding around with other women.
“looking at him with rather a stern eye.”
He is very concerned about the fact that someone might see Tony and it will cause a public scandal. He is not really interested in his marriage to Milly but wants him to get married so that it is over and done with. He is more concerned about the fact that it will put a bad mark on his and the rest of the family’s name, and that other people may find out. Like Tony and most probably the rest of the society, he is not interested in the fact that it is deceitful to Milly, only that other people will see him behaving in a way that is not expected of a man that is engaged.
“making a scandal. I won’t have such things done.”
When Mr Kytes hears that Tony has Milly and Unity also with him, he is even more horrified than before. It doesn’t stop there either, he becomes even more shocked to hear that the two girls actually asked Tony for a ride home and was not invited. When Tony asks his father for some advice on what to do, there is no hesitation in his answer, what so ever. Without even finding out which of the girls were actually invited by Tony and he tells him to marry the girl that did not ask for a ride home.
“Whichever of ‘em did not ask to ride with thee.”
It is just by chance that this was actually Milly, but if it had not have been, then his father would have told him not to bother marrying Milly, and to marry one of the other girls. Before he tells Tony who to marry, he does not consider the fact that Tony should be marrying Milly regardless of what she has done, be he has already proposed to her so should not have any of the other girls with him. When Mr Kytes hears that it was Milly who did not ask for the ride, but in-fact was invited by Tony to sit beside him, he tells Tony to stick with her. He does not know what any of the other women are like, but because Milly waited for an invitation, he thinks that she is the best for Tony to marry.
“Then stick to Milly, she’s the best.”
From the way that Mr Kytes behaves towards the situation, we can see that he holds the traditional Victorian view of how women should behave. He is greatly shocked to hear that Tony was even considering marrying a girl whom invited herself to ride alongside a man that is engaged to be married to another girl. He feels that this is disrespectful and fears that it could cause a public scandal. He thinks that the best women are those that respect and obey the view of society, and behave in a manner that reflects this. This is shown when he tells Tony that Milly is the best woman because she waited for an invitation.
“she’s the best.”
Mr Kytes holds quite a different attitude towards marriage, than Tony does. He holds the same attitude that most of the society of this time would hold. He thinks that the perfect wife for Tony, regardless of whether she is loving or ideal for Tony, is the one that behaves in a manner acceptable of society. He feels that all men of Tony’s age should be married regardless of whether they are ready or not. When he hears Tony ask him whom he should marry, he should realise that his son is not actually ready to marry anyone yet and should consider whether he right to become married at all, at least for the time being.
“now which would you marry, father,”
By telling his son whom he should marry instead of telling him to consider the fact that perhaps he is not yet ready for marriage, Mr Kytes shows that he also holds society’s view on marriage as well as the way in which women behave. Like society of that time, Mr Kytes also feels that a man of marriageable age, like Tony, should get married regardless of whether he is ready or not. He is not interested in the loving and stable part of the marriage just that his son is meeting the standards if society. When he sees Tony with Hannah, he is not upset because he feels that it is deceitful towards Milly, but because he is worried what society will think.
“making a scandal. I won’t have such things done.”
All that Mr Kytes is interested in is making his family look good and Tony being society’s idea of the perfect man. He uses Tony getting married at the correct age, as a way of showing how they are the ideal family and do exactly as is expected of them.
By focusing on the character’s attitudes towards marriage and their behaviour in the story of ‘Tony Kytes, the Arch-Deceiver’ we can see the way in which different people behaved in the Victorian times. It also shows us how much pressure society can put people under, resulting in them behaving in a manner that they do not wish to behave in.
The Half Brothers
In the story of the Half Brothers, there are only three different characters that portray their attitudes towards marriage. We are able to use their behaviour, to looks at the differences and similarities between the way that these characters behave and how they feel about marriage, to the way that the characters in Tony Kytes, the Arch-Deceiver behaved and felt about marriage. The characters from the half Brothers that I am going to focus on, are: Helen, the narrators mother, William Preston and Aunt Fanny. Although there are two other main characters, the half brothers themselves, I am not going to focus on these at all as they are too young so will not fully understand about marriage.
Helen, the narrator’s mother
Just by looking at the opening sentence or first five words of the story, we can already see the main theme of marriage in this story. Helen had been married twice, and this would be extremely unusual in the Victorian times.
“My mother was twice married.”
It is the fact that Helen has been married twice, that readers will want to read the story and find out what happened to her and why. We can tell that this story is going to be different to Tony Kytes because where Tony was looking for someone to marry, Helen was already married not once but twice. The Half Brothers will take more of the downside to what a marriage can be like, whereas as Tony Kytes looked at the nice parts and being spoilt for choice on whom he should marry.
Although we are given a lot of significant information about Helen, she does not appear in the whole story because she dies very early on. Information from when the narrator is first born or too young to remember, is told in a way that was how it had been explained to the narrator himself. We are not given a lot of information about Helen’s first marriage, but there are a couple of important details. Like the characters in Tony Kytes, Helen got married at the age in which society expected her to and not necessarily when she was ready for such a big commitment. She was only the mere age of seventeen, and her husband was not much older himself at the age of twenty-one.
“she was scarcely seventeen when she was married to him: and
he was barely one and twenty.”
Neither of the couple were older enough to cope with what came with a marriage and ended up getting into a lot of debt and difficulty. They rented a small farm in Cumberland, in the hope of making some money and being able to live there for the rest of their lives.
“he rented a small farm up in Cumberland”
with being so young and having no experience of running a farm, things eventually began to decline. They ended up losing more money than they were making and her husband could not cope with all the demands of a working farm on his own. They could not afford to hire in any extra help around the farm and Helen’s husband eventually became ill and died of consumption.
“too young and inexperienced.”
“he fell into ill health, and died of consumption.”
Helen hadn’t even had three years of marriage when her husband died. At the young age of twenty, she was a widower, a single mother of an extremely young child, and a farm to run for another four years. Worse still, Helen was pregnant with yet another child and did not have enough money to look after one child, let alone two. Helen missed her husband whom it seemed she did love despite the mess that he had left her in and the fact that he had run the farm into the ground. Whenever she looked at the child that she was soon going to give birth to, she was upset and struggled to work out how she was going to make ends meet and care for the two children.
“there was another child coming, too; and sad and sorry, I
believe, she was to think of it.”
Throughout the winter that followed, Helen became very lonely and longed for her dead husband. The birth of her un-born child was drawing closer, and in the end her sister came to stay with her for a while. At least Helen now had someone to help her figure out how to make ach penny they raised go as far as possible and look after the children. Just a fortnight before Gregory, her new child was born, Helen’s daughter became ill, and like her husband, died. This was the final straw for Helen, she had lost the two people that she loved dearly, the farm was a disaster and she didn’t have a single penny to call her own.
“the little girl took ill of scarlet fever and within a week lay dead.”
Even so soon into the story, a lot if differences between this story and Tony Kytes, the Arch-Deceiver have already arrived. There are also a few similarities but for different reasons. Where Tony was only marrying because he had to and looking for the woman that would be thought the best, regardless of whether or not he would love her, Helen had actually dearly loved her husband and it was through no fault of their own that he had died. Both Tony and Helen are in a mess, but Tony’s is through self infliction of being greedy and wanting all three women, Helen’s is because she has tried to live up to the expectations of society and it has caused her more pain and upset then if she had done as she had wished.
When William Preston asked Helen to marry him, she was distraught at the fact that she had agreed to become his wife.
“never smiled after the day when she promised William Preston
to be his wife.”
Helen knew full well that by agreeing to marry William and become twice married, she was going against the will of society and her own will for that matter. Unlike in her first marriage when Helen loved her husband, she is only marrying Preston because he has promised to take care of her child and provide for him. Helen knows that she will never be able to provide for her son properly as her eyesight disabled her to work, so although she feels that she is betraying her husband, she agrees to become his wife.
“had promised to take good charge of her boy.”
By looking at the way in which Helen reacts to Preston’s proposal, we can see that in the story of the Half Brothers, marriage is treated much more seriously than it is by the characters in the story of Tony Kytes, the Arch-Deceiver. Even though Helen does not love Preston, she still accepts his proposal. this also happens in Tony Kytes, Tony does not love Milly but he still asks her to marry him. Although the situations are similar, they are both for different reasons. Helen agrees to marry Preston because she feels that it will be better for her son in the long term. Helen is losing her eyesight and therefore unable to work. She knows that she will never be able to support her son and provide him with whatever he needs, whereas by marrying Preston she will no longer need to worry about this. Preston will take care of all her son’s financial needs. In Tony Kytes however, Tony is getting married because it is what is expected of him by society. The girls want to marry Tony because they feel that he is very popular and if by them being the one that he has chosen to marry, they will look good in society.
Helen’s attitude towards her second marriage, is quite different to that towards her first. The first time she got married, it was because she was of the marriageable age and was expected by society to become a wife before much longer, but also because she loved her husband. This time, Helen does not love Preston.
“she loved Gregory and she did not love him.”
In the eyes of society, she should not be married twice anyway, but Helen does not think about this. She sees that Preston will be able to care for her son and so marries him for this reason. She sees the marriage as a safety net for her and her son. She knows that the fact that she cannot work because of her eyesight will no longer prove to be a problem and she will be able to live the relaxed stress free life that she had always dreamed of.
“as William Preston’s wife she would never need to do anything,”
This attitude towards marriage is very different to the attitude presented by the women in Tony Kytes, the Arch-Deceiver. In Tony Kytes, the women are only thinking about themselves. They do not care that they may cause someone else a lot of upset and hurt, as long as they get what they want. They see marriage as a way of showing off and making themselves look better than themselves and the ideal woman in the eyes of society. unlike Helen, they are not interested in love. Helen does not love Preston, but she does not really want to marry him either. She is prepared to put herself through a bit of upset just to look after her son and give him a happy life.
When Helen became Preston’s wife, she tried her best to be the perfect wife. Preston had provided her with the perfect house and unlimited amounts of money to suit her needs, and she tried to repay him for this with what he wanted, the perfect and loving.
“she did all that she could to please my father; and a more
dutiful wife, I have heard himself say, could never have been.”
Although Helen tried her best and Preston never did anything to harm or upset, she could not bring herself to love him. No matter how hard she tried or what Preston did, she was unable to find any slight mount of love for him. The least she loved Preston, the more she came to love her son, Gregory.
“much as she had loved Gregory before, she seemed to love
him more now.”
It is the way in which she lavishes all her attention to Gregory, which proves her second marriage is lacking the great love that Helen held towards her first husband in her previous marriage. In the end, it was this lack of love and the hatred that Preston began to hold on her and her son, which caused Helen to take to her bed and eventually die. She died shortly after she had given birth to her third child and Preston’s first son. It is this child who becomes the narrator and explains the story to us.
“Helen did not wish to live and so just let herself die away.”
In the story of the Half Brothers, Helen portrays that image of what often happened to many women who were left in the same situation as Helen. If a husband died and the woman was left with a child, she would often fall deep into poverty and end up losing her own life as well as her child’s Helen accepted Preston’s proposal of marriage because she thought that it could prevent this happening. Unfortunately, due to the lack of love that Helen had for Preston, she ended up dying a very sad woman.
William Preston
William Preston although very wealthy was long past what society thought to be of marriageable age. He was a bachelor and thought to be well over forty although we are not given his age. Preston wants to become married, but because of his age the only hope he has of becoming married at all is to someone like Helen. He chooses to marry Helen, because he knows that in her state of affairs she is very likely to agree when she hears that he will take care of her son.
“William Preston ……was reckoned an old bachelor; I suppose
he was long past forty and one of the wealthiest farmers
thereabouts.”
Not long into the marriage, Preston becomes well aware of Helen’s lack of love towards him. It is due to this lack of love that Preston’s attitude and behaviour towards both Helen and Gregory changes dramatically. Rather than being patient and understanding in giving Helen some time to get over the death of her first husband and adjust to her new marriage, Preston becomes impatient and angry. He cannot cope with the fact that Helen loves her son more than her new husband. He is not used to people not doing exactly as he wants and tries to make Helen love him more and her son less.
“he wanted her to love him more, and perhaps that was all well
and good; but he wanted her to love her child less.”
In his attempts to try and make Helen love him, he took a positive dislike to Gregory. He did not like seeing anyone else with more than him and because Gregory had more of Helen’s love, he made him suffer for it. By upsetting Gregory and making his life unbearable, Preston was causing Helen to love him even less. This caused Preston to become more annoyed with Helen and the couple’s marriage was beginning to become unbearable. It was through all the stress that caused Helen to become ill. Preston’s dreams of a perfect marriage had been lost through his greed for more of Helen’s love and being too impatient to wait for it.
“My mother took to her bed before her time.”
“sorry for his poor wife’s state, and to think that his angry
words had brought it on.”
Preston sticks with societies opinion of how a wife should behave. He feels that a wife should always agree with her husband be what he thinks right or wrong. When Helen does not obey this rule, Preston would become annoyed and take his anger out on Gregory. Helen would often side with Gregory when Preston was telling him off. In doing this, she was not agreeing with her husband’s opinion and this would cause a lot of arguing. He would end up telling Helen off for not agreeing with him and accuse her of not being the dutiful wife as she should be.
“his wife, who ought to be always in the same mind that he was;”
it is this line that provides us with a vital piece of information about Preston. It proves that he holds the same attitude as society about how a wife should behave towards her husband and their views towards marriage at that time. in Preston’s opinion, when a woman becomes married, she is supposed to do exactly as her husband wishes. She is supposed to behave in a manner that respects her husband and she should hold the same opinion on matters as he does. If the wife does not oblige to all of this, then she is thought of not being dutiful towards her husband. When he gets married, Preston sees it as a way of showing off to society. although he is older than most men who get married, he is still capable of having a wife and family. Preston wants someone he can love and who will return this love. That is why he wants to get married and is so angry when it goes wrong and Helen is unable to love him.
“he needed something to love.”
Preston’s character, holds a slight resemblance to that of Tony Kytes, but they are also quite different. Tony is only getting married because it is what is expected of a man of his age. He is not in fact ready for marriage and does not fully understand what he should look for in a woman suitable to be his wife. He is not interested in having a woman that he can love or who is respectable, just someone that will look good to his friends and the rest of society. like Tony, Preston is also getting married because he wants to look good in society, but also because he wants someone to love and to be loved in return. Unlike Tony, he does not look for a woman that has got the best looks or will make other people jealous, he looks for someone that he will be able to love and who he thinks will love him. Both of the men ended up getting themselves into a lot of trouble because they are greedy. Tony has three women and wants them all but ends up with only Milly wanting to marry him. Preston is too impatient to wait and wants all of Helen’s love right from the start. He ends up with Helen having no love for him at all and dying from the ill way that Preston has treated her and the upset he has caused her by hating her son.
Aunt Fanny
Aunt fanny, was Helen’s sister and when Helen lost her first husband, she cam to live with them. When Preston first asked Helen to marry him, aunt fanny was very pleased for her sister but felt that maybe she would have been a better match for Preston. She was older than her sister, resulting in her being of similar age to Preston.
“she herself would have been a far more suitable match for a
man of William Preston’s age than Helen,”
when Preston marries Helen, aunt fanny does not move in with them at first and goes back to living alone. It is only when Helen dies and Preston does not know how to run a house or look after a family, that aunt fanny moves in with them.
“Aunt Fanny came to live with us.”
Aunt fanny soon replaced the role of her sister and helped Preston in the running and maintaining of the house as well as the children. When the narrator was first born, he was quite weak, so fanny would watch over him day and night just as his mother would have done had she lived. She would look after the children and play with them, although she was more inclined to the narrator as she had raised and looked after ever since he was born, just as she would have done if she had given birth to him herself.
“she had become so deeply engrossed in me from the fact of
my having come into her charge as a delicate baby.”
When Helen died, Preston did not know what to do. He was not capable of taking care of the family himself and it now became his turn to depend on another to take care of his family. With no other choice, Preston feels compelled to accept Aunt Fanny into his household.
“Aunt Fanny came to live with us. It was the best thing that
could be done. My father would have been glad to return to
his old bachelor life, but what could he do with two little
children.”
From reading the text, it is quite clear that Preston does not want Aunt Fanny to come and live with them. It is through his incapability of not knowing how to look after children that this he has to accept her. He had become so used to having Helen do everything for him or the children and him not having to become involved in the running of a house, that he has forgotten what to do. Without having a woman there to look after him, he would have ended up in a terrible situation.
“He needed a woman to take care of him.”
From the way that Preston behaves after his wife’s death, we can see the way in which society of that time would probably have reacted. The majority of Victorian men would have a wife to look after them and their children. The only way that they had to become involved would be to earn the money and provide for the children. They were able to be as much or as little involved, as they wanted to. It was thought the woman’s role to do any housework and raise the children. This is why Preston does not have any other choice but to accept aunt fanny into the household. If any other man had been out in the same situation as Preston, they to would have to find another woman to replace the role of their wife.
The main attitudes towards marriage that are displayed in the two short stories, show us how different types of people and society thought of marriage of that time. They both felt that the woman was expected to do everything that the man wished and be at his every beckon call. A marriage would be a way of proving to society that you can live up to their expectations. People would often marry because it was expected of them. Even if they did not particular like the person after a while, or the marriage started to go wrong there would be no way out. Once they became married, they were married for life. Affairs and divorces would not have been heard of only in the very rare occasion. Anyone who did leave there partner, where thought of in great disgust. The man would often take the main role in society, and every of the woman’s possessions would became her husbands. The woman would be expected to do all of the domesticate work and look after the children. If the man did not want the children to be near him then she would be expected to keep them out of his way.
These attitudes are quite different to the reasons why people get married today. Today, people will be married three or sometimes even four times and still think nothing of it. They have children to different men and don’t understand that this is not the correct way to behave. They will sometimes get married to someone just because of money or if they see it as a way of leaving home. Some people get married exceptionally young and therefore do not really understand what they are getting themselves into. Other people enter the marriage with the full intention of having a loving, successful relationship, but it may go wrong. One of the couple may have an affair or just decide to leave the woman and they end up getting a divorce. Today, the majority of couples will get divorced. Unlike in the Victorian times were you stayed with one partner for eternity, people today will often have more than one.
In my opinion, these changes in the attitudes towards marriage have come about because of the changes in society on a whole. As the years have gone by, society and the way that people live have become much more relaxed and easy. People do not always have to work as hard for the money because of benefits and the council who can provide houses for people to live. In the Victorian times, money had to be worked for and unless you had a job, you had no money. Where people will sometimes just slip away and get married alone at a registry office, or not tell anybody, in the Victorian times, it was a public occasion and before you got married, a notice would be put up in the church telling everyone who was to become man and wife. I feel that if society on a whole became a lot stricter and everything as formal as it was in the Victorian times, then people’s attitudes and outlook on marriage would change with it. In another hundred years or so, it will have all changed again.