Thomas Hardys' prose.

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rose is written, basically, to entertain, and provide relief to the reader, while presenting the harsh realities of life. In the early Victorian eras, prose, such as short stories, were written to present the different obstacles that men and women faced and had to tackle on their way of life. One of the main obstacles, was the men and women’s struggle for happiness, which was very evident in the late eighteenth century, and the early nineteenth century. During these times, one of the most prosperous and famous writers was Thomas Hardy. He was one of the exceptional writers, who wrote quite a number of novels, but there were two exceptional novels, namely, ‘The Withered Arm,’ and ‘Tony Kytes, The Arch-Deceiver.’

Using these two stories, Thomas Hardy, in a very professional and effective manner, has showed us how there was a struggle between men and women, for happiness. It was a struggle that was between men and women, between them and their jobs, between them and the society they lived in, between the very state they were in, between their ranks, and finally between them and their surroundings, and the place they lived in.

Thomas Hardy’s, first story, ‘Tony Kytes the Arch-Deceiver,’ is very frank about the fickle mind of men in those days, and their struggle for the perfect environment, where everything is perfect, including their wives. The story itself revolves around the character of Tony Kytes, who, although is engaged to a particular girl called Milly Richards, is still attracted to the beauty of other women. The whole story is about how, one day in his life, after doing his chores and jobs for his father, Tony is returning home, and meets a few women whom he earlier fantasized, before he got ...

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Whereas, in ‘The Withered Arm,’ it is actually Rhoda’s struggle for happiness, that affects the happiness of the others. Her ex- husband, Mr. Lodge, has divorced her, and has gone and married another prettier woman called Gertrude. Here at first, the struggle is Rhoda’s, who wants to find out if the other women is really deserving of the place she used to occupy before. Then later on in the story, she has an evil dream, where she touches the other woman’s hand in self-defense, and almost magically her flesh on the hand withers to the bone! Here a supernatural element has been used. This very dream, somehow unimaginably, turns to reality. It turns out that Gertrude really has a withered arm. Therefore, the story goes on to say that Mr. Lodge, her husband, finds her less and less attractive, each and every passing day, and so does his love decrease for her. At this point, the struggle is very visible, among almost all the characters. Rhoda doesn’t want her husband sad, and so tries to help Gertrude. Gertrude herself, tries to do everything possible, to regain her former beauty, so that her husband finds happiness in her again. Even the farmer, Mr. Lodge himself, is disturbed, trying to find out what went wrong, and where.

The first real place we actually see that there is a struggle for happiness is in between the characters. Rhoda is trying to see if the Mr. Lodge’s new wife is really better than she is. This is a psychological effect where in those days, women used to compete with themselves, in order to be the best, and to make their husbands proud of them, as Rhoda herself said,” men think so much of personal appearance.” And if someone is better than they are, then they are forever jealous of them. This jealousy of Rhoda is visible when she tells her son, “…you can give a look, and tell me what she’s like, if you do see her.” She is also happy in a way when she sees the little physical damage she has caused on Gertrude. Thomas Hardy tries to show us this, when he writes,” In her secret heart Rhoda did not altogether object to a slight diminution of her successor’s beauty,”

Also in ‘Tony Kytes, the Arch-Deceiver,’ we see that Tony only wanted the best of women. It shows that Thomas Hardy, in a way, wanted to show us how the jealousy of women were not of their own, but because they wanted to have the best men, and so they had to be the best women.

Another major place where we see the struggle for happiness is in the society. In those day’s men and women lived in societies, up to whose standards they had to live by. If they were below the standards, they were rejected, as outcasts, and if they were above the standards, well the answer is obvious, isn’t? Yes, they’d move to a better society. So there was always happiness if people found themselves up to the standards of the society. In ‘The Withered Arm,’ we see that Rhoda lived away from the crowded society, as she didn’t feel like she belonged there, after she had been divorced. If you read the text carefully, you see that Thomas Hardy has taken great pains to show how, Rhoda’s “course lay apart from that of the others,” and “in a lonely spot” was their house, ”not far from the border of the Egdon Heath.” This shows how Rhoda has tried to forget all that has happened and start afresh again, in order to achieve a state of mental as well as physical happiness. This gives us the view of how there was a longing to receive peace and happiness those times.

The next place where we see this struggle for happiness is in ranks that they lived in. In those Victorian eras, people were divided in to three classes, the upper class, the lower class and the middle class. Belonging to the upper class, meant that you would be the most appreciated noble people, but at the same time the most hated and distrusted, by the lower classes.