with him on the wagon,he manages to persuade unity to hide at the back of the
wagon.Extraodinarily, later in the journey Tony manages to persuade Milly to
do the same thing when he sees yet another young lady,this time called
Hannah.Inevitably,at the end of the journey the three young ladies discover
each others presence.After a short period of mayham,Milly and Tony are alone
again,planning their wedding.
In a way Milly has no choice but to accept him in the
end .She's got over him ,in the end she gains mastery and he's in her debt.She
saves him from complete ridicule.She has to swallow her pride .She overlookd
love and the fact that he doesn't love her .Marriage was a priority in the
victorian era.Marriage was essential to victorians who were thinking about
children.Women In the victorian era had no say unless they were married.
Milly loses her pride but victorian society had a
pragmatic attitude to marriage.Women had no claim on the men however
desperate their situation.They just had to be waited to be chosen,like Aunt
fanny.Milly doesn't want to be left on the shelf she needs a husband.He's made
a fool of himself as well as her and the other two girls when she marrys him
she is married to a fool,because of the way he made himself look and the way
he made the girls look.If she didn't marry him he would have no one else
because no women would want him after what he did to Milly and the other
girls,no women would want a man like that to be married to because he put all
three girls in a scandalous position.Tony totally humiliated the girls making
them think that they were the only one for him .Its difficult to decide who is
being more manipulative,Tony or the girls .Tony seems to be in less command
of the situation than any of the girls .As he is continually acting on
impulse.The girls on the other hand are each acting with clear intention on
having Tony for a husband.However , because of the nature of a woman's
place in the society of the time ,Tony ultimately has the upper hand.The women
must wait to be chosen.
The Half -brothers is a story of a young widow who's only
happiness is her child.She is forced to remarry an older man with whom she
has a child with because of her financial situation. This story is about the way
in which both children are treated differently by their father. William Preston is
very desirable because he is very wealthy and can provide for Helen and her
son Gregory.
Helen is poverty striken as her husband left her in debt,the
farm is losing money.She had a lot of grief to deal with as her daughter died
two weeks before Gregory was born.The setting of the story also shows a
sence of alonesss,most of the story taking place on the harsh and lonely
fells.There was also the lack of relatives and friends at the funeral of her
daughter.It shows that she doesn't even have hope of anyone to be close
to.She has her sister,but it is obvious that they are very different personalities
even though she was a "kind ,warm hearted creature,who thought more of her
sisters welfare than she did of her own."It means that they couldn't talk to each
other and Helen could not share her distress with anyone to undrestand her
feelings . We see this when Helen can not cry and later when she cannot stop
crying .Aunt fanny does not know what to do."She cried day and night, day
and night,till my aunt and the other watcher looked at each other in dismay,and
would fain have stopped her if they had but known how."
When William asks helen to marry him she gets upset
because she still loves her first husband she realises she has to get married
.She doesn't love William but she has to think about Gregory's welfare.Society
had a cruel attitude to fartherless children.Neither mother nor child had any
claim on the father's family however desperate the situation.In my oponion she
made the right descion marrying William because she and her child need
some financial support she wants him growing up with some money in his
life.She doesn't want him growing up and always asking for things and she
won't be able to provide it for him but on the other hand she said she doesn't
love him .In time maybe she will but she just married him for his money out of
duty .
William hated Gregory from the start,Helen gave all her
love to Gregory .William wanted Helen to love Gregory 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."Helen loved Gregory so much her last death request was
for him to take hold of her baby son's little hand.She made him promise to look
after the baby.William treated Gregory like he was nothing because his wife
loved Gregory more than him but in the end William really pays for his
wickedness he feels a sence of remorse and he's got a gulit trip he suddenly
realises that you can't take away a mother's love for her child he regrets
treating Gregory the way he did he knows that Gregory didn't deserve to be
treated like that.He realises its too late to turn back the clock and make a
mends with Gregory because he's dead.He pays for his jeaously ,he is
eternally sorry for what he did to gegory.
Today women wouldn't have to be put in the situation
that Milly and Helen were in but the victorian era was differen't ,they had no
choice if they wanted to be treated equally in the victorian era.I think the three
women in Tony Kytes story wanted to marry him because in this case it was a
case of desperation but in those days women weren't able to provide for
themselves,the men were breadwinners.In those days women weren't allo wed
to own anything like a house so they had to marry so they could be in a stable
house hold and the men could provide for them,In those days women also
thought they had to marry as early as possible in order to gain social
independence.
By Aretha Munroe 11H