With references to the selection of short stories you have read, compare and contrast how relationships between men and women are explored

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With references to the selection of short stories you have read, compare and contrast how relationships between men and women are explored

The theme that connects all three short stories that we have looked at is marriage.  In ‘Tony Kytes the Arch – Deceiver by Thomas Hardy’ we come across three very different women who are more than willing to unite themselves in marriage to ‘Tony Kytes’ the protagonist of this short story.  Whereas in ‘ Jane Austen’s, The Three Sisters’ we find that the protagonist is a very strong willed woman named Mary Stanhope, and we gain knowledge of her developing relationship with Mr Watts.  Austen shows in a series of very descriptive letters a woman’s role and views on marriage, and the advantages of a woman in Mary’s upper class, family marrying.  On the other hand ‘Elizabeth Gaskell’s The Half-Brothers’ concentrates on the marriage between William Preston, and the narrator’s mother, Helen.   This shows that if a woman in this time period had a poor economic status they could be forced into marriage to survive and in Helen’s case to support her son, Gregory.  

The relationships between men and women are explored in each of the stories that we have read, and we have noticed how these are influenced by the time period of each story.  In ‘Hardy’s, Tony Kytes the Arch – Deceiver’ we come across many different kinds of women all of whom have one thing in common, a soft spot for the protagonist ‘Tony Kytes’.  Yet in ‘Austen’s The Three Sisters’ we discover three sisters who again have one thing in common their detest of Mr Watts.  However, in ‘Gaskell’s The Half-Brothers’ Gregory, William Preston and the narrator seem very different, almost completely the opposite of each other.  Gregory is described as ‘lumpish and loutish, awkward and ungainly’.  William Preston, ‘was a stern, hard man’ to most people, but he was very kind and loving toward his son, the narrator, and his wife, Helen.  Whilst Helen was dying William Preston ‘would have coined his heart's blood into gold to save her’.  Although he did take a ‘positive dislike’ to his stepson Gregory, whom before the birth of the narrator and Helens death, received ‘ready love that always gushed out like a spring of fresh water’ from his mother, and yet to him he received nothing more than ‘gentle words as cold as ice’.  He also found a way to blame his wife’s death on his ‘poor orphan stepson’.  To add to the confusion around the personality of William Preston, at the end of ‘Gaskell’s’ story he wishes that he could have asked Gregory ‘to forgive my hardness of heart.’ Unfortunately, this sudden change in his attitude towards his stepson comes only after his death.  The Narrator seems to be a cocky, boyish and arrogant character, again, like his father; until after Gregory’s death, when he regrets his disparaging words towards his half brother, and his selfish behaviour that ultimately lead to his death.  

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There are many similarities in the characters between the three short stories that we have looked at.  Unity Sallet, Hannah Jolliver and Mary Stanhope all have similar qualities such as being seemingly independent, but all are also slightly insecure.  When Hannah Jolliver refuses Tony Kytes it is only, ‘partly because her father is there and partly too in a tantrum because of the discovery and the scratch on her face.’ Unity Sallet seems quite outraged when Tony Kytes asks for her hand in marriage, ‘Take her leavings?  Not I! I’d Scorn it!’ she said as she walked away ‘though ...

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