stated later on in the story where woman are not
allowed to live by themselves or by a house themselves,
it was always the man who would buy the house.
As you read on Rhoda is intrigued into finding out a
lot more about this new wife to be, so she asks her son
of 12 years to go and try and find her to see what she
looked like. Rhode kept telling the boy the same type of
things so you could tell that the boy had stopped
listening and just kept saying ‘Yes, mother’. After the
boy had been out and spotted the new wife to be he
went back and told his mother. His mother still wanted
to know more so she sent him off again the next day to
find out more information. The boy said ‘She’s very
pretty – very. In fact she’s lovely.’ ‘That is all I want to
hear’ said the mother; this indicated that she was very
jealous of the new woman.
A couple weeks later Rhoda has a dream where the
now named wife, Gertrude, had come into her bedroom
and stood next to Rhoda’s bed, “Rhoda had reached
out and grabbed Gertrude’s arm and whirled it
backward to the floor” The next day Gertrude came to
the house of Rhoda and bought some handmade shoes
for her son. She showed Rhoda a mark that had
appeared on her arm on the same night that Rhoda
had the dream; it was in the exact same place that
Rhoda grabbed. This is where the story starts to get a
bit mystical. When this story was set people believed
strongly in these mystical things happening, so when
it did happen to Gertrude, Rhoda said ‘O, could it be’
this indicates that Rhoda is starting to believe that
maybe she did really do this and she starts to think
that she could be a Witch. Rhoda then suggests that
Gertrude goes to see Conjuror Trundle who is believed
to have special powers which enables him to find out
how these mystical things happen.
When they arrive at Conjuror Trundle’s they go in
and he states that he has not done anything like this
for along time, he said it could be from a witch,
Gertrude said “An enemy? What enemy?” But said
that he could show Gertrude who did it but he would
not be able to tell them the name. So he went and
fetched a glass tumbler from a dresser and he filled it
with water, then put the white of an egg into the
water, as the egg and water mixed he held the glass
up to the window and told Gertrude to watch the
mixture closely.
Towards the end of ‘The Withered Arm’ the issue of
class slowly fade’s away, as Rhoda who is lower class
had become quite good friends with Gertrude who is
higher class.
In the ‘Absent mindedness in a Parish Choir’ there is
not really an exact approach to class but the only
issue I can find is that, the band in the story where
working class people and they where well thought of
because of there music, but on this occasion they did
not come up to the squires high standards, due to
there mistake of drinking and falling asleep in the
church, and then not performing to the standard that
he required, they performed the wrong type of music
for the location. Thus showing the difference of
cultural standards of that time.
The Son’s of Veto is the story that shows the issue of
class most clearly. As Sophie was lower class but
married into a higher-class society, doing this was
seen as wrong, she tried to act as if she was a higher-
class parson but this was not easy as her mannerisms
still occurred many a time.
She had a son named Randolph who was born in
to the higher-class society. He went to a public school
and later in life he trained to be a parson like his
father; he mingled with all upper class people, which
lead him to be embarrassed of his own mother.
He did not like the fact that he had a lower class
background.
After Sophie’s first marriage was over she wanted
to remarry to a man named Sam. Her son would not
allow her to do this because Sam was a lower class
person. In the time period that this story was set
women were to do what the man said, so Sophie
obeyed her son and did not remarry to Sam.
He even made her promise not to marry him;
“Finally taking her before a little cross and
alter………He made her swear that she would not wed
Samuel Hobson.”
Thomas Hardy only gave names to the important
characters within his stories. He wrote about the
people and places that he knew and incidents of his
immediate experiences.
2 Jonathan Hills 10E1
3 Jonathan Hills 10E1
1 Jonathan Hills 10E1