Both John Thomas and Tony Kytes are daring characters who try to manipulate women around them. Compare and contrast the two men with particular reference to their attitude towards women.
Both John Thomas and Tony Kytes are daring characters who try to manipulate women around them. Compare and contrast the two men with particular reference to their attitude towards women.
Tony Kytes is the main character of 'Tony Kytes, The Arch-Deceiver', which is a story written by Thomas Hardy in the 1890s - contained in his book titled 'Life's Little Ironies.' (1894) (The story is set in the Midlands during the First World War.)
Thomas Hardy was an influence to 20th Century writers, and as recognition of his work his ashes were buried in Poet's corner in Westminster Abbey, and his heart buried in his wife's grave - Emma.
DH Lawrence was obsessed with honesty, particularly with regard to sexual matters. By writing about sex he was breaking social taboos as well as the then laws on decency.
'Ticket, Please' isn't as indecent as some of his creations. From this story is the infamous John Thomas, who was created by Lawrence some thirty years after Tony Kytes was discovered.
This time difference between the two characters may account for some of their contrasts and indeed the difference between the women of the stories, as the 'Victorian' women were certainly less peremptory than the women of the wartime were.
The women of the Victorian era had more respect for the men as a result of their upbringing. From a very young age they were taught that they were inferior to the men, and it was made abundantly clear to them, as male siblings/relative became the parents' favourite.
The wartime women also respected the men, but in a different way. They thought them brave as they risked their lives for their country. As the men were otherwise engaged, the women were called upon to replace them in the jobs that they had left vacant. In doing so, they gained a sense of freedom/independence and power.
Your first introduction to the characters is very important, therefore, the introduction to the story is important, as it subtly introduces the characters as well. This style can be found in 'Tickets, Please,' where DH Lawrence uses a tram's journey to subconsciously describe the characters. Using amorphous sentence structure/syntax, with a lack of punctuation DH Lawrence sets the speed/flow of the sentence to fit the tram's journey and the characters lives.
'Tickets, Please,' is a much more powerful story compared to Tony Kytes, and the basis for this power is the words that DH Lawrence uses, especially in the first few sentences. Using the shapeless sentences, he creates a dangerous, yet exciting escapade through, over and under towns, and the bleak countryside:
"...the reckless swoops downhill, bouncing the loops: again the chilly wait in the hill-top market-place: again the breathless slithering round the precipitous drop..."
...this could be a hint of what is to come as the story progresses. DH Lawrence is very clever in the way that he writes, and uses this technique: it brings the story to life, in a rather uncontrolled way.
'Tickets, Please' is written in the third person which makes it an unbiased account but, unfortunately, means that you don't get all sides of the story, (as you would do, for instance, in a play). The story doesn't contain any of the characters feelings or thought as a result of this, but DH Lawrence does try to include the characters feelings from his point of view.
This is almost the same in the story of the 'eponymous hero' Tony Kytes. Here a carrier is reminiscing about the days when he new Tony, and decides to tell his passengers of his account of the story. As he is the narrator it will be a biased account - he may over/under-exaggerate to make the story seem more believable/dramatic.
Both John Thomas and Tony Kytes are sycophantic, philanderers, but John Thomas is much more powerful, and this is reflected in the presentation of the story 'Tickets, Please,' as the words chosen be DH Lawrence are more powerful than the ones chosen by Thomas hardy. This may be done to re-establish the fact that it was written in wartime.
Women find Tony very attractive, despite his scars from smallpox - which he had as a boy. He was a very serious youngster, though you wouldn't know it by reading the story. Tony, as a man, is very ...
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Both John Thomas and Tony Kytes are sycophantic, philanderers, but John Thomas is much more powerful, and this is reflected in the presentation of the story 'Tickets, Please,' as the words chosen be DH Lawrence are more powerful than the ones chosen by Thomas hardy. This may be done to re-establish the fact that it was written in wartime.
Women find Tony very attractive, despite his scars from smallpox - which he had as a boy. He was a very serious youngster, though you wouldn't know it by reading the story. Tony, as a man, is very scandalous and facetious, in the way that there is more humour rather than deceit when he shifts between women. He is an unfaithful, indecisive man whose "shaven-face2 and charms will get him anywhere.
John Thomas Raynor is an inspector on the trams during wartime along with the "comely" women conductors and the "delicate young men" who could not go to war. (There is no mention of why John Thomas didn't go war, and his description mentions no physical flaws.) He is an egotistical, uncaring tram inspector, who is very much a coward under the tough exterior.
He seems to find the carefree life that the women lead, extremely attractive, and almost always has a woman to go home with - Annie once being one of them. Like Tony he is very flirtatious and facetious, and receives many flirtatious signals back:
"Shut the door, boy," said Muriel Baggaley.
"Oh, which side of me?" said John Thomas.
"Which tha likes, " said Polly Birkin.
Although, neither man is ever 'in love' with any of the women. Tony Kytes "loved 'em in shoals," which meant that there wasn't any true love on his part. He knew that he was "quite the women's' favourite" and used this to his advantage. Tony was very easily lead, and his feelings for the women tend to change faster than the wind! Likewise John Thomas doesn't like meaningful relationships with women, and likes to remain a "nocturnal presence."
Both men manipulate the women to their advantage, leaving a trail of broken hearts behind them, as, unfortunately for the women, for them it is true love - although for the men they were just an afterthought, the women hate being rejected or even rejecting. For the Victorian women this is due to the era that they are in - although few women/girls believed that they were inferior to the men, since their own eyes and evidence disproved it.
Tony is cautious when it comes to the women - he shows concern for their feelings, or perhaps just his own, when he hides them from view so as not to upset other people:
"Now dearest Unity, will ye, to avoid all unpleasantness, which I know ye can't bear any more than I..."
He is just manipulating Unity's feelings, and using it to get his own way by telling her things that he knows she wants to hear:
"...will ye lie down in the back part of the waggon, and let me cover you over with the tarpaulin............and perhaps I shall put a loving question to you after all..."
He uses the same method with Milly:
"...I'm rather afeared of her temper if she sees us together. Now, Milly, would you do me a favour - my coming wife, as I may say?.........Then would you creep under the empty sacks just here in the front of the waggon, and hide there out of sight until we pass the house?"
By calling her his 'coming wife' he is implying that he will marry her rather than Unity. As women of that era were 'intent' on marriage, Milly readily agrees to almost anything he asks of her.
John Thomas has the same conniving nature as Tony, but uses less 'direct' methods to get what he wants. He gets the woman's trust before approaching them with sexual intent:
"...he put his arm round her and drew her a little nearer to him, in a very warm and cuddly manner. Besides, he was fairly discreet..."
Tony isn't so intent on the sexual side, but takes marriage in his stride. He acts as though marriage is an everyday occurrence, and so do the women.
This is due to the fact that most working-class women in the Victorian time wanted to find a husband for reasons of status and respectability. In the countryside, couples generally waited until they had some possessions before marrying, but the system of poor relief was much more generous to married couples rather than single men and women, and this encouraged early marriage among the poor. Although Tony isn't poor, he is working-class and not very rich, and for this reason he is marrying 'young.'
As for the women of the wartime:
Back in world war one, the Civil Service made angry comments about 'hussies' with '3 inches of powder on their faces' who declined to behave in a 'womanly way' by surrendering their jobs to the men. These wartime women are much more assertive and independent than the Victorian women. By taking over the men's' jobs while they are at war, they also take on their aggressiveness. As they are not accustomed to this amount of power, they lose control of their actions when angered. Angry, uncontrollable women, are not things to be meddled with, especially when they are seeking 'revenge,' as John Thomas found out.
Victorian women are meant to be reserved, for example, it would be scandalous for them to ask men for a lift:
"My dear Tony, will you give me a lift home?" - Unity.
Unity is very up-front woman, who has no trouble at all in complaining to Tony about Milly, to whom he is engaged, or persuading him that she is prettier than Milly:
"In fact, I never knowed you was so pretty before!" - Tony.
When Milly arrives, Tony tries to stall time to think up an excuse as to why she shouldn't ride with him:
"I was thinking you might be going ion to town to meet your mother. I saw her there - and she looked as if she might be expecting 'ee."
When all else had failed, he has to take her home, meeting Hannah Jolliver on the way.
When John Thomas is with Annie, the author does not include any speech that he has with her. We can't really tell the tactics that he uses on her, other than he fact that he tries to get her trust first.
Although John Thomas doesn't find his women so quickly interchangeable compared to Tony, he does like to swap them around almost every night. He probably has more women than Tony, though he isn't prepared to marry any of them. John Thomas likes the women when they play hard to get, like Annie:
"And John Thomas liked Annie, more than usual."
This makes them seem like more of a challenge.
Tony doesn't like challenges, even though he seems to put himself into all sorts of situations that require careful thought to sort them out! He doesn't like it when the women play hard to get, otherwise he would have followed Hannah or Unity at the end of the story.
Tony lies at least once on every page of the story! He finds some excuse or fabrication to save him from the women, some as unbelievable as he is:
"But Hannah, I've really a couple of ferrets in a bag under there, for rabbiting, and they quarrel sometimes. I don't wish it knowed, as 'twould be called poaching. Oh, they can't get out, bless 'ee - you are quite safe! And -and - what a fine day it is isn't it, Hannah, for this time of year?"
He quickly changes the subject to save himself from conjuring up another lie. Tony frequently come close to being caught, but when he does in the end, then women are angrier with each other than him!
"But he was rather alarmed when he heard how they were going on at one another."
Some modern men would have seen Tony as lucky - having three women in a 'waggon,' although they would probably prefer a car! It is almost predictable that the women will 'dislike' Tony, as he is misleading all of the women in the story. The same response can be found to John Thomas, who although isn't interested in marriage, or an intellectual relationship of any sort, is still very disrespectful towards the women - treating them as objects.
The women decide to make John Thomas 'pay' for treating them this way. They trick him into their waiting room, by falsely flirting with him. He takes the bait, and steps inside while they lock the door behind him.
They 'play' with him for a while before they become less hospitable, and John Thomas becomes mistrusting. The women try to make him choose one of them, and are somewhat ironic in the process:
"Nay, how can I take one, " he said, laughing uneasily. "I don't want to make enemies." (He has already made enemies, but will make a greater one as Annie points out...)
"You'd only make one!" said Annie.
"The chosen one," added Laura.
As he decides that he can't choose, the women make him face the wall and say which one of them touches him - only nobody does. Instead, Annie hits him around the head and at her signal "they all flew at him, slapping him, pinching him, pulling him, pulling his hair, though more in fun than in spite or anger." For now they are just having fun, but when John Thomas turns 'inspector,' they lose control and the fighting begins:
"...the other girls rushed upon him, pulling and tearing and beating him. Their blood was thoroughly up. He was their sport now."
DH Lawrence mentions that John Thomas is "their sport now," and he does this to show that they were his sport at one time, and now they are taking revenge.
The next few sentences mimic the introductory sentence: it starts to speed up showing the lack of control that was hinted about at the beginning: there's repetition - making John Thomas the focal point, and more of the dangerous words:
"The girls rushed at him, clenched their hands on him and pulled at him: or they rushed at him and pushed him, butted him with all their might: or they struck him wild blows. He ducked and cringed and struck sideways. They became more intense."
"Wild blows" - the women are like wild animals who are hunting their prey, and will stop at nothing to trap him.
John Thomas soon realises what he has done, and the animal theme is carried on when he "winced away from those eyes."
DH Lawrence tries to enhance the suspense:
"You ought to be killed, that's what you ought," said Annie tensely. "You ought to be killed." And there was a terrifying lust in her voice.
"...said Laura, with vindictive decision." (She has an eagerness/lust for revenge.)
John Thomas shocks everyone by finally choosing:
"All right, then," he said, "I choose Annie." His voice was strange and full of malice.
Annie is the main female character in 'Tickets, Please' and has her heart broken along with the other women that John Thomas has duped:
"I won't touch him," she said. But her face quivered with a kind of agony, she seemed as if she would fall."
Despite the fact that John Thomas is an uncaring, self-centred man, the women still want him.
"Yet each of them waited for him to look at her, hoped he would look at her. All except Annie, and something was broken in her."
As they women come to realise what he has said they, especially Annie, start to calm down. They feel ashamed about what they have done, and won't touch him as he leaves. They only stop to give him some advice, or one might call it an 'order.'
"Tit for tat, old man," she said. " Show yourself a man, and don't bear a grudge." (This is a very sexist comment, and is ironic that the women wanted to be rid of sexism, and are employing it themselves!)
John Thomas thinks that he has failed, but in reality, it was the women who failed, as they lost their self-control. Initially they thought that they'd won, but by using male tactics of aggression, they stopped down to John Thomas's level/men's level in general by trying to be in control. They are amazed at what they've done - they are no better then the men:
"They were tidying themselves hurriedly, with mute, stupefied faces."
Whereas John Thomas was left with no one, Tony somehow ends up with Milly. The other women in the Tony Kytes story rejected Tony at the end so as to keep their dignity - but they still wanted him:
"Never - I would sooner marry no-nobody at all!" she gasped out, though with her heart in her throat, for she would not have refused Tony if had asked her quietly, and her father had not been there..."
By the way that Tony talks beforehand, he is shocked that Hannah won't have him:
"What, you won't have me Hannah" said Tony, his jaw hanging down like a dead man's.
After being rejected, Tony decides that the will ignore his father's advice, along with Milly's continual sobbing, and asks Unity to be his:
"Take her leavings? Not I!" says Unity. "I'd scorn it!" And away walked Unity Sallet likewise, though she looked back when she'd gone some way to see if he was following her."
Unity, like Hannah, wants Tony, but refuses him, partially to keep the etiquette, and to see if he will still want her after being rejected.
Finally he turns to mIlly, though unwillingly, and contrives some tale about fate bringing them together! Milly belives what he says and agrees to be his wife, after being assured that she was the only one he wanted.
Tony doesn't really want Milly. The author puts this idea across by making her the first and yet last person that Tony asks to marry, but as the times suggested that women should marry, Milly took the opportunity and married him. Their wedding was to be very soon after this point, so that Milly would not leave him, or Tony be tempted by any other woman.
Nowadays, women are much more assertive than the women of either story. If Tony had been a modern day man, then he would have been left alone, and John Thomas would have had more to show for his deceit.
Both men thrive on the fact that they know the women want them, and both are astounded at the end when they are rejected.
The writers have very similar yet contrasting endings. Although the women reject both men, 'John ThomAas's women' use aggression and violence to have victory over him. 'Tony's women' are much less impetuous, and want him much more than the other women want John Thomas. The eras have a great effect on the thoughts and freedom of the women, and both eras have contrasting features to today's society.
There are many successful career women in the modern day world who don't need a man to support them, but if it wasn't for people such as Emmeline Pankhurst, and such other people in both the Victorian and the wartime, we wouldn't be where we are today. Equal - Almost.
