Even though the relationship between Rhoda and Lodge had been over for a long time before Gertrude’s arrival, Rhoda saw Gertrude as a rival who ‘supplanted’ her in the eyes of Farmer Lodge and ruined the chances of her dreamed marriage and respectability coming to past. This was revealed to us by the importance of the ‘wedding ring’ with which the ‘spectre’ in her ‘vision’ tormented her. The ‘spectre’ in Rhoda’s ‘vision’ was Gertrude, ‘with features shockingly distorted and… wrinkled by age’, now as ugly and old as Rhoda wished her to be. In the dream Rhoda threw Mrs Lodge to the ground by her arm and permanently left finger marks on her arm.
Rhoda’s vision did not only gave us an insight to her mind but also showed us that she was ready to do anything in defence of something she considered as hers even if she had to do it through violence.
As soon as Gertrude arrived to the village she started giving out gifts to the poorer people around the village. Rhoda who had decided that she ‘ wouldn’t even look up at’ Gertrude ‘if she were to pass’ her ‘window’ in other words she never wanted to see Gertrude was forced to respond readily to charitable Gertrude’s ‘sweet voice and winning glance when Gertrude ‘brought’ her son ‘the pair of boots that she had promised him’. Rhoda’s feelings for Gertrude changed from deep dislike and Jealousy. She liked Gertrude so started to reproach her self ‘bitterly’ for the way she had previously felt towards Gertrude.
Although the two women started a friendly relationship their relationship was based on deceit and lies not only between Rhoda Brook and Gertrude Lodge but also involving Farmer Lodge the man at the end of their triangle relation ship. Gertrude was ‘unconscious’ of their history.
Farmer Lodge did not tell his wife about his past relation ship with Rhoda nor did he tell her about her stepson.
Whilst Rhoda and Gertrude where close friends Rhoda did not tell her about her past with Farmer Lodge nor about ‘the vision’ when Gertrude expressed her concerns for the withered arm.
Gertrude revealed to Rhoda the ‘marks’ on her arm in attempt to ‘make it out’ as she could not ‘remember’ how they came about, in one of their ‘confidential’ conversations. Rhoda began to feel guilty, due to the fact that in the past she had been ‘called a witch’, isolated from the rest of the village and rejected by Farmer Lodge. She refused to think that it was mere ‘coincidence’ that blight on Gertrude’s arm came on the night of her dream and that it was not ‘the exact… limb’ she had ‘seized in her dream’. Rhoda allowed her self to believe that she exercised a ‘malignant power’ and was in fact responsible for Gertrude’s ‘sufferings’.
From the way Rhoda felt about Gertrude in the beginning of the story, I would have thought that Rhoda would rejoice on seeing Gertrude’s ‘shrivelled’ arm since it had tarnished Gertrude’s beauty and made Farmer Lodge ‘love’ her ‘less’ since appearance was important to him, which meant that Rhoda might stand a chance with Farmer Lodge.
In contrast Rhoda grew great sadness, her feelings for Gertrude ‘amounted’ almost ‘to affection’ and she no longer thought that Gertrude deserved ‘any reparation’ for Mr Lodge’s past conduct to her.
The actions of the two women, Gertrude showing Rhoda her arm and Rhoda feeling sorry for Gertrude, proves to us that they were both had a good relationship and thought they could trust each other. I think that their newly found friendship started deteriorating the moment Gertrude showed her ‘withered arm to Rhoda.
After the locals recommended Gertrude to seek cure from an old ‘conjuror’, Trendle, she asked Rhoda, to secretly ‘show her the way’ to the Conjuror Trendle’s. Although Rhoda was afraid that she might be revealed ‘and her character in the eyes of’ Gertrude ‘the most useful friend she had ever had’ would ‘be ruined irretrievably’ she agreed to go because she did not want ‘to stand in the way of a possible remedy’ of her friend’s ‘affliction’. Therefore Rhoda was a good friend.
Conjuror Trendle broke the relationship between Gertrude and Rhoda when he exposed Rhoda as the person responsible ‘for the withered arm’. The two women’s attitude towards each other changed drastically. Gertrude became cold and distant towards Rhoda and Rhoda instead of feeling ‘guilty’ ‘possessed’ a sense of triumph, she felt that Gertrude ‘should learn that’ it was not only her life that was set at odd by ‘other influences than’ her ‘own’. Rhoda’s new attitude gives us an idea about the kind of person she was and why she valued her friendship with Gertrude. It seems she only cared about Gertrude because of the ‘useful articles’ she got from her.
Many years after their relationship was broken and Rhoda had left the village, the two women were apart but they still had a link together. Their link was Farmer Lodge who once loved both of them, his son and the withered arm.
Gertrude became so ‘obsessed’ with he arm and she is tortured with the belief that the disappearance of the blight on her arm would replenish her ‘beauty’ and consequently restore her husband’s ‘love’ for her. Her passion for a ‘renewed beauty’ led her back to the conjuror that told her that she ‘must touch…a man who’s just been hanged’. She made arrangements to cure her hand through her desperate measures. Un known to her, the hanged man that ‘turned her blood’ and cured her arm was the son of her old friend who brought about her misery.
When Rhoda saw Gertrude touching her son, she thought of neither their past relationship nor her wrong to Gertrude. Instead she claimed that Gertrude was there ‘to come between’ her, Farmer Lodge and their ‘child’. She attacked Gertrude just like she did in the dream and ‘Gertrude collapsed under the double shock’ and died a few days later.
Farmer Lodge was the mechanism by which Rhoda and Gertrude’s fate were entwined. His affair with Rhoda, her abandonment and the burden of an illegitimate child lead to Rhoda’s anger in his new marriage to Gertrude. Unfortunately Rhoda cursed Gertrude and her arm became withered in revenge for Mr Loges past conduct. In fear of loosing Farmer Lodges love, Gertrude resorts to most despicable cure, which led to her death.
In The Withered Arm Thomas Hardy used Rhoda’s son to start a good relationship between Rhoda Brook and Gertrude. The quirk of fate in the situation is that Rhoda’s son, the ill fated boy’s life mutually brought Gertrude and Rhoda together in the beginning of the story and his death made them meet again, this time the last, not as friends but as enemies.
The boy’s carving of the chair instead of helping his mother cook and his poaching, which eventually led to his death were suggestions of his early and tragic death.
It seems that as long as the two women were alive their link kept their relationship going whether good or bad, and it was only after Gertrude’s death that the relationship between her and Rhoda brook finally came to an end.
