Sophy loves her son, even though he is embarrassed and irritated by her, she shows this by sacrificing her love for him.
The son’s are pivotal in both of the stories. In ‘The Withered Arm’ Rhoda’s son bring her and Gertrude together, whereas in ‘The Son’s Veto’ Randolph tears his mothers and his relationship apart. Randolph plays a much more important role in Sophy’s life. The two son’s are a pivotal central to the mothers.
The way Rhoda feels towards the farmer’s new wife is a feeling of covetousness and envy.
‘If she’s dark or fair’
Hardy continues to evoke sympathy in the reader. Rhoda is resentful of the farmer’s new bride. She holds a sense of hatred towards her, Rhoda contains pain, she as been hurt by the farmers new bride, she does not want to be replaced. We are know able to envisage that there as been a strong relationship between Rhoda and Farmer Lodge. Rhoda’s feelings toward the new bride express to us, that she still as strong emotional feelings for the farmer.
The series of questions Rhoda asks her son shows her feelings of jealousy.
‘Sharply’
The adverb is used effectively and is very revealing. It shows Rhoda seething with resentment.
The first impression of the two women, Rhoda and Gertrude, is one of contrast. Rhoda is portrayed as a pale thin milkmaid who works for a living. As on the other hand Gertrude is depicted as a much more delicate woman who is easily crushed.
‘The youthful freshness of the yeoman’s wife’
Hardy describes to us the natural beauty of the young bride, her skin so pale and healthy. She as comely features.
The first real meeting between Gertrude and Rhoda is significant.
‘At these proofs of a kindly feeling towards her and hers Rhoda’s heart reproached her bitterly. This innocent young thing should have her blessing and not her curse. When she left them a light seemed gone from the dwelling.’
Hardy is presenting Gertrude as a kind, generous and considerate young lady. Rhoda is shocked of Gertrude’s generosity of spirit and her friendly gesture. She feels guilty for wishing such bad things upon the innocent young soul.
The development in the relationship is when Gertrude shows her arm to Rhoda, this reinforces the supernatural elements of the plot. The disfigurement of the arm produces culpability in Rhoda. Rhoda feels remorseless, guilty and responsible for the stigma.
‘O, can it be,’ she said to herself, when the visitor had departed, ‘that I exercise a malignant power over people against my own will?’
She infers that she as some power of witchcraft. It produces a sense of self-doubt in Rhoda. It makes Rhoda feel curious, she starts to dread meeting Gertrude again, she is afraid of what Gertrude will find out. The relationship, now, between the two women, is one of inquisitiveness and curiosity. The disfigurement drove the two women away from each other.
It also affected the relationship between Gertrude and Farmer Lodge. It drives them apart from each other. The farmer sees it as a judgement against him. The mutilation is not the only cause of the now distancing relationship between the farmer and his wife, but it also as an effect on emotional equilibrium; it affected Gertrude’s sense of contentment. Rhoda’s spirit was the cause of the malignant influence on the farmer and wife’s marriage.
Gertrude is so desperate to regain the love of her husband she visits the trendle, and is told to place the disfigurement on the neck of a hanged person.
Gertrude eagerly waits for the next set of executions.
‘O Lord, hang some guilty or innocent person soon!’
Gertrude wants a guilty innocent man to be hung; this shows eagerness and the importance of her desperation.
‘O – a reprieve – I hope not!’
The desperation causes her to suppress her natural feelings of sympathy. She is desperate for the farmer to once again show his love for her. The relationship between Rhoda and Farmer Lodge is very important to her.
Here we see a contrast in characters, Gertrude is shown in a selfish light she is anxious for someone to be hanged, the desperation she feels as striped her from sympathy, she just wants Farmer Lodge to love her. Whereas Sophy in ‘The Son’s Veto’ never expresses her personal feelings and constantly thinks about others.
The climax of the story occurs when we discover the hangman is Farmers and Rhoda’s son. This is ironic as the farmer and Rhoda are reunited at their son’s death. It is what Rhoda wanted in the beginning, she wanted the Farmer to love and admire her and not his new bride, now because of the affliction and disfigurement of Gertrude’s arm and Gertrude’s keen enthusiasm to regain the love of the farmer, Rhoda as been reunited with Farmer Lodge.
In ‘The Son’s Veto’ Sophy is introduced by Hardy in a way which induces readers sympathy, Sophy is an invalid. Sophy’s relationship with the Parson is one of closeness and kindliness.
‘‘ No, Sophy; lame or not, I cannot let you go. You must never me again!’’
Her lameness helps bring the parson and her closer together. Here we see a contrast with ‘The Withered Arm’ as Gertrude’s affliction causes her relationship with Farmer Lodge to deteriorate, they both become alienated from each other.
The Parson cared deeply for Sophy, he tried to help her over come her dramatical errors in her speech.
The parson does see Sophy’s social background as a blemish, not her lameness. Whereas in ‘The Withered Arm’ we see the reverse. Rhoda as a physical imperfection, not one of social background.
‘Her husband had taken much trouble with her education; but she still held confused ideas on the use of ‘was’ and ‘were’,’
This shows that the parson really cherished Sophy. He took time to teach her, and it shows he had the patience to instruct her. It shows he understood her feelings, and how she felt embarrassed because of her speech impediment. He wanted her to feel loved and respected, and did not want her to feel bad because of the errors in her speech.
When the Parson dies we again feel sympathy for Sophy, as the parson has excluded Sophy from their son’s future and major decisions that she may have wanted to share her opinions on. She has been given no control over her future or her son’s.
‘She was left with no control over anything that had been her husband’s beyond her modest personal income.’
This makes us feel a sense of protectiveness from the Parson. He wants everything to be arranged, so that Sophy will not have to be troubled by it. This shows the strong, loving and protecting relationship between Sophy and the Parson.
When Sophy is reunited with Sam, it shows us that Sophy is beginning to feel a rueful nostalgia; she imagines her life would have been happier if she had stayed with Sam.
Since the death of her husband Sophy has lived a life of solitude and isolation. She was not isolated literally but socially she was remote from society. Now Sam is around, her isolation is fading and she has hope for the future, Sam shows Sophy the prospect of happiness she as been waiting for and gives her a sense of hope and faith.
This gives a glimmer of hope for Sophy and Sam. But, Randolph shatters this. He does not want his mother to marry someone of a much lower class, and this shows what an expressively ascetic character Randolph is.
The cultural contents in the two stories fluctuate. ‘The Withered Arm’ has many references to the mystic and supernatural elements. The plot hinges on the supernatural and false notion.
‘But the figure which had occupied her so much during this and the previous days was not to be banished at night. For the first time Gertrude Lodge visited the supplanted woman in her dreams.’
A distorted image of Gertrude visits Rhoda in her dreams. The beautiful woman was a twisted evil incubus. Hardy bases the dream on the supernatural. This event is significant. The supernatural elements in the story have an impact on the relationships between: Rhoda and Gertrude, and Gertrude and Farmer Lodge. Supernatural beliefs form the basis of ‘The Withered Arm’. It is a story of incubus and because of the visitation the rest of the story sprouts from supernatural.
In ‘The Son’s Veto’, however, the story is based the attitudes in society.
‘The Son’s Veto’ is much more realistic and has no supernatural elements. It is much more entrenched in realism, and shows the attitudes to social class and relationships. The incidents in the story spring from relationships and social snobbery.
‘No I am not a lady,’ she said sadly. ‘I never shall be. But he’s a gentleman, and that – makes it – O how difficult for me!’
This shows a world of maternal sadness. There is no closeness and love between Sophy and Randolph because of the effect of social snobbery.
Society has a great impact in ‘The Son’s Veto’. It forces Sophy and the parson to move away from the rural community because of the social impropriety of marriage, to avoid gossip.
‘Mr Twycott knew perfectly well that he had committed social suicide by this step,’
They have to move away because of the potency of making a social faux pas. This is because of the social attitudes at the time. This is in contrast with ‘The Withered Arm’; the farmer is proud of his new bride and brings her back to the village to show her off.
‘The well-to-do Farmer Lodge came nearly last; and his young wife, who accompanied him, walked up the aisle with the shyness natural to a modest woman’
This tells us that the farmer had pride in his new bride, but because of the social attitude at the time, the parson was shamed, as he had married someone of a much lower class.
Sophy’s speech impediment also had an effect on the social culture and manner.
‘Did not beget a respect for her among the few acquaintances she made’
As a result of Sophy’s grammatical errors in her speech, people looked down on her, and no one respected her. This made her feel less than a lady. It evokes sympathy in the reader. Sophy is in a socially alien situation.
Because of the pressure of society and the social class imposed by Randolph, the relationship between Sophy and the Parson was doomed to fail. It is ironic because when Sophy met the Parson, she was too low of a social class, and was forced to move away from the village because of the social faux pas, but now she has met Sam, the relationship is condemned as Sophy is now regarded as a lady, and too high of a social class.
What we are shown is a more explicit glimpse of Hardy’s attitude. People should be judged by the person they are and not by how they appear and the way they speak.
In ‘The Son’s Veto’ Randolph judges his mother on the way she spoke, rather than the goodness and love inside her. Hardy’s philosophy is that beauty is skin deep and this he effectively shows in ‘The Son’s Veto’.
The power of gossip and social attitudes are also showed in ‘The Withered Arm’
In ‘the Withered Arm’ Hardy presents Rhoda as an outcast. She is from the local society. The opening of the story begins in an intriguing way. Two milkmaids converse, clandestinely, of a Farmer Lodge and how he is bringing home his new-fangled bride, whilst darting quick glances at Rhoda. Straight away this implies that Rhoda has some connection with Farmer Lodge and that she is involved. Hardy introduces Rhoda through gossip and implication.
‘Tis hard for she,’
This also suggests that Rhoda had a relationship with Farmer Lodge. It evokes sympathy in the reader.
Rhoda is excluded, not by the local villagers but by herself. Here we see the same situation in ‘The Son’s Veto’. The idea of being remote is also shown in this story, as Sophy is an outcast she is excluded from the society.
Rhoda is set apart from the rest of the villagers because, as we know from reading the story, we can deduce that the young boy is her son. She has an illegitimate child. This would cause Rhoda to be regarded as an outsider. In rural communities, someone who had an illegitimate child was considered as an outsider. Rhoda had a social stigma, which surrounded her. Sophy in ‘The Son’s Veto’ also had a stigma, but unlike Rhoda’s, Sophy’s was a class stigma.
Rhoda is with her son at his death, this shows her love for him and the affection she felt for him. But because of social snobbery there is a sad, cold distance between Sophy and son at Sophy’s death. This increases our sadness and sorrow we feel for Sophy. There is still a sense of distance between the mother and son.
The setting of the two stories also shows a great impact on the themes and moods of the stories. In ‘The Withered Arm’ the community is built on superstition. The pastoral community believed in the dark arts and superstition, whereas ‘The Son’s Veto’ is set in the urban society, where superstition did not have an impact on their lives. It was much more sophisticated, urbane and refined. In urban communities people did not allow superstition to have an effect on their local life’s, it did not affect the community. Instead, urban communities, were much more concerned and engrossed in social rank. The communal class had a large effect on their lives. On the other hand, social class did not affect rural communities, as most people living in the areas were working class and no one was of a higher class than someone else.
The endings of the two stories are in similar vein. We see both women lose something. Sophy loses her emotions and glimmer of hope between her and Sam, as she dies. Sophy’s pain is over, she no longer as to worry about her social rank and she is no longer going to be able to be dishonoured and humiliated by her iniquity, austere son. His intransigence means his mother dies unhappy and unfulfilled, whereas Rhoda’s pain is not over.
The two stories end differently. In ‘The Withered Arm’ Hardy concludes the story where it began. Rhoda again sits away from the other milkmaids. She is still isolated and alone, this increases our sympathy towards her. Whereas in ‘The Son’s Veto’ the ending of the story is more tragic. It is full of unfilled promises and hopes. We are left with a poignant tableau. The ending suggests a world of missed opportunities.