Compare and contrast ‘Tickets, Please’ by D. H. Lawrence with ‘Tony Kytes, the Arch-Deceiver’ by Thomas Hardy

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     Hannah Jones 10G

                     English Coursework: Wider Reading

Compare and contrast ‘Tickets, Please’ by D. H. Lawrence with ‘Tony Kytes, the Arch-Deceiver’ by Thomas Hardy

‘Tony Kytes, the Arch-Deceiver’ by Thomas Hardy and ‘Tickets, Please’ by

D. H. Lawrence are two short stories. They are similar in that they both deal with relationships between and representations of men and women. However, they differ somewhat in their use of language, setting and the ideas contained within them.

        Hardy’s story was written and set in the late 19th century, a time of comparative simplicity. The roles of men and women were distinct; women were socially accepted and legally defined as second-class citizens. The ‘ideal’, obedient woman, somewhat like Milly Richards in ‘Tony Kytes, the Arch-Deceiver’ – ‘a nice, light, small, tender little thing’ – was held up as the prototype for women to follow. In contrast, the First World War, in which ‘Tickets, Please’ is set (although Lawrence wrote it in the 1920s), personified insecurity and an uneasiness in masculinity. This was due to the fact that since men had been called up to fight, women had taken over their old jobs; for the first time they were proving that the so-called ‘second sex’ were able and could work.

        The use of setting in ‘Tickets, Please’ very much exemplifies wartime. Much of it, particularly when the six women attack John Thomas, is set in ‘darkness and lawlessness’, embodying dread, anxiety and uncertainty. This enhances the ambiguity and the sting that the ‘mute, stupefied’ women cannot explain at the end. ‘Tony Kytes, the Arch-Deceiver’ is much more conventionally romantic in its setting, the English countryside. There is relatively little description of the landscape or location, so the reader presumes that it must be a ‘typical’ summer’s day, as is common in romantic tales. This again exemplifies the time in which the story is set – the late 19th century was a more straightforward, austere period than much of the 20th.

‘Tickets, Please’ begins with a long description of the train system, which depicts ‘long ugly villages of workmen’s houses… stark, grimy cold little market-places… wild, gloomy country’ (‘wild’ and ‘gloomy’ are a juxtaposition: the people rebel against the gloominess on the exciting train), enabling the reader to visualize this overcast, ostensibly lifeless area. However, the train itself, which is the core of the visualization, may symbolize the verve of the Midlands people and the vibrant new era of female emancipation that was dawning; it ‘boldly leaves the country town’ with ‘reckless swoops downhill… but still perky, jaunty, somewhat dare-devil’. Many of the sounds and words used imply what the words mean, e.g. the quick ‘k’ and ‘t’ sounds in ‘perky’ and jaunty’ and the long ‘o’ sound in ‘gloomy’.

The train in ‘Tickets, Please’ is described as ‘plunging off into the black, industrial countryside’, ‘pausing and purring with curious satisfaction’ at ‘the cold little town that shivers on the edge’. The word ‘plunging’ implies swiftly tumbling into something – an exciting image which is juxtaposed with the macabre ‘black, industrial countryside’ and ‘cold little town’. The image of the train is also an extended metaphor for sexual intercourse (which could not be described explicitly in the 1920s because of censorship).

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Likewise, when Annie and John Thomas go on a ride at the fair, they ‘spin and heave… [he was] flinging one leg across her mount, perilously tipping up and down, across the space, half lying back, laughing at her. He was perfectly happy… she was excited.’ This language, like the description of the train, is hinting at eroticism by describing ‘innocent’ actions as if they were people moving and feeling sensations during sexual intercourse. More obviously, ‘John Thomas’, the name of the main male character in ‘Tickets, Please’, is also a slang term for the penis. Through these insinuations the ...

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