“ The radiance lit her pale cheek, and made her dark eyes, that had once been handsome seem hardsome anew’. This shows that Rhoda had once been handsome but has lost it now. It also tells me that Rhoda had strong manly features because handsome is a word that is usually used to describe the way men look.
“Her face was fresh in colour, but had it was a totally different quality- soft and evanescent, like the ligh under a heap of rose-peals”. This is describing Gertrude as very beautiful and soft. This also tells me that both women are different in their looks because Gertrude is described as beautiful and Rhoda is described as handsome. The story is that a milkmaid called Rhoda has a child by the farmer and then he neglected them. Then a woman called Gertrude married the farmer. Gertrude and Rhoda became quite good friends, until Rhoda jealous of Gertrude has an evil dream and Gertrude’s arm is damaged. Gertrude tries very hard to get her arm into shape again so that her husband doesn’t lose interest but she ends up dying. As you can see the stories are very different from each other because the first story is about two women (one woman, Mrs Marroner is very strong) deal with the situation by leaving Mr Marroner as his betrayal has caused pain and sorrow. Where as in the second story one woman is betrayed by a man and the other is scared of losing him.
In the story ‘Turned’ Charlotte Gilmans presents Mrs Marroner as a highly educated with a Ph.D degree and is very strong because of the way in which she is shown dealing with the situation. Mrs Marroner’s husband, Mr Marroner, has an affair with the maid Gerta. “She tried to cool her feelings into thoughts, to stiffen them into words; to control herself- and could not”. Mrs Marroner is a well-controlled person but having heard Gerta was pregnant by her husband she did not know what to do.
“One summer in girlhood when she had been swimming under water and could not find the top”. This shows Mrs Marroner is a strong person but during her childhood she nearly drowned, so the author is using this image to describe how she is feeling. At first Mrs Marroner blames Gerta. “Go to your room and pack”. Mrs Marroner is very angry and tells Gerta to leave but then changes her mind. Mrs Marroner decides to leave Mr Marroner; she starts a new life with Gerta and her baby. Whereas Gerta is weak and childish and is not sure what to do- “She is foolish and yielding- I must not be too stern with her”. This is what Mrs Marroner thinks of Gerta, which shows she is quite weak. “She did not try to control herself. She wept for two”. Gerta had no control over herself as Mrs Marroner, as she cried for herself and her child. The reason for this is that Mrs Marroner was brought up to control her emotions even though she struggled to do so, where as Gerta was brought as in a different way. Gerta’s child would be known as a bastard, and in the early part of the 20th century when the story is set it was a sinn and women could be put into a mental hospital or shut away for this. Gerta looked up to Mrs Marroner as if she was a mother to her, which is why Mrs Marroner and Gerta want to stay together. “This is the sin of man against woman, the offence is against womanhood. Against motherhood. Against- the child”. Mrs Marroner has regained her self-control and she has realized that she will be upright and look after the woman, as she is one herself, and the child. Gerta makes a choice to keep the child and live with Mrs Marroner because she looks up to Mrs Marroner.
In the second story, The Withered Arm, Thomas Hardy presents Rhoda as independent and strong because she works as a milkmaid and has brought up a child on her own. She doesn’t accept money from the farmer (who is the child’s father and her boss) that he has offered to her at the ending of the story. Rhoda puts a spell a spell on the farmer’s new wife, and her arm is withered. When Gertrude finds out who has done this, Rhoda leaves the town. Rhoda is confident no matter what people are saying she still puts up with it. Whereas Gertrude is weak as in ladylike. Gertrude thinks looking beautiful for her husband is important. When the farmer loses interest in Gertrude because of the arm, she tries everything to win his interest back. In the pre-twentieth century for women to have status their main aim was to marry and have children who they were treated poorly. Gertrude thought keeping her husband happy was important which is why she wanted to stay beautiful. “The place on my arm seems worse, troubles me”. As you can see Gertrude tells Rhoda about her arm finds out who did it to her arm.
“Well, ma’am”. Thomas Hardy presents Rhoda to speak to Gertrude with respect because compared to Rhoda, Gertrude ha a higher status than her. When the farmer marries Gertrude Rhoda wants to find out about Gertrude, so sends her son to find out about her. When Rhoda hears that Gertrude is beautiful she becomes quite jealous, which leads to her having the bad dream about Gertrude.
Having been through the stories and been through the characters I am going to now compare the way in which the authors describe the women in the stories.
One similarity between the stories is that one woman in each story is independent and the other woman is quite weak.
Both authors use different styles of writing because in Turned, the language used is easy to understand and is written in simple words that can be understood. Whereas in The Withered Arm the language used is quite difficult to understand, and the words are often in dialect or the language used in the story is not spoken nowadays. In both stories the language spoken by each of the women indicate the social position. For example in Turned Gerta acknowledges Mrs Marroner by calling her “ma’am” which is the same concept for The Withered Arm, Rhoda calls Gertrude “Ma’am”. As Mrs Marroner is a character with high social standard she talks with a high standard but it is not Standard English as the story is written in an American format. In The Withered Arm Rhoda is a country farmer so she talks by using dialect for example “He do bring home his bride to-morrow, I hear.” And Gertrude is a person of high standard in the story the author never uses abbreviation when she speaks, so for example “ I tell my dear husband that it looks just as if he had flown into a rage and struck me there. O, I daresay it will soon disappear.” As The Withered Arm was set in the pre-twentieth century the language used then is not used today, which is why some of the language is quite difficult to understand.
Also in the story The Withered Arm the author uses metaphors and personification. Here is an example of a metaphor he used “Fortune, obdurate hitherb, showed her unexpected favour”. Thomas Hardy uses personification by describing Gertrude using light and describing Rhoda using darkness.
Charlotte Perkins Gilmans also uses imagery. Water imagery is common in her story. “She had been swimming under water and could not find the top”. The author uses Mrs Marroners childhood to describe how she felt. Mrs Marroner’s worst nightmare is drowning, so the author uses it. “Then came the deluge”. Again the author uses the watery imagery by saying she is being drenched in water. “Like a flood rising around a house”. The author uses different watery images to describe how Mrs Marroner felt and to show how near she is to losing all self-control. She is overwhelmed by her feelings and thinks she is choking or drowning. It is an excellent way to describe Mrs Marroner because it shows how she is feeling and her control at this point of the story. The author uses water but uses it has if she is drowning, and this is a good way of using drowning because I know drowning is terrible and an unpleasant thing. This tells me how Mrs Marroner is feeling.
In the story Turned Charlotte Perkins characters are described differently. One woman Mrs Marroner is described as strong, independent highly educated woman whilst the other woman, Gerta, as weak, childish and foolish. But at the end of the story the author shows both women are strong and right. She shows they make the right choice and the man was the in the wrong. “One woman was a servant, loving, trusting, affectionate, a young girl, an exile, a dependant, untrained, uneducated”. The author repeats the sentence which shows that how Mrs Marroner looks down at Gerta. Mrs Marroner is the victim of the story at first but then later on in the story Gerta is the victim of the story.
“As the older wiser woman forced herself to understand and extenuate”. Mrs Marroner regains her control again, and as a woman helps Gerta. This is the turning point of the story because Mrs Marroner is no longer blaming Gerta; she is now blaming Mr Marroner. Now, as you can see Charlotte Perkins is trying to bring out the feelings of the women, as she is a female herself. She is trying to show women are independent and her story has a moral. At the end of the story both women leave and bring the child up together, then Mr Marroner comes to face the consequences and is looked at as the traitor. At the end of the story Mrs Marroner is in complete control and Gerta is more independent though she looks up to Mrs Marroner as she once looked to Mr Marroner. The author is bringing out the strengths in women and is showing that women are independent, as she is a female who believes strongly about her feminist politics.
In the story The Withered Am, the women are looked down at. The author who is a male (Thomas Hardy) doesn’t bring out the independence in the women but shows their struggles. Thomas Hardy shows that Gertrude is trying to keep her beauty for her husband, giving the impression that is important for her as a woman. When Rhoda asks how beautiful Gertrude is she is jealous of Gertrude. This shows that in that society looks were important for women. In his story it shows that the women were inferior to men because they had to be ladylike and had to marry.
One thing in common between the two authors is that in Turned Charlotte Perkins used a poor woman who was pregnant. And also in The Withered Arm, Thomas Hardy used the poor woman to be the one with the child and unmarried. Charlotte Perkins used water for her imagery effects where as Thomas Hardy uses roses, whiteness and light to describe Gertrude. “Soft and evanescent, like the high under a heap of rose-petals”. As you can see Thomas Hardy uses roses and scents to describe Gertrude where as for Rhoda he says she is handsome. Handsome is usually a word used to describe men because it is a manish way to describe a woman. Thomas Hardy never uses abbreviations epically when Gertrude speaks “ I tell my dear husband that it looks as if he had flown into a rage and struck me there”.
“But her woman’s nature, craving for renewed love”. The author is trying to say it is important for a woman to be loved by a man, which shows that he thinks it is everything in the world for them.
Having been through both stories, both authors have written the stories in their own ways. Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s story relates to the modern world and she brings out the feelings of the women. As Charlotte Perkins Gilman is a female herself, she brings out the positive side of the women and their strengths. Charlotte Perkins writes from a political perspective for feminism.
Where as Thomas Hardy present the women differently and relates to how the women were treated. He shows that it is important for a woman to have man. This is because of the time his story has been set in because in these days if women weren’t married they were treated poorly. So Hardy has used this story to write about women’s’ struggles against the society they live in and the circumstances of their lives because they usually lose or die.
Though in both stories the author uses the poor women to be the ones who have the child and aren’t married. Also, both men are fathers of a child but cannot marry the mother because of their social class.
