Rhoda, Gertrude, Nurse, Lady Cap, Juliet.
At the mercy of men.
Jack Wilson 12z
Ms McGarry
I am going to be comparing two pieces of literature. Both of the pieces have their similarities but at a glance they would not seem that similar. One is a play written in 1600`s and the other is a novella written in 1880`s. The two pieces are of very different genre, one is a play written for the stage and the other is a novella written in episodic chapters. I am going to be paying special attention to the women in each piece, not just the women but how they react and respond towards men. One of the pieces is set in “Fair Verona” and the other is set in “Rural England”. The two pieces I am comparing are, Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet” and Hardy’s novella, “The Withered Arm”
Rhoda is a milkmaid and is the first character we meet in the story. At the start of the story Rhoda starts to appear that she is poor, hardworking and is trying to earn a living, “Shows marks of the lady on her, as I expect she do”. This quote proves that she works hard for a very little income. Hardy makes us feel sorry for her when he uses words and phrases to characterise her looks, “The thin women”, “boney”. Rhoda has a diet of poverty, she is so poor she can just about keep her son alive. In the novella Farmer Lodge sleeps with Rhoda, she becomes pregnant to Farmer Lodge’s child. But soon after they split up because Farmer Lodge finds himself a new wife that he loves, Gertrude. Rhoda constantly gets jealous of Gertrude because she is young and good looking and she is with Farmer Lodge. She is at the Mercy of Farmer Lodge and she would almost be considered his “banker”. Because of Gertrude she becomes obsessed with physicality, its almost as if her sense of worth comes from F.Lodge and would do anything to not be lonely and have him s her husband. Rhoda has a few similarities with Juliet, we know that both are powerless when it comes to them marrying the man that they want to marry. Rhoda wants to marry Farmer Lodge but she cant and Juliet wants to marry Romeo But she isn’t allowed by her parents so she takes the matter into her own hands. We can see that both are at the mercy of men because they will do anything to be with the man they want to be with. Rhoda and Lady C do not have may similarities but there are a few, they both had and raised children young. Rhoda is lower class and Lady C is upper class, but we can see that they are both at the mercy of men, I think this shows that all women, every class, from lower to upper class are the same as they all are at the mercy of men. The whole society revolves around men. Rhoda and the Nurse both bring up children and are similar as they are both lower class. I think that Rhoda has more morals than the nurse, I think this because when Rhoda in offered money by Farmer Lodge she says no and doesn’t accept it and refuses, but when the Nurse is offered money by Romeo she doesn’t hesitate to take it. Both Nurse and Rhoda are man-less, the Nurse is a widow and Rhoda is out of a relationship. I think Hardy and Shakespeare just made characters and didn’t think about the fact that they were at the mercy of men, I think this because this was the norm when they were written and it would have been shocking if a woman didn’t obey her husband.
