Consider the differences in the way woman are presented in four short stories, showing how this is affected by the period in which each story is set.

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Consider the differences in the way woman are presented in four short stories, showing how this is affected by the period in which each story is set.

In this essay I am going to examine how women have been treated from 1850 to 1950 as shown in four short stories. Women’s lives have changed greatly in the last hundred years. At the beginning of the 20th century women’s role was to cook, do the washing up, have children and then look after them. Woman could not get their own property, they could not have a divorce and they could not have proper education because they were not regarded worthy to be educated. Everything changed when after World War 1 women got the vote. Because most of the men had gone off to war the women had to do all the basic jobs that the men would have done. The four stories that I am going to examine are Tony Kytes, the Arch-Deceiver by Thomas Hardy, The Son’s Veto by Thomas Hardy, Tickets Please by D H Lawrence, and Lamb to the Slaughter by Roald Dahl. All of these stories have been written by men so they are all from a man’s point of view.

Tony Kytes the Arch- Deceiver is set in the middle of the 19th century in the country side next to a town. Tony Kytes is coming back from the market when he picks up three girls which were two of his ex-girlfriends and his fiancée. He gets into a problem because he does not want them to see each other with him so finds himself  with one of his ex-girlfriends in the back with his fiancée and the second ex-girlfriend riding along in front with him. It ends up that the cart crashes and all the women fall out and see each other. At the end he asks each of them to marry him in turn and the only one who accepts was the last one he asks. This is Milly, who was the one he was going to marry in the first place.

At that time women were expected to respect their husbands and be good wives. They seem to accept this as one of the women says, “I would make you a finer wife”  in order to try to get Tony to marry her. Since the town is so small gossip can travel quickly so when a girl who is not going to be his wife asks for a lift on his cart he is not so sure because that was not the right social behaviour back then. It appears very important for the women to be good looking, as they are all mentioned in terms of their looks and not their personalities. The women are described as being,  “dashing” or “handsome”. The women are aware that looks are important and even think that this alone will enable them to find a husband. Unity says “Can you say I‘m not pretty, Tony”, making him look at her. Although they are portrayed as vulnerable and weak, the women aren’t foolish. It would have been thought improper for a woman to have done anything but this. Tony’s father shows this when he declares that he should marry Milly based on the grounds that she was the only one who “did not ask to ride with him”. This was because women were not supposed to ask men as it would be considered as too forward, and they would not make the best wife. This was what they would have been judged on, along with how pretty they were.

The women were also not allowed to have sex before marriage because if it had emerged that Hannah (one of Tony’s ex-girlfriend) had had sex with him, then she might never find another husband. This attitude does not count for the men, as it was almost expected that he had had his way with Hannah as Tony says: “though you may think it an unusual thing in me”. So even if he had had sex with her then it would not have spoiled his chances of finding a wife. This makes the women in the mercy of the men.

              In this story it is vital that a woman finds a husband because without one they would not fit in the life style of the rural community. For these women it seems almost urgent to find a husband so they are almost fighting for Tony’s hand in marriage. Hannah feels no guilt when Tony decides that he wants to abandon Milly to marry her, saying “Throw over Milly? – all to marry me!” Since there are not so many eligible bachelors left in the town there is competition. At the end of the story when they fell out of the cart, Hannah’s father forbid her to marry Tony. Hannah does what her father tells her to do but Tony does not.

         “The Son’s Veto” is set around the late 19th century in a small country village where every one knows each other and gossip travels fast and on the outskirts of London. Sophy at the beginning of the story is a servant to the priest, but when the priest’s  wife dies and Sophy becomes crippled they get married and have a child  called Randolph.  In doing this the priest became an social outcast from the rest of the middle class people in the village. After the priest had died  Sophy decided to get remarried, but to a working class man. Her son Randolph hated the idea of her marrying beneath her very much and forbade her marriage to him.

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The story starts off with Sophy being a servant to a priest and his wife. The vicar and his wife were about 40 years of age, both from a good family and they were childless. This all changed when the vicar’s wife died. He was mourning when he fell ill. Sophy looked after him all of the time and was constantly going up and down the stairs giving him stuff, “ Sophy brought up meals to him”. One day after she had brought his food up for him she fell down the stairs and twisted her foot. The village ...

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