Surprise and Tension In A Short Story - The Withered Arm
Surprise and Tension in a Short Story The Withered Arm In the opening chapters of The Withered Arm, Thomas Hardy tends to elicit sympathy for Rhoda Brook, rather than Farmer Lodge and his wife, who come into the story later. For example, even the title of chapter one suggests that Rhoda has been miserable. When we are introduced to the character of 'the boy' he is not a very bright and inspired child, after his rough upbringing it is not a pleasant sight to see when Rhoda is telling him to go and spy on his future stepmother. Rhoda has never fully gotten over her ex lover, when the boy does spy on Gertrude he begins to become her friend. Rhoda does not know about her son and Gertrude's relationship as friends, as they become friends a tragedy occurs. The first part begins at the dairy, and the milkmaids discuss Farmer Lodge and his recent marriage. At this point, we know nothing of the relationship between Rhoda and Farmer Lodge, the only hints we have are the occasional glances that the workers give to Rhoda. Our first impression of the maid is this: "..where a thin, fading woman of thirty milked somewhat apart from the rest" Hardy uses his language very carefully. He uses 'thin' and 'fading' and also explains that Rhoda milks her cows away from the rest; she is a very old and delicate woman. Rhoda has her moments in the story where she is seen as the fragile, innocent
Discuss Thomas Hardy(TM)s Portrayal of Women
Discuss Thomas Hardy's Portrayal of Women Thomas Hardy's short story 'The Withered Arm' strongly illustrates how women were considered when he was growing up. He incorporates this into his stories and we are able to see how they were treated but we are able to enjoy it at the same time. The first comparison in the Withered Arm story is Gertrude's and Rhoda's physical appearance. Hardy's first presentation of Rhoda as a "thin fading woman of thirty, who milked somewhat apart from the rest", tells how Hardy wished us to picture her. As a lonely woman, the 'fading' suggests that she "once had been handsome". She is a tall woman with dark hair and pale skin. She seems to feel sad for her lost beauty and appears jealous of Farmer Lodge's new beautiful wife. As the story progresses she becomes thinner, more faded and clearly sadder looking. Also, Hardy describes Rhoda's house being built of "mud walls" which suggests that Rhoda and her son are living in poverty. In the beginning, Gertrude Lodge is portrayed as the opposite of Rhoda. She is beautiful, graceful and full of "youthful freshness". In contrast to Rhoda's worn-down features, Gertrude's "face was fresh in colour - soft and evanescent like the light under a heap of rose petals". But after Rhoda's 'vision' Gertrude's arm becomes more and more ugly and shrivelled, and her arm seems to be literally 'withering'. When
English Literature Coursework - Thomas Hardy - Setting
The three stories I will be comparing in my coursework are "The Withered Arm", "The Winters & the Palmleys" and "The thieves who couldn't help sneezing". Hardy's has expertise of a writer and poet of Victorian literature. Victorian literature is the literature produced during 1837-1901 and corresponds to the Victorian era. It forms a link and transition between the writers of the romantic period and the very different literature of the 20th century. Thomas Hardy was an English novelist, short story writer, and poet of the naturalist movement. The bulk of his work, set mainly in the semi-imaginary county of Wessex, delineates characters struggling against their passions and circumstances. Hardy's poetry, first published in his fifties, has come to be as well regarded as his novels, especially after the 1960s Movement! Life in rural Dorset and the surrounding counties that make up Thomas Hardy's "Wessex of the novels and poems" moved more slowly than in metropolis of London or the industrial north, so that a novel may seem to be set much earlier than it actually is. Hardy's handling of physical setting is unparallel in English fiction, although in the verse of the Lake Poets and Robert Burns one has a similar sense of a specific topography and landscape. But, when Hardy is at his best, as in The Return of the Native, the natural backdrop becomes another person in the picture,
What does The Sons Veto tell us about attitudes towards social class in the Nineteenth century?
Sakina OxleyStudent No. 100273931 English Assignment 3 Short Stories Sakina Oxley 00273931 ________________ What does The Son’s Veto tell us about attitudes towards social class in the Nineteenth century? Hardy uses the theme of social class in many of his novels and short stories and often details a character’s movement; either up or down the social ladder and the problems which may ensue. ‘The Son’s Veto’ was written in 1891 and tells the story of Sophy, a parlour maid who marries her respectable employer, the Reverend Twycott, and is faced with a life very different from her previous existence in the rural Wessex village of Gaymead. The story gives us a keen indication of the differences between members of the richer and poorer classes of nineteenth century society and also their attitudes towards each other. Hardy addresses attitudes towards social class through the marriage of Sophy to Reverend Twycott, through Randolph’s character and treatment of his mother and through Sophy’s relationship with her former sweetheart, Sam. The reader is first introduced to Sophy via a detailed description of her hair. Hardy makes a lengthy comment about the intricacy of the style and through this is describing the elaborate fashions among society ladies of the time. He then reveals that despite the complicated nature of the style, she has to do her hair herself as
How does Hardy present Rhoda and Gertrude in The Withered Arm?
How does Hardy present Rhoda and Gertrude in "The Withered Arm"? Hardy presents Gertrude Lodge as the Farmers young wife who is very attractive 'Tisty-Tosty', she has clear blue eyes, soft fresh skin, light hair, white teeth, a red mouth but short. This shows that she is young. When Gertrude sat down in the church her silk dress 'whistled so loud when it rubbed against the pews' and as this happened her face blushed, 'the lady coloured up more than ever for very shame at the noise'. This proved that she wasn't used to being posh and sophisticated with the farmer otherwise she wouldn't have blushed, it would have been normal and not embarrassed by the noise. On the night of Gertrude's wound, Rhoda and Gertrude had the same dream that they were both in a strange place but the image of Gertrude that Rhoda had gathered from her son the specific information she wanted from spying on Gertrude. She used her memory and created an image in her head of Gertrude. 'Rhoda Brook could raise a mental image of the unconscious Mrs Lodge that was as realistic as a photograph.' As the incubus of Gertrude lay down on top of Rhoda, 'it was suffocating her with pressure' and it shined the wedding ring in her face. When Rhoda grabbed its arm 'in a last desperate effort, swung out her right hand, seized the confronting spectre by its obtrusive left arm, and whirled it backward to the floor.' The
thomas hardy rural life and customs
The presentation of rural life and customs are a main part of "Wessex tales" as the customs are a main part of everyone's rural life. The very first line in "The Withered arm" describes the daily routine in the dairy. This gives us an idea straight away what everyday is like for the farm workers. Hardy describes this to us by saying " it was an eighty cow dairy and the troop of milkers, regular and supernumerary, were all at work;" that also gives us a sense everyone has strict orders as the farmer needs to meet his dead line so it's all hands on deck, with the regular workers and extra! In "The Distracted Preacher" however there is no mention of rural life until it gives us a short description of how the middle class live. The narrator tells us this by saying Stockdale "advanced to the parlour, as the front room was called, though it's stone floor was scarcely disguised by the carpet which only overlaid the trodden areas". This gives a nice and plain entrance to the house with the front room being kept for best occasions and the floor only partly being covered in carpet where it is used just to try and show you have money to spare. Then Hardy continues the paragraph carries on and says" but the room looked snug and cheerful. The fire shone brightly, trembling on the bulging mouldings of the table-legs, playing with brass knobs and handles, and lurking in great strength on
Comparison of Hardy's "Withered Arm Collection of Short Stories"
English Hardy Coursework Thomas Hardy was a British novelist and a poet who was born in 1840 during Queen Victoria's reign and died at the age of 88 in 1928. Most of Hardy's works are set in the countryside of Wessex. The three stories I will be looking, 'The Withered Arm', 'The Son's Veto' and 'The Melancholy Hussar of the German Legion'; are all taken from the collection of stories called 'The Withered Arm and other Wessex Tales'. Hardy's characters were often portrayed as victims of a predestined fate and his stories usually end in awful tragedy. "The Withered Arm" is a tragedy of fate and is a story of two women linked to one man. The Man being Farmer Lodge in this story and the two women being Rhoda Brook, the lower in social class working as a milkmaid and Gertrude the higher in social class who is the clear choice for Farmer Lodge to marry. It is clear from the story that Farmer Lodge has had previous relations with Rhoda Brook and they have even had a child together but society has denied them to have public relationships because of there social status. Therefore only one is liable to be able to marry the Farmer in the eyes of society and that is Gertrude. This causes a subconscious jealousy from Rhoda towards Gertrude that is presented as a form of witchcraft that Rhoda unknowingly possesses. This witchcraft causes Gertrude to visit Rhoda in a dream and Rhoda to
The Son's Veto. How do you respond to Hardys depiction of the boy? Who eventually becomes the young smooth-shaven priest at the end of the story ?
Assessment 1 “How do you respond to Hardy’s depiction of the boy? Who eventually becomes the ‘young smooth-shaven priest’ at the end of the story ? Write an essay about 300-600 words “The Son’s Veto” basically revolves around the relationship between a mother and son. This short story offers us, the readers, a very insightful critique of the social class system in-place in England during the nineteenth century. The plot begins where the story introduced the protagonist, Sophy, who is a rather “humble” human from a rural English village; a fact that plays a major role in her unhappiness throughout the story. After she marries into a more “proper” existence, Sophy and her new husband, Mr Twycott, a preacher 20- years her elder, are socially forced to relocate because they had committed “social suicide” by combining two distinct classes. Randolph , the son of Sophy and Mr Twycott is refined by the high class of society he is involved in. He is proud, arrogant and believes himself to possess the qualities that were demanded in a gentleman’s society because of his father’s clerical position. This is obvious in him even as a young boy, in the way he carries himself- with all the polish of a public school student. He is very fastidious, impatient and sometimes very unfeeling; this is evident in the way he behaves towards his mother. For example :
The dream sequence in Chapter 3 of "The Withered Arm".
The dream sequence is chapter 3 is caused by the relationship between Rhoda and Gertrude and Mr. Lodge. The relationship is complex, even though Rhoda has never met Gertrude. They love the same the man. However, Rhoda’s experience with Mr. Lodge is deeper since she had already with him. Rhoda could know him better then Mrs. Lodge. Mr. Lodge’s courtship of Gertrude could have been very short. Gertrude may barely know Mr. Lodge. However, Rhoda may know him better. Rhoda had a child out of wedlock with him. Maybe Rhoda has also dreamed about having a happy life with Mr. Lodge. The appearance of Gertrude put an end to this dream. Now it has been replaced with a nightmare. The nightmare is a life alone, with no one to support The dream sequence her, and no hope of a husband. In the dream, Gertrude is sitting on Rhoda’s chest. This is a metaphor about their different social classes. Gertrude is part of the well off rich class, while Rhoda is a poor milkmaid who has had a child out of wedlock and has no support from the father. The upper class is always on top of the lower class, pressuring them, torturing them and not pitying them. Rhoda pictures Gertrude in the dream with a wrinkled face. This could mean that she is picturing Gertrude as an old woman in the future. This would mean that in Rhoda’s lifetime, it will always be the case that she has nothing and
Thomas Hardy
What does Thomas Hardy tell us about the society in which he lived through his short stories? Thomas Hardy tells us many different things about the society in which he lived in through his short stories. Through these short stories, he tells us of the society in which he lived. The topics that he writes about come up in many of his short stories. This shows us that he felt very strongly about these themes. The short stories also tell us that the society that Thomas Hardy lived in was unfair. In Thomas Hardy's short stories there are many themes that come up in his short stories. The main ones were, Men being selfish (usually the higher class Men), Women being subservient to Men, Class structure in society, Religion and the Hypocrisy of the Church, Parental relationships with children, Forbidden love, Death and tragedy, Integrity-Selfishness, Selflessness, and Economic security. We find out that social class has a big impact on the society in which Thomas Hardy lived in. He shows this in short stories when in 'The Withered Arm' when Farmer Lodge has a child with Rhoda Brooks. He has a child with her but because she is a milkmaid and she is in a lower class, he doesn't marry her or stay with her because of her class. Another example of this is when in 'The Melancholy Hussar of the German Legion' when Humphrey Gould asks Phyllis Grove to marry him. This was unusual in