The last and final story I have chosen is The Withered Arm. In The Withered Arm, the main character is called Rhoda Brooks. The drama is when Farmer Lodge; Rhoda’s son’s father gets married. Farmer Lodges new wife is young and beautiful. Rhoda wants her son to go and see what the new wife is like, if she is beautiful, if she looks as if she has worked at all in her life and so on.
One night Rhoda has a dream that her son is sleeping and someone comes near him. She throws them off. The dream seems very real to her. Rhoda and Farmer Lodges new wife, Gertrude, become friends. Gertrude has a mark on her arm in the shape of someone’s fingers. Gertrude confides in Rhoda. She tells Rhoda that the mark on her arm makes her husband think that she is ugly. One day Gertrude wants the two of them to go to a magician to get the arm seen to. The magician tells Gertrude something in private this thing is so bad to her that she won’t speak or even look at Rhoda again.
The theme of the story is depression. The climax of the story is when Farmer Lodges tells Gertrude that he is going on a holiday. She asks him if she can go with him but he says no and goes. She decides that she has to get her arm sorted out once and for all. The person she goes to see about the arm tells her that it will only get better if she dips it in the blood of a dead man. She goes to a hanging, after the hanging she goes into a room with the dead body. She then discovers Farmer Lodge and Rhoda are there together. Rhoda throws Gertrude to the floor. The dead person is hers and Farmer Lodges son. A few weeks later Gertrude dies of the paralysed arm. Rhoda carries on working until she gets to old and frail. Farmer Lodges misses his son so he converts his house into an orphanage for boys. He moves away and retreats to +the countryside.
Some short stories have features that are typical of short stories. One of the most important features is that the story has to have a few characters. The story would be too confusing if there were too many characters in the story. Another feature of a short story is that they have twists at the end. The main theme to these short stories is misery. Misery is a typical feature of a Hardy short story. Tony Kytes the Arch Deceiver is the only story in this that is less miserable than the others are. Hardys stories usually show that fate is inevitable; it is bound to happen no matter what.
Nineteenth century short stories are more descriptive and longer than modern short stories. The reason for this is that in the nineteenth century people had less opportunity for travel and entertainment. They had time to read detailed descriptions.
At the beginning of Tony Kytes the Arch Deceiver there is dialogue. There is a narrator speaking. The physical description and the personality of Tony is described at the beginning. The narrator begins by saying that Tony was good looking. He had a few scars but women still found him attractive. He used to be very scandalous and sang rude songs such as ‘O the petticoats went off, and the breeches they went on!’ Tony was a player and went out with many women. He is engaged and has an old flame. This tells us something scandalous will happen because of Tony’s looks, Him being a ladies man and him having an ex girlfriend.
In The Sons Veto at the beginning, Hardy starts talking about a woman’s hairstyle. It is in the present and it describes what Sophy looks like. Her hair is beautifully arranged, this must have been very time-consuming.
She is called an invalid because she is in a wheelchair. From behind people think, she is very beautiful, she turns around. They are disappointed because she is not as good looking as people thought she would be. She has a son that is twelve or thirteen years old, which also means that she isn’t that young. People are intrigued by the woman; they think there is something mysterious about her.
The woman’s son has been well educated and corrects her. She says “He have been comfortable…have missed us”. Her son is somewhat embarrassed of her diction and says, “Has dear mother-not have!” he also says, “surely you know that by this time”. Sophy’s son has crumbs all over his mouth but Sophy doesn’t retaliate by telling him to wipe his mouth.
The Withered Arm begins with milkmaids gossiping. They are talking about someone’s wife. One of them asks the other if “anybody seen her”. One of them talks about how the new wife is very beautiful making sure the ‘thin fading woman’ who sat on the other side of the room, didn’t hear them. She is sat apart from the rest. They start talking about how the new wife is years younger than the husband. Trying to make sure the thin woman does not hear. This makes us think that something has happened between the husband and the milking lady, if there is any link between them. The supervisor tells them to stop talking about “Farmer Lodge’s age, or Farmer Lodges new mis’ess.” This is where we find out who the husband and wife are.
The other workers point at the thin women saying, “It is hard for she”. Another says “o no. “He ha’nt spoke to Rhoda Brook for years” we find out what the lady is called in this part. We also find out that there is some kind of a relation between Farmer Lodge and Rhoda Brooks. After the days work, Rhoda heads on home and meets her son on the way there.
Rhoda is talking to her son and tells him that his “father bring his young wife home from Angle-bury to-morow”. We find out hat Farmer Lodge and Rhoda’s connection with each other is that they have a son together. Farmer Lodge has gotten married again and Rhoda asks her son to go into town and see the new wife.
Hardy hints at what is to come in the story by the Title the Withered Arm. We know it will be about someone having a withered arm. Next by finally talking about the son going to meet his father’s new wife the next day.
In this essay we have looked at the three short stories; The Withered Arm, Tony Kytes the Arch Deceiver and The Son’s Veto and shown how the opening in someway hints at what is to come). For example in the Tony Kytes the Arch Deceiver, we can tell what is to come firstly from the title. The title tells us about someone called Tony Kytes and him being a great confidence trickster who cannot continue doing this.
In The Sons Veto the son’s snobbery is clear at the beginning. He thinks of his mother as lower than himself. His snobbery is actively demonstrated towards the end when his mother wants to marry. He says no and looks down on both his mother and her boyfriend.
In The Withered Arm, the readers attention is quickly drawn towards the fact that in the new marriage the wife is 20 years her husbands junior. The husband marries a young beautiful wife. This shows he is shallow and interested only in appearance. The marriage is already based upon unstable foundations. When the wife’s beauty is tarnished, he rejects her with tragic consequences.
