two short stories by thomas hardy

Authors Avatar

                                                                                21st May 2006

GCSE ENGLISH LITERATURE

PRE 1914 PROSE: SHORT STORIES OF THOMAS HARDY

Thomas Hardy (1840-1928)

The Withered Arm and the Sons’ Veto (1874-1888)

The loss of happiness in two Hardy short stories.

In order to understand what these situations would have been like for the characters in these two short stories you need to put yourself back into Victorian England. When the world was split into social classes; in these particular stories, we only come across middle class people and working class people not upper class people. Citizens in those days would not marry across classes as it was seen to be forbidden. If this was to happen as in the ‘Sons’ Veto’ then the couple would have been committing social suicide and would have been talked about and frowned upon. Classes were only meant to marry between themselves in their own social groups. Victorian England was also a time when women were not meant to work and simply had to get married. A hundred and fifty years ago the Victorians believed in witchcraft and the supernatural which makes Hardy’s story ‘The Withered Arm’ a believable tale for that period.

I am going to explore the reasons in which Sophy could not achieve happiness from the short story the ‘Sons’ Veto’. One of these reasons was because of the difference between Sophy and her son Randolph. This is shown when Randolph corrects his mother by saying ‘has, dear mother - not have!’ This happens due to Sophy’s lack of education compared to her son, the public school boy. This, therefore, makes a division between the two as Randolph finds it hard not to correct his mother when having a normal conversation as she speaks the local dialect not the Queens English.

Randolph also becomes very impatient and snobbish in his attitude towards his mother;

‘Surely you know that by this time’

Randolph looks down on his own mother, due to the way he has been brought up, with his school friends, and Mr Twycott’s influence .This theme is repeated throughout the story because she doesn’t think she is good enough to be Randolph’s mother and the ‘vicar’s wife’ as she ‘does not feel dignified enough to be his mother’ and she feels inferior to them as she is from a lower class.

There was also a division in society in those days as it was not practical for Sophy, a member of the working class, to marry Mr Twycott, a member from the middle class. This would have therefore caused problems especially for Mr Twycott as he would have been committing social suicide to marry across classes.

        ‘Parlour maid in the parsons house’

This tells us that she didn’t have a very high status as she was a ‘maid’. So she would have been looked down on by many.

Although he was committing social suicide as he was marrying his maid he didn’t really care because ‘he led a secluded existence’. ‘They were, however away from everyone who had known her former position’ as they moved to a London suburb in order to avoid being judged for their ‘social suicide’.

        ‘Sophy the lady had her deficiencies’ as she has been married for fourteen years in which, her husband has tried to improve Sophy’s education, to make her more cultured and refined but with little success. Prior to being taught how to speak all over again by your son and husband can be terribly frustrating and degrading and this is how I think Sophy is feeling when she says,

Join now!

        ‘No. I am not a lady. I shall never be.’

As a consequence Sophy starts to feel inferior.  She feels like she is being compared to higher class women than her and they are trying to change her in to something she is not. On top of that Randolph starts to be very rude and shuts Sophy out of his life because he is embarrassed that she is of a lower social class. ‘He was reducing their compass to a population of a few thousand wealthy and titled people’ in other words the main important people. Soon ‘he drifted ...

This is a preview of the whole essay