How Thomas Hardy portrays women in his stories Essay

The three some stories on the whole have actu completelyy social, historical and cultural stupors on the wo workforce of the condemnation. The Withered Arm, is ab divulge a cleaning ladyhoods, struggle to cure her shrivel up arm and the jealousy entangle by Rhoda who had been used by the farmer in the past and had born(p) his child. Gertrudes fear of loosing her husband and her superstition make her carry out actions that result in her death. The next bill, The Distracted Preacher, is somewhat an autonomous wo gentlemans gentleman called Lizzy and the choice she has to make.She is involved in smuggling and the head of the lot just now is offered a opposite life by Minister Stockdale, who asks her to bind him and leave. She decides to hang on but gets caught and suffers for some years till he returns and offers over again to link up him, this time she accepts but completely because of circumstances. The third story, The Melancholy Hussar of the German Legion, is s ome a shy, naive middle class cleaning lady called Phyllis and her fight between her conscience, her fathers desire and her true love. She chooses her conscience and in the polish off loses ein truththing.The Withered Arm has two main pi fluentate percentages Rhoda Brooks and Gertrude Lodge. They both(prenominal) have actually different covering firegrounds Rhoda is the scummy working class woman while Gertrude is the pretty upper middle class wowork force. Rhoda has to work for her password and herself just to eat she has no husband and so is an outcast from community and has to write herself to herself. Because of this she has no male subroutine model for her son. Rhoda is a thin, fading women of thirty, which emphasises how hard she works and how tiring her life is. In relation Gertrude is the typical get wed middle class woman, with lots of time on her hands.She is youthful and pretty, soft and evanescent, which is why Farmer Lodge married her. Rhoda has a trul y wicked side, which shows itself when Gertrude arrives in town. She becomes jealous and indirect requests to know all about the well-awaited new wife. She becomes ghost with her and makes her son find out about Gertrude and follow her, Then do you go to Holmstoke church to-morrow shes undis roam adequate to(p) to be there. This jealousy links in with the superstition of that time when Rhodas dream about Gertrude having a withered arm comes true.At that time everyone believed each village had its own witch. The witch could bedamn victims and make limbs wither or in extreme cases fall off. From this we lav absorb how worried Rhoda would have been, believing she was a witch, that I behave malignant power against my own will? This illustrates that Rhoda feel sympathetic for Gertrude and trusty for her arm. She fears what she might do to her and what may happen if she is a witch. Even though she has this evil side, you see that she does contain some sympathetic qualities.For ex ample Rhoda recognises the nauseous fascination which leads her to find Gertrude but she is unwilling to tell her where to find illusionist Trendle for fear that she will lose Gertrudes friendship. hardy shows Rhodas call for of view end-to-end the story so you feel sympathetic specially when we find the dead boy is her son. She is very fissiparous and strong so in the end wants nothing to do with Farmer Lodge and the twist therefore refuses his sympathy vote and doesnt accept his capital. Gertrude starts by world very kind and loving, she gives Rhodas son some shoes and befriends Rhoda and creates a close relationship with her.Rhoda appears concerned particularly about Gertrudes imagined rejection by her husband. Her personality changes for the worst when her arm becomes withered. Gertrude relies on Rhoda for a concerned grounds of the growing separation between herself and her husband, who knows the blot is there. The choice of the word disfigurement reveals his attitu de to appearances. Social attitudes demanded that middle class women were beautiful and attractive. She turns vain and selfish, obsessed by her arm and the need to find a cure, Her determination received a fillip. She finds a treatable cure for the arm after trying so many. Shes now determined to try this one even though it involves such indignity. This is all too much for Gertrude when she finds out who the boy is in reality Rhodas son. She isnt so vain and determined, she is actually very shocked and started to feel sympathy for the victim and in end the superstition and shock kills her. In the Distracted Preacher the main female role is Lizzy Newbury a middle class, strong- seeed, character who, was none the less in low-level. This emphasises how Lizzy is able to lead her village in successful smuggling.Shes an attractive, local misfire who can take on an immense job for a women in those times but Lizzy does it as well as any man could. Lizzy is a widower and looks after her mo ther, as well as the customers of her Lodge, where Mr Stockdale goes to stay. She value her job and sees nothing wrong with smuggling, If a king who is nothing to us sends his people to steal out property, we have the right to steal it back. This illustrates how Lizzy doesnt c ar whether people think her smuggling is wrong she has discernment to do it and she lives off the money and the disaster.The smuggling is tradition My father did it, and so did my grandfather, and almost everybody in Nether-Moynton lives by it, and life would be so frighten away if it wasnt for that, that I should not cargon to live at all. This shows that Lizzy is no ordinary woman she sticks with what she wants and doesnt look up to men as a higher organism besides shes a decisive woman and gets her way. She needs to carry on even though her romance with Stockdale gets in the way because he doesnt agree with it, so Lizzy uses vigorous but absurd arguments to justify her actions.To begin with Lizzy doesnt want to go away with Stockdale and marrying him, It is too much to ask. My whole life ha been passed in this way. She needs to stay in Nether-Moynton where the adventure is and not do what normal females do. Later we see Lizzys resolve deteriorates she needs Stockdale because the money earnt from smuggling runs out. After all her talk about needing smuggling and it being fine to do it, she says it wrong, I own that we were wrong, said she. But I have suffered for it I am very poor now, Lizzy wants Stockdale now she is poor and worthless and Stockdale offers to take her away from her poverty.Lizzy gives in and takes this offer, then settles down to the married life she once hated the thought of living because of its lack of adventure and predictability. This culmination is problematic as Lizzy changed her attitudes totally. This ending was excessively added for the get winders. The story was create each week in a magazine. Hardy wrote the ending to recreate the audience and giv e them an ending most women would of taken. There is an alternative ending to this story that isnt so problematic. This is that Lizzy would have married Owlett a process of the smuggling gang and immigrated to America.The Melancholy Hussar of the German Legion has one main female role, that of Phyllis Grove an attractive middle class young lady. She is very quiet, keeps herself to herself and just likes to blend into society. She was a woman who lived her whole life without discharge further than the nearest market. The only family she has is her father so she has no female role model to guide her through life, this has do her very naive in relationships, though it is probable that she lost her heart to Matthaus onward she is herself aware. She neer realised she was in love with Matthaus she had never entangle love before so never knew what this feeling was. She values her fathers suasion greatly and her father doesnt like whats going on between Matthaus and herself. He cons iders the soldiers merely foreign fellows who flatter young girls with unmeaning attentions. Phyllis finds Matthaus slender and well-educated. He is loving towards her, concerned about her loneliness, he does not put too much pressure on her to escape and marry him. She becomes very conscience stricken between the two men will she go with her fathers choice (Humphrey) or her romance Matthaus?She decided the top hat thing to do was to conform to society and her father and marry Humphrey, She would stay at home, and marry him, and suffer. This shows that she is doing this for her father it wouldnt be love but she could live with it for her families and the moneys sake. Later we see that Phyllis has a problem as Humphrey wants to marry another woman, Belle, and Matthaus and a friend gets shot for desertion. Poor Phyllis has now been divide from fighting between two men to being alone again. We see Phylliss life if effected by this, while she lived she used to keep their mounds nea t, meaning Matthaus grave.This shows Phylliss love for Matthaus still carried on when he died and this cataclysm deeply affected her. In the three stories I have read the four female characters all have similarities and differences. Gertrude is similar to all three characters. She is similar to Rhoda because they both believe in superstition and worry about what is happening to them due to it. Through the story we feel sympathy for them for Gertrude with her withered arm and death and Rhoda for being a single parent and so an outcast and for when she sees Gertrude with her arm on her dead sons neck.The sympathy vote changes throughout the story between Rhoda and Gertrude. Gertrude is like Lizzy because they are both attractive, strong-minded women. Gertrude is different to Lizzy aswell as like her because Gertrude conforms to mens expectations but Lizzy is independent and only relies on Stockdale at the end. Phyllis is probably most like Gertrude as they are both very traditional w omen characters for their times. They are weak women who become victims of men and the social influences of their time. Phyllis becomes a heart broken girl due to her fiancimessing her round and her actual love being shot. Gertrude becomes obsessed and vain because her husband is disgust by the fault with her arm and starts to love her less for it. Phyllis has a overflowing fianci and Gertrude has a rich husband. Lizzy is similar to Rhoda too because they are both strong-willed, independent women that can cope by themselves without men by their sides. This means Lizzy and Rhoda are both very different to Phyllis because she is timid and shy, she can be manipulated slow unlike Lizzy and Rhoda who manipulate other people.Phylliss character is very dependent as she does as she is told, conforming to societys expectations. If things had gone to contrive then her life would be totally taken care of without her lifting a finger, when we know Lizzy chose to be independent and Rhoda had to be independent to look after her family. In my view, I admire Lizzy because she is very outgoing and a leader, which shows women to be able to lead men in this world and she can still be attractive and feminine.She seems to put men in their places by refusing Stockdales offer of marriage instead of being a stereotypical woman of that time married, at home cooking, cleaning and looking after the children. She speaks her mind when she wants to stay because smuggling gives her adventure and when she tells Stockdale there nothing wrong with smuggling. This is why I like the alternative ending that Hardy mentions in his indite when she goes to America because she doesnt need the sympathy for being poor she stay strong and independent.Even though at the end I felt sorry for Rhoda because of her son, I was never fond of her character. She seemed evil throughout the story as if she had other secrets not yet revealed. Her character was very sneaky, memory things back from Gertrude whe n she was untruthful. I think Rhoda is to blame for all Gertrudes problems she put the curse and took Gertrude to Conjuror Trendle and she paid the price of that horrendous sight. This all made me very sympathetic towards Gertrude and I know how if feels to be superficially stereotyped.She never did anything to Rhoda and died as a consequence to Rhodas jealousy. I also feel with Phyllis because men ruined her life, her life was ruined by the societys strict rules at that time to do the right thing and marry for position and money, and the shooting for desertion of her true love. Men have a great impact on women and can make our lives fun, yet some men make our lives more misery than fun. In my opinion Hardy portrays women with respect, he makes them strong and independent, manly in a sense. In the azoic 1800s women all had their places in the world, which was in the home.Hardy brought these women out of their world and into the send-off of our not so sexist England today. Men an d Society had the main impact on women of this era I believe this is why Hardys stories were loved in this age. Women could read them and think that they had a greater role in this era and they were more intelligent than men thought. I also believe men should have read these books to see how independent and Copernican women are to this world. It was very important for women of this era to get their thoughts and strengths across to the world, so they could begin to live as equals to men.