The Setting for Thomas Hardy's The Withered Arm and Other Wessex Tales

The Setting for Thomas Hardy's The Withered Arm and Other Wessex Tales

In the following essay I seek to show evidence of how Thomas Hardy was

acutely aware of the social status of people, how village and town

life was conducted, how men and women reacted to their own sex and to

each other and the part religion played in people's daily lives.

Social class is raised a lot in Hardy's pieces. Even though these

stories were all written at a different time and then put together,

you can see it is a strong theme in the book.

In the Withered Arm, there is instantly a strong sense of upper and

lower class. You learn of a milkmaid named, Rhoda Brook, and hear of

her story among gossipers at the farm. She was once attached to the

boss, a Mr. Lodge but because of their differences in class Mr. Lodge

ends their relationship, leaving Rhoda with a child. This shows that

the upper class can not mix with lower class as it jeopardizes their

appearance. This makes the reader feel sympathetic towards Rhoda.

Later on in the same story Rhoda desperately needs to know about

Farmer Lodges new wife and sends her son out so he can report back and

describe the newly Mrs. Lodge. The wife is described as, "A lady

complete," who is more suited to the proud Farmer Lodge. This is a

comparison between Rhoda and Mrs. Lodge, and how Mr. Lodge could not

bear to be seen with Rhoda, but is very proud of this complete lady.

This is an example of vanity.

A comparison between the upper and lower class in this story is the

way characters from the lower class believe in superstition and the

upper class don't like to be involved in it. An example of this is

when peo...

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I found in these short stories that town and village life, religion

and class are all linked. In towns most of the population being of a

higher class were snobby but behaved poorly, where in the lower

classes of the villages, although they were thought to have lower

morals, they acted in a purer way. Religion is linked with this by the

way the clergy were higher class and religious and therefore assumed

to have higher morals, but they didn't always live by them. In these

short stories I have also found that men have been shown to be

dominant, but shallower than women.

Thomas Hardy came from a small village and a lower class family but

then became skilled and educated. He eventually moved to London and

his social class improved. His own experiences and feelings of life

were probably used to write these tales.