What means does Thomas Hardy use to make the super natural events of
The withered arm and The three strangers convincing?
Introduction
I have been set a task to analyse and understand how Thomas Hardy
presents the super natural acts in two of his short stories. “The
Withered Arm” and “The Three Strangers.” I propose to tackle this task
by comparing the two short stories in the way the super natural events
are conveyed to the reader. I will also discuss the similarities and
differences between the two stories and their characters I will note
the language used and the way the same image is effectively conveyed
in the two short stories.
Thomas Hardy had a passion for poetry and was a great novelist he
gained an acceptable education at various local schools until the age
of sixteen, when his passion for poetry began. But being rejected
Hardy went on to writing fiction for a serial magazine and slowly as
he built up his passion he did of course become quite famous.
Wessex tales, written in 1888 consists of seven short stories two of
which I will be studying. In the time these two stories were written
supernatural acts, witch craft and other mysterious happenings could
be explained in ways that today nobody would be able to comprehend to.
We would not think of mysterious and unexplainable happenings as
witchcraft or supernatural acts but would indefinitely think of it as
in-depth science or something that just happened. In my opinion the
way we think now is unquestionably better than the way people thought
in them days, because someone would be accused and wrongfully punished
or treated as an outcast from the rest of the people
The basic story line to the withered arm was that a lady called Rhoda
Brook was partners with Farmer lodge and they had a child together
which Farmer lodge just left Rhoda to bring up on her own. Later
Farmer Lodge was wed to Mrs Lodge. Rhoda brook was jealous because
Farmer Lodges’ new wife was young and attractive more so than her and
was also angry because Farmer lodge was not interested in the son that
they had had together. Rhoda had a dream that Gertrude (Mrs lodge)
came to her house and that she had thrown her to the ground by her arm
and had permanently left finger marks on her arm. Later she became
good friends with Gertrude and found out who cursed her by a wizard
she was shocked and her friendship with Rhoda Brook began to seriously
deteriorate and the story continues with Gertrude Lodges’ quest to
and how she was worried of what she would be in for later on that night,
victimised her and that each of them has a part to play and a partly
The master knew that she was trying to learn to write and as he was talking to her, she ran to her mother. The master chased her until he found her hiding behind her mother. He then asked her mother if she knew anything about her writing, but she lied and said no. Nonetheless, the master knew she was lying, so instead of taking Sarny away, he took her mother. He took her to the spring house where he usually whip anyone who tried to escape or lie to him. The master chained her up and left. Her mother acknowledged the fact he was going to whip her and she accepted it. Sarny cried because she knew it was all her fault for willing to risk learning to write. Since the weather was very hot, Sarny brought her mother water. Sarny’s mother waited uncomfortable all tied up in the chains waiting to see if the master will whip her.
her in the neck and cut it through broke bones and all her body fell to the
asked her to come to his room later that day. When she arrived he tried to force
she was in love with stood her up and she would be to embraced to tell her
And that her car was right nearby, meaning she had showed up. To pick her sister up from whatever it was she was doing here. You know, that sister she hated. The hatred she sang to the heavens.
knew what would happen to her the day her mother called her out of her
that her husband was killed in accident scene. At first, she ran to upside to her room only,
... crying into the house, passing over the unholy mess her killers made and found you in our bedroom. You were in your crib, next to your mother on the bed. She'd been..." He cleared his throat before moving on. "The blood had even sprayed you. The police came and took their reports but I knew who was responsible."
“The Black Finger” is a short poem that was written by Angelina Weld Grimke around the Harlem Renaissance period, which was an era in which stood for change and the persistence for African American rights. This is why Weld’s poetry demonstrates strong characteristics of African Americans in her writings. “The Black Finger” is one of her more well known pieces of poetry. This poem, at first glance, looks to be short, a mere two stanzas with an average of four words per line. Nevertheless, with a straight to the point, freeverse take, she manages to still get her main point across to her readers.
The Aunts also made the women watch the punishments of other women. “We had to watch a woman being slowly cut to pieces, her fingers and breasts snipped off with garden shears, and her stomach split open and her intestines pulled out” (Callaway 52). A different beating was done to Moira. Her feet were beaten. Offred described it as, “Her feet did not
cared and loved her and at the age of 16 the family had to move away
of her drunken father - coming in the house late at night, only to hit