An Essay on The Withered Arm, by Thomas Hardy -- English Literature

An Essay on The Withered ramp up, by Thomas audaciousThe past is a foreign country. They did things differently there.The Go Between by L.P. Hartley.Thomas Hardy, a Victorian novelist, based his stories on experience ofgrowing up in rural Dorset. Growing up there, he became familiar withthe language, customs, practises and stories of the country folk.These stories draw up on his experiences enabling him to write WessexTales. Among many pieces of work is The Withered Arm. The WitheredArm is a well-crafted short-change story written in the prose format. Thequote above portrays what pre-twentieth century literature shouldembrace good literature should be perspicacityable, realistic andsignificant to all deal from any era. In this essay I am going todescribe the ways in which Thomas Hardy has made his short story, TheWithered Arm interesting to the modern reader.The Withered Arm is about Rhoda Brook, a dark milkmaid whoretaliates on her lovers beautiful new wife, Gertrude, after her lover, Farmer Lodge abandons her and their illigimate son. Hardy hascarefully structured all the elements of a short story making TheWithered Arm interesting and perennial to the modern reader. FarmerLodges denial of the affair with Rhoda and the neglection of his soncauses Rhodas plotting revenge. Employing the character, seerTrendle, brings the involvement of witchcraft and supernatural powers,giving the plot a paranormal twist. The public execution of The male childimmediately grasps the interest of the reader because we learn that inthe Victorian times, committing such a petty crime, there is a massivepenalty. We also learn that the lives of the hoi polloi were so habitual,that they thought of executio... ...led and brings out the best in his stories, yet his language maybea little hard to understand for a modern reader. I do not find thecharacter in The Withered Arm a problem at all because although someof those characters no longer exist, Rhoda, Conjuror Trendle, Hangman,i t is still interesting to read about their daily lives and how thingswere for them after all good literature should be giving the readerand insight on how things were. make up though the reader may not alwaysagree to the philosophies hidden in his themes, it is captivating toimagine how a Victorian writer can refer to such things. I think thatThe Withered Arm is a fantastic example of pre-twentieth centuryliterature because not only is it interesting, but it gives us aninsight on the different lives of the different characters and yet isstill interesting to the modern reader.