& A 20th Century Text Essay, Research Paper
For this Essay I have to compare a pre 20th
century text with a 20th century text. Both the texts must be short
stories. The two pieces of text that I have chosen for this comparison are The
Withered Arm, which is a pre-20th century text written by Thomas Hardy &
The Genius a 20th century text written by Frank O’Connor. I have chosen these
stories as they fit the category of which I have to write about.In the Withered arm the main Characters are, Rhoda Brook
(Farmer Lodges ex partner), Farmer Lodge, Gertrude (Farmer Lodges new partner)
and Farmer Lodges and Rhoda Brooks son.The first thing I would like to compare is the theme of
both The Withered arm and The Genius. The themes of the Withered arm are
Jealousy, superstition and Love. The theme of?
jealousy in the story is shown by Rhoda Brook. She is very jealous after
her past relationship with Farmer Lodge failed and Farmer lodge has moved
on.? However there is a complication,
Farmer lodge had a son who Rhoda had to look after. Gertrude, farmer lodge?s
fiansey became concerned about Rhodas and Farmer lodges son when she saw him
whilst coming back from Anglbury. She outlined him as a ‘poor boy’ and felt sorry
for him and bought him a pair of boots. The Villagers were aware of the affair
between Rhoda and Farmer Lodge, not until speculated about the goings on of it.
Farmer Lodge pretended to Gertrude not to know his son.The jealousy in The Genius is completely different from
The Withered Arm as the jealousy is set around different subjects. The boy in
the story, Larry, is jealous of people that are older than him. This is mainly
due to the fact that he ise very clever and knows so. This makes him want to
socialise with people who are older than him because he thinks that people of
his age are much to childish. One of the reasons for him becoming jealous, I
think is because if he had been brought up in a poorer family then the language
used around the house would be of a lower standard and he would be much more
like poeple of his age. Larry is very jealous of people that know more about
things than him. For example, when he asks his mother about how babies are
made, she tells him a childish story and he believes it. When he talks to older
people about it, they laugh at the silly story that his mother told him. He is
annoyed about the fact that people think that he is too young to know the real
story while he thinks that he should know. This leads him towards anger and
deep jealousy. So the jealousy domonstrted in The Withered Arm and The
Genius are completely different because the types of jealousy are nowhere near
the same. Though the emotions that are felt by the characters are the same, the
way in which they are felt are different. Larry out of The Genius feels as
though he is being treated like a child while Rhoda Brook feels as though she
is unimportant and is being totally ignored by Farmer Lodge. Anger stems from
the jealousy in both cases but is felt in completely different ways. Rhoda is
jealous of Gertrude as she is so young and beautiful and any hope of Rhoda ever
getting back together with Farmer Lodge dissapeared when she arrived.In the end of The Genius, Larry realises that there is
nothing to be jealous about because he will learn what he needs to know in good
time.The theme of love is involved in both the stories, but
more so in The Withered Arm. As stated in the start of The Withered Arm, Rhoda
had an affair with Farmer Lodge in which it is not clear whether there was
actually love involved. When Farmer Lodge married Gertrude there is doubt that
love is involved because Gertrude may have married Farmer Lodge for his money
and Farmer Lodge might have married Gertrude for her looks. Another kind of love
in the story is that Rhoda oves her son. This is a different kind of love,
family love. In The Genius, Larry falls in love with an older girl,
but he may have just thought that it was love and was not sure. The comparison
between the two stories are not much different because the same kind of love is
felt in both.Superstition plays a big part in The Withered Arm
because when Gertrudes arm becomes ill, she seeks advice from Conjuror Trendle
and tries all sorts of herbal remedies. In the end she seeks the neck of a dead
man and dies because of Witchcraft. Basically, the story is set around
superstition. Rhoda is believed by the locals to be a witch. Compared to The Withered Arm, superstition plays little
or no part in The Genius. There are no examples of superstion in this story at
all.The plot of the two stories are quite different. The
Withered Arm is kind of a superstitious drama and The Genius is a story with a
lesson in it. The Withered Arm relies on superstition and beliefs of that age.
The basic plot of The Withered Arm is that Rhoda has had an affair with Farmer
Lodge. The affair ended quite a long time ago and now Farmer Lodge has married
a young woman called Gertrude. Rhoda and Farmer Lodge have a son which they
keep a secret to protect the details of their relationship. During th night,
Rhoda has a realistic nightmare hat Gertrude is in her bedroom. She throws her
off the bed and later discovers that Gertrudes arm is badly injured. Rhoda
knows that she has caused the injury but is too scared to admit it. Over a
period of years, Gertrudes arm gets worse and she seeks witchcraft as a
remedie. She has to visit a freshly hung body and touch the neck of the body
with her arm. When she goes to touch the neck, Rhoda and Farmer Lodge appear as
it is their son who is being hanged. Gertrudes blood has been turned too much
and she dies. The
plot of The Genius is not very big as nothing much happens compared to The
Withered Arm. It is about a boy who is a genius and wants to beocme more like
an adult. He starts asking questions about adult subjects and meets an older
girl. They become good friends and when they start talking about more
complicated subjects, Larry does not know much about them and embarrasses
himself. The girl leaves him and goes off with an older boy. Larry is left to
feel jealous but then he realises that in good time he will learn about things
that they talk about.The plots are very different as The Withered Arm is
based on things like Witchcraft and drama, The Genius is more light hearted and
in a way quite funny.In both the stories there are quite a few characters but
only about three main ones. In The Withered Arm there are four main characters,
Rhoda Brook, Gertrude and Farmer Lodge and Rhoda and Farmer Lodges son. Out of
the main four Gertrude and Rhoda are involved the most. The main characters
weave the story into the path it takes. The main characters of The Genius are
Larry, Una Dwyer and Larries mum. Una is very important to the story because
she leads Larry into thinking that he is and adult and he starts acting like
one.The languages, being a century apart are bound to be
different and are. The Withered Arm has many words that are not used in todays
conversations and in fact most of the sentences. An expample of the difference
is when the writer writes numbers he would say six and twenty instead of twenty
six. The language in The Genius is much more modern though it still has a few
words that are not as common as they used to be.The Withered Arm is related to life in the times of which
it is set. This is demonstrated by the kind of communication that they used in
the olden days. The story relates to the culture of Witchcraft as being a
common feature in almost everyday life. The Genius
relates to people who think that they are misread by people and fell that they
ought to be treat differently.
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