The Supernatural and Satirical in Thomas Hardys Stories - Book Report/Review Example

The Supernatural and Satirical In Thomas Hardy's Stories Introduction In the world's ics, Thomas Hardy stands head and shoulder among literary greats like Homer, Geoffrey Chaucer, Rudyard Kipling, Ben Jonson, Henry James, Sir Walter Scott, Robert Louis Stevenson, Herman Merville and Victorian contemporaries T.E. Lawrence and Jane Austen. Hardy even towers over the rest in terms of output. While most carved their names in stone on the basis of one or two opuses - Homer with The Iliad, Chaucer with The Canterbury Tales, Jonson with Five Plays, James with The Ambassadors, Scott with The Heart of Midlothian, Stevenson with Treasure Island and Robinson's Crusoe and Austen's six major novels - Hardy's prodigious talent spread throughout the whole range of literary creation . This impressive body of works consists of three collections of short stories (The Distracted Preacher and Other Stories, A Changed Man and Wessex Tales), seven poetry collections (Selected Poems; Select Poems of William Barnes, a memorial; Winter Words in Various Moods and Meters; Late Lyrics and Earlier; Time's Laughingstocks; Human Shows For Fantasies, Songs and Trifles; and Vestiges of an Old Flame), three essays (The Science of Fiction, The Profitable Reading of Fiction and Candor in English Fiction), an epic drama written in blank verse (The Dynasts), an autobiography, and a slew of novels adding up to 17, some of whose titles, notably Far From the Madding Crowd and Desperate Remedies, have gained metaphorical prominence as descriptive phrases. Such a quantitative achievement has remained unchallenged by any writer of consequence in the English language. Hardy's bumper crop of creative works could only come as indeed it does from a wide swath of different moods, inspirations, preoccupations, perspectives and even settings as he went about the writer's common task of configuring the human condition. Thus, the tales spun by Hardy in the form of either the novel or short story sometimes come across as historical depictions of the Napoleonic period, sometimes as keen observations of rural life, sometimes as Gothic narratives with a touch of the supernatural, sometimes as faithful and satirical portrayals of modern existence. An indication of Hardy's versatility as a writer at home in any genre. For the purpose of this essay, we will examine some tales of Hardy that dwell on two themes or subject matters frequently encountered in his short stories: the supernatural and the satirical. The idea is to find out Hardy's motives in tackling these types of stories and whether they served to improve his craft. Representing the genre that deals on the supernatural are the short stories The Fiddler of the Reels and The Withered Arm. For the realistic and ironic tales of modern life, there are Barbara of the House of Grebe and On the Western Circuit. All four short stories are part of the collection The Distracted Preacher and Other Stories. The Fiddler of the Reels The fiddler was the "weird and wizardly" Wat Ollamoor, the reel a kind of dance in which a group of persons form a cross for a while and then the cross formation breaks slowly as the dancers form a circle around whoever is being honored for the day or night. Wat, also called Mop because of his long and unkempt hair, is known in Stickleford as a musician, dandy, company man in practice and veterinary surgeon in theory. In short, an oddball who plays the fiddle extremely well and dislikes church music in favor of "devil's tunes." He also has a way with girls and likes to seduce them. One of those he seduces is Car'line Aspent who falls for Mop in a strange way when she happens to pass by his house while he was playing the fiddle on the doorway. Mop's fiddle playing works like magic that every time Car'line hears it, she goes into a dreamy state with Mop as the object of her adoration. Mop comes to know about this and seeks out Car'line to take advantage. Car'line then jilts Ned Hipcroft, an electrician she was about to marry, and gives herself to Mop body and soul. The disconsolate Ned moves to London to forget and finds work as electrician helping build the structures for the 1851 World Exhibition at Hyde Park. After a number of years, a repentant Car'line writes Ned pleading for forgiveness about her "indiscretions" with Mop, saying she has gotten over it now and wants to marry him if he is still interested. She says she would come to London for him if he says the word. The long and short of it is that Ned marries Car'line, who comes to London with her daughter by Mop in tow. At first Ned was hard put to accept the fact that Car'line has a child by the strange fellow Mop, but in time he learns to love the child Carrie as his own. Their otherwise happy married life in London is interrupted when Ned loses his job. So they decide to go back to Stickleford where Ned thinks he has better chances of landing a job. When they arrive at their hometown, Ned leaves Car'line and Carrie at the inn while he seeks old acquaintances to ask for a possible job. As it happens, Mop is at the inn playing with his fiddle and treated to this, Car'line falls for the spell as before. A reel dance is performed and Car'line is suck into it as if by magic. When the reel dance reaches its climax with Car'line at the center, she feints and collapses. In the commotion, Mop grabs Carrie and runs off with the child. No one in town ever sees Mop and the child again. Once, Ned hears that a man answering Mop's description is in London playing the fiddle for alms while a little girl dances in stilts for him. Ned goes to London but finds no trace of the two. This is a classic story of a love triangle in which Hardy uses black magic as backdrop to give the tale its uniqueness and attraction. All the formula for a modern, riveting love story is here: the kidnapping, the fickleness of women, the love-is-lovelier-the-second-time-around scenario, the ending that could have been happy. The Withered Arm This is one macabre tale with a psychological twist that makes it a cut above the rest. It is another love story that this time revolves around witchcraft. While asleep one evening, Rhoda Brooke the milk woman dreams that Gertrude, the lovely, newly arrived bride of Farmer Lodge, is sitting on top of her and hurting her. So Rhoda slaps the woman in the arm to make her go away. Before Farmer Lodge brought Gertrude home earlier, Rhoda was eager to know how the new bride looks. But for reasons not explained early in the story, Rhoda is afraid to take a closer look at the neighbor's new wife. It seems in character because she is pictured as reticent and introverted, almost afraid of people. To find out if Lodge's new wife is pretty, Rhoda sends out her young son and learns that she is indeed a beautiful woman. A few days after Rhoda dreamed that she slapped Gertrude in the arm, the latter pays a neighborly visit, also bringing a new pair of shoes for Rhoda's son who she saw wearing worn-out shoes. Rhoda admits the guest genially and while accepting the present, sees a welt in Gertrude's arm that looks like the imprint of fingers. It was the same spot in Gertrude's arm that Rhoda slapped in her dream. Gertrude reveals that she dreamed one evening that someone hit her on the arm and awoke to find the welt. It was exactly the same day and the same hour. Rhoda asks herself: "Can it be that I exercise a malignant power over people against my will" As the days go by, the welt in Gertrude's arm continues to get worse until it grows to disfigure her. Doctors are mystified by the problem and Gertrude turns to quackery, a conjurer in this case. Nothing happens on the first visit with the conjurer and as Gertrude's skin problem raged on, alienating her husband in the process, she comes back for another consultation. This time the conjurer tells her that the only thing that can cure her is to rub her injured arm on the neck of a man just hanged. She pins her last hope on it. Without her husband's knowledge, Gertrude bribes a jail keeper in town to let her perform the act recommended by the conjurer on a man who is scheduled to be hanged. When the moment came, she is startled at the jail by Rhoda who came with Farmer Lodge to fetch the remains of the hanged man. Gertrude learns that the man just hanged was Rhoda's son with Farmer Lodge. . Barbara of the House of Grebe The 19-year-old earl, Lord Uplandtowers, makes up his mind that one day the beautiful Barbara, daughter of Sir John Grebe in a nearby estate, will be his bride. It takes a long time for that to happen. Barbara runs off with a handsome but uneducated glass painter, Edmond Willowes. After sometime, the Grebes forgive their daughter and accept her and her new husband in their home on one condition: Edmond will be sent to France for education under a private tutor so that when he comes back they could be proud to present him to society as their son-in-law. While studying in Paris, Barbara asks Edmond to send her his picture to ease her longing for him while he is away. Edmond writes back that he will do better than that, and commissions an artist in Paris to make a bust of him that he will send to her. Then Edmond is caught in a fire that burns him beyond recognition, the handsome face scorched to ugliness. He attempts to come back to Barbara who could not bear to look at the burnt face. This hurts Edmond's feelings and he goes away never to return. After a while, the town learns that he dies in misery. . At this point, Lord Uplandtowers who comes often to the Grebe estate to console Barbara eventually wins the heart of the woman he loves. They are already married, with Barbara gradually forgetting Edmond, when the bust from Paris arrives. Somehow the replica of Edmond in his originally handsome face awakened the earlier affection he reserved for him. In a room seldom used at the Uplandtowers residence, Barbara keeps the bust of Edmond where she visits it most nights, slipping out of their room when she senses that Lord Uplandtowers is sound asleep. One evening, he decides to know what Barbara is doing in that room and catches her kissing the bust while whispering sweet nothings. Lord Uplandtowers decides to put an end to this. So when Barbara is away one day, he puts an sculptor to work by defacing Edmond's bust based on the burnt and horrible appearance remembered by some people who saw him in that condition. The story ends with Barbara once more horrified by the appearance of Edmond in his bust and orders it to be thrown away. Once again, he turns her affection to Lord Uplandtowers who she finally learns to love without reservations. On the Western Circuit Like Barbara of the House of Grebe, an uncouth and uneducated character who is attractive in looks also moves this story. This comes in the person of Anna, a village girl brought to the city by the genial Mrs. Edith Harnham to be a maid servant. One night, Edith allows Anna to enjoy herself at a circus that was put up near the Harnham residence. While Anna is having a ride at the carousel, lawyer Charles Bradford Raye (known as esquire then) happens to pass by and is attracted to her beauty. He is in the area to attend a court hearing in the morning in what is called the Western circuit. The lawyer could not her eyes off Anna whose appeal lies in her good looks mixed with innocence. When her carousel ride stops, Charles seeks her out and makes conversation. Charles is an attractive man himself with the bearing of his education and respectability so Anna responds to his advances. At this point Edith Harnham comes to the circus to fetch Anna, saying she has stayed later than she had promised. While Edith and Anna were moving out of the crowd on their way home, Charles seeks Anna's hand to guide her. By mistake he finds Edith's hand who makes no protest, feeling a strange sensation. Like Anna, Edith secretly finds Charles attractive and it is a new feeling for this woman married to a much older man who have no more time for romance. When Charles returns to London, he writes an amatory letter to Anna who it turns out could not read or write. Anna asks Edith to read the letter to her, as well as answer it in her name. Edith obliges and love blossomed between Charles and Anna through the letters written by Edith on Anna's behalf. All the while, Charles thinks that Anna writes the letters herself, thus helping him decide that she is worthy of her affection. Eventually, Charles marries Anna and Edith accompanies her to London during the wedding ceremony. After the wedding, as the three are in the anteroom of Charles' residence, he asks his new bride to pen a letter to his sister, sending her to the study to perform the task. Anna takes a long time at the study so Charles goes to her and find her crying copiously. She then confesses that she could neither read nor write and that her previous letters to him were actually written by Mrs. Harnham. Charles goes ballistic and hurries back to the foyer to confront Mrs. Harnham. Edith owns up her part in the deception and, pressed by Charles, admits that she did it not entirely for Anna's sake and that she is emotionally involved herself. Charles declares that because of Edith's authorship of the letters they are the ones who are the actual lovers. Charles asks Edith for a kiss "for the first and last time," and Edith responds. In the end, Charles decides to accept her fate, resigned to the fact that "he fastidious urban was chained to work for the remainder of his life with her, the unlettered peasant, chained to his side." References: Brady, K. 1982. The Short Stories of Thomas Hardy. Macmillan Collins, D. 1990. Thomas Hardy and his God. Macmillan Hardy, T. Barbara of the House of Grebe. Available from: Http://www.geocities.com/hardyshortstories/barbara.htm [accessed on 18 May 2006]. Hardy, T. (1891). On the Western Circuit. Available from: Http://www.geocities.com/hardyshortstories/western.htm [accessed on 18 May 2006]. Hardy, T. The Distracted Preacher. The Classical Library, HTML edition copyright 2001. Available from: Http://www.classicallibrary.org/hardy/distracted/index.html [accessed on 18 May 2006] Hardy, T. (1893). The Fiddler of the Reels. Available from: Http://www.geocities.com/hardyshortstories/fiddler.htm [accessed on 18 May 2006]. Hardy, T. The Withered Arm. Blackwoods Magazine, January 1888. Available from: Http://www.lang.nagoya-u.ac.jp/matsuoka/ghost-stories-hardy.html [accessed on 18 May 2006] Pinion, F. B. 1992. Thomas Hardy: His Life & Friends. Macmillan Read More