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Example research essay topic: Withered Arm Thomas Hardy - 1,406 words

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The Darkness Out There and The Withered Arm are both short stories. The characterization techniques they use are contrasting and similar. Each story is from a different time; The Withered Arm being 19 th century and The Darkness Out There being 20 th century. Thomas Hardy writes The Withered Arm as a 3 rd person narrative whereas Penelope Lively uses a mixture between 3 rd and 1 st person.

The Darkness Out There combines the authors narration with the thoughts and feelings of Sandra, a girl belonging to the Good Neighbors club. She goes to help out an old lady, Mrs. Rutter, with the help of a boy called Kerry. Mrs. Rutter lives in the countryside; next to a wood called Packers End, feared by Sandra. Mrs.

Rutter has a secret, that when told, horrifies the children. This sub story is of the German she found and left to die back when she was a girl in the war. Penelope Lively develops Mrs. Rutter's character in many ways, with clues early on to her true self. Sandra's views on the characters change by the end, as well as her whole out look of life as a result. One of the ways Mrs.

Rutter's character is portrayed by Penelope Lively is through her environment, both historically and geographically. The house is introduced sending out two different messages. One is that of a quaint homely place. This can be recognized through the descriptions of the china ornaments, big-eyed flop-eared rabbits and beribboned kittens and flowery milkmaids and a pair of naked chubby children wearing daisy chains. Firstly, this gives the impression of a cuddly grandmother figure, but then the picture is broken with the mention of the smell of cabbage. This comment conflicts with the otherwise friendly scene to suggest something is not rite.

The house reflects Mrs. Rutter's character. An example of this is her eyes investigated, quick as mice. Later, the house mirrors this comment by the author describing that it smelt of damp and mouse.

Animals and flowers are frequently mentioned in the description of the ornaments and her love of plants, You should see the wood in spring, with all the bluebells. This constant reference to nature implies there is a link with Mrs. Rutter, for nature is changeable and not always as it seems. There is also evidence to suggest she is an old lady whose mind is still stuck in the past, such as her collection of old calendars and pictures torn from magazines. This could later explain why her memory of the German plane and dying soldier is still vivid as ever. The affect of what Mrs.

Rutter says and does also reveals sides of her character. She welcomes Kerry and Sandra into her house. But rite at the beginning there is a contrast in description, a creamy smiling pool of a face in which her eyes snapped and darted sounds friendly and comforting but subliminally uneasy and then later sinister. Shes a very judgmental woman.

She sends the boy straight away outside to do the manual work and leaves Sandra the light chores indoors. She makes conversation with the girl, but not with Kerry, thinking hell have nothing interesting to say. This is because she doesnt think much of his ambitions, smiling falsely while he tells her that he wants to work as a car mechanic. She insults him, well, I expect thats good steady money if youd nothing special in mind. Sugar? then moves on quickly to a gesture of hospitality, trying to conceal the jibe aimed at Kerry.

Shes patronizing too, with comments like Youre a little dress maker, too, and Check? She asks Sandra to offer Kerry a chocolate too, but has already forgotten his name Take them out and see if whats-s-name would like one? showing his insignificance in her mind. One reason why she does this may be because she has no children of her own, so she goes on stereotypical ideas. She also makes the reader feel uneasy, Mind your pretty skirt, pull it up a bit, theres only me to see if youre showing a bit of bum. This provokes the thought that she has a slightly warped mind.

She starts to tell Sandra about her husband who was killed in the war. He died rite at the beginning, and she hasnt formed any relationships since. This can make the reader feel a little bit sympathetic towards her. Penelope Lively lets us know what others think of Mrs. Rutter as Kerry builds a profile on her character when he talks with Sandra. He shows his dislike of the woman, I dont go much on her and I dunno.

The way she talks and that. Sandra encourages him to feel sorry for her by telling him of her tragedy, but he explains that Theres lots of people done that dismissing the excuse for her peculiar and disturbing behavior by implying that she wasnt the only one to loose somebody in the war. The way Mrs. Rutter always watches Sandra and glinting from the cushions gives an uneasy feel towards her. When Kerry returns inside Mrs. Rutter begins her anecdote.

He asks if she saw the plane come down and she chuckles, seeming to delight in the idea. She explains how her and her sister went to investigate the scene and was only going to get help if it was an allied plane. This alarms Kerry. Her twisted side becomes more apparent when she says, We cheered, I can tell you as they realized it was German.

Sandra is alarmed and quips how awful it was, but Mrs. Rutter, who disregards her discomfort, abruptly interrupts her she is so involved in telling the story. She tries to soften what she is saying by sugaring the pill, for example friendly additives such as my duck to unsettling sentences. She refers to the injured man in the broken plane as that site. She mentions nothing about the man himself but just remarks how it wasnt a pretty site. She is unmoved when the German was crying mutter, mutter.

This shows she is a cold, heartless woman. She recollects easily how she left the man in pain because it was raining. This shows she has no feeling of mutual human kindness and doesnt feel obliged to help. Again, she is not bothered with the fact he is in his late teens. Mrs. Rutter is bitter and resentful because of the death of her husband.

She delights in the German's death, I thought, oh no, you had this coming to you, mate, theres a war on. She seems surprised when Kerry and Sandra suddenly get up to leave, disgusted with her tale. She has no remorse and doesnt realize there was anything wrong with what she did, her conscience still not activated all these years later. Rite from the beginning there had been implicit clues to her nasty inner character, not just from the story she told which revealed it explicitly towards the end. Penelope Lively through other means, like metaphors reveals the character. Like her body, her personality is not clear-cut.

The author suggests this when she explains she seemed composed of circles. Introduced as a cottage loaf of a woman, gives the misleading impression of a warm, traditional, safe, chunky, old woman. But following this, is another metaphor, with a face below which chins collapsed one into another, implicitly meaning she had different guises, was false and two- faced. Someone not to be trusted. On balance, it seems that Mrs. Rutter was a twisted old lady, unable to let go of the bitterness she acquired from her husbands killing and sick because of the fact she relished in the idea of the young German soldier left to die.

Her historical background, the fact she lived through the horrors of war is no excuse. She believes herself to be an innocent old lady; blind to her own faults and separated from the outside world. Penelope Lively used various characterization techniques to skillfully convey the character of Mrs. Rutter well. The Withered Arm is another story in which people can be falsely judged. As with The Darkness Out There Thomas Hardy uses environment very effectively to reveal sides of Farmer Lodges character.

Farmer Lodge is the squire of his backward Wessex village. His geographical, historical and mainly social environments influence his character unlike in The Darkness Out There where...


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Research essay sample on Withered Arm Thomas Hardy

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