A Comparison Between The Literary Styles Of

Charles Dickens And Thomas Hardy Essay, Research Paper

In order to compare the literary styles of Dickens and Hardy I will use ‘The Signalman´ by Charles Dickens and ‘The Withering Arm´ by Thomas Hardy. ‘The Signalman´ features a lonely train signalman who works in signal box by a railway cutting. He has been visited by a “spectre” which appears just before a fatal accident takes place. The other main character, who is also the narrator, meets the signalman and is told of his sightings. They try to interpret the warnings of the ghostly figure. As the two develop a friendship, the narrator returns to the railway cutting to visit the signalman but finds that he has been killed in an accident that the ghost had warned about. ‘The Withered Arm´ features a milkmaid named Rhoda Brook whose ex-husband, Mr Lodge, remarries a young lady called Gertrude. Even before meeting Gertrude, Rhoda is jealous of her and begins to hate her. Without seeing Gertrude, Rhoda dreams that Gertrude is sitting on top of her, trying to suffocate her. Rhoda reaches out and grabs her arm, pushing her to the floor. Rhoda wakes up but believes that her encounter with Gertrude was too vivid and real to be a dream. She meets Gertrude for the first time and she looks exactly the same in person as she did in the dream. They become good friends and Gertrude shows Rhoda the mark on her arm, it clearly resembles the hold that Rhoda had on Gertrude´s arm and so Rhoda becomes worried that she was the cause of Gertrude´s withered arm. Rhoda leaves the village as gossip about the reason for Gertrude´s skin complaint spreads. The condition on Gertrude´s arm worsens, applying more stress to Gertrude and Mr Lodge´s relationship and so Gertrude is desperate to find a cure to rekindle the love that Mr Lodge felt for her in the earlier stages of their marriage. Rhoda and Gertrude are reunited at the end.

In a way, the two stories are similar as their themes are based on the same topics: mystery, supernatural and the unknown. They both involve premonitions of fate and the future. In ‘The Signalman´, the narrator attracts the attention of the signalman by shouting “Halloa! Below there!” These were the words recited by the ghost who warned him of an accident that would happen in the near future. Also, these were the words shouted by the train driver as he alerted the signalman of the speeding train heading towards him. Also, In ‘The Withered Arm´, Rhoda dreamt that she had grabbed Gertrude´s arm. It was later discovered that Gertrude woke up with a painful arm on the exact same night and at the exact same time that Rhoda had the dream. Also, Rhoda knew exactly what Gertrude looked like before she had even seen her. In both of the stories some of the characters experience loneliness and isolation. Although both Dickens and Hardy express this through their characters, Dickens does so in a more intense manner, as more sympathy is felt for the signalman than for Rhoda or Gertrude. In ‘The Signalman´, the signalman inhabits a small, “solitary and dismal” signal box. He stays in the “dripping-wet dungeon” for hours each day with nothing to do except to occasionally “change that signal, trim those lights, and turn his iron handle”. Dickens may have created this character to express his sympathy for those who are lonely. He may have wanted us to pity the signalman, as he is a “well educated” man constrained by a primitive occupation. This sympathy was heightened because of the death of the signalman. Possibly the fact that Dickens does not give the signalman a name shows that he is deemed unimportant to most people. Dickens may want us to counter this view and to think that all human beings are important. In ‘The Withered Arm´, Rhoda´s best friend is Gertrude and so she is terrified that Gertrude will discover that she was the cause of the skin complaint. This shows Rhoda´s former loneliness as she only just met Gertrude and previously hated her, but Gertrude instantaneously became her best friend. Gertrude´s loneliness is shown when her relationship with Mr Lodge deteriorates and also when Rhoda leaves the village. At this stage in the story, Gertrude cannot talk to her only friend, Rhoda, and she is detached from her husband due to her withered arm. Gertrude feels isolated and I think this is a situation that Hardy sympathises with. Hardy may also have views about rejection. This is shown where Gertrude sees Rhoda and Mr Lodge´s son walking along the road and asks Mr Lodge who he is. Mr Lodge just says the boy is “one of the neighbourhood,” and goes onto say that he thinks the boy “lives with his mother a mile or two off”. He does not even communicate with the boy and does not feel the need to tell Gertrude that he is his son. Another similarity is that when mysterious events take place, none of the characters from either of the stories believe in coincidences. In ‘The Signalman´ the narrator says, “men of common sense did not allow much for coincidences”. The narrator of ‘The Withered Arm´ says Rhoda “did not reason on the freaks of coincidence.” This may have been due to the nature of the people of the time the stories were written or just the opinions of Dickens and Hardy.

Previously, similarities between the two writers were discussed, but there are also many differences between them. ‘The Withered A