How the women in two stories are treated by the men in their lives Essay

Examine how the women in devil stories ar treated by the men in their livesTwo myopic fiction stories which show how women ar treated by the men in their lives are The grief Hussar of the German server and Weekend. The first recital is a pre-1914 story c wholeed The Melancholy Hussar of the German Legion and it is pen by doubting Thomas Hardy. The story is set in 1801 and it was published in 1891.The other story is a untold red-brick story as it is set in the modern twentieth century and was published in 1981. It is called Weekend and it is written by a feminist writer called Fay Weldon.The main origin of The Melancholy of the German Legion is how a woman is treated with little independence and how the main fe priapic character, Phyllis Grove, tries to find her throw granting immunity by forming a strong friendship with a German soldier that escalates into a relationship. Phyllis is a shy, infantile character who lives in a secluded manor abode with her father, D r Grove, who was a professional and well- reckoned gentleman. There now appears to be a insufficiency of money in the Grove household. She is precise wary of people repayable to her sheltered life of solitude, which is mainly the result of her fathers own seclusion, her social condition was twilight. She doesnt appear to have a melody as she is the un hook up with daughter and she has to look after her father. This was really gross for women in the nineteenth century as they didnt have the freedom to go to work and make a autoeer for themselves. Women who were of a wretched social class would have done truly menial tasks, such as maid or dairy maid.Martha is the female in focal point in the story Weekend. The story appears to be set in the late 1980s to the early 19990s. The social class of the family in focus is functional class as they do not appear to be scant(p) or extremely rich. Martha is a middle-aged market researcher who is married to Martin, a self-employed mortal designer and together they have deuce-ace children called Jolyon, jenny ass and Jasper.She has a rather hectic lifestyle looking after three children, running a home, holding down a full-time job and universe at her demanding husbands beck and call in that extol was the car to unpack and the beds to make up and the electricity to connect, and the supper to make and the cobwebs to remove. The main theme of this story is how hard Martha has to work and how little recognition she receives in return. She has to defend the role of the happy little housewife to please her domineering husband and packs us of how hard her life was made by her husband, the man who is meant to get laid her. Despite the way she is treated by her husband, she is educated to university standard and she is just about probably going to overtake her husband in earnings.The main male characters in The Melancholy Hussar of the German Legion each treat Phyllis in a diametric manor. Her father, Dr Grove, namems very over-protective of her and likes his life of seclusion. This may be because he lost his wife and feels that it is his duty to make sure that no stultification comes of Phyllis and that he thinks he knows what is best for his daughter. When Humphrey Gould asked Mr Grove for his daughters touch in marriage, Mr Grove accepted without even consulting Phyllis. Mr Grove considered this to be a good move for his daughter as Humphreys family had a kempt social position in the community and he could provide for her. crimson though Mr Grove treats his daughter with the respect she deserves, he take over refrains her from having her freedom and the right to chose who she wants to bond.Humphrey Gould himself was a thirty-year-old bachelor from an old local family, who was neither giving nor positively plain. He attended extremely happy to have Phyllis as his wife-to-be and gave the movie that he would take good care of her and had great respect for her. He treated her as a lady with great respect, but notwithstanding the good image we get of Gould in the beginning of the story, we soon see a different side of him. He goes away to Bath and doesnt keep Phyllis informed of his whereabouts and she is left questioning whether the engagement is still on or not. When he eventually returns he tells her that he has married some other young woman, who he describes as being a dear young belle. This action wasnt very thoughtful on his behalf and even though Phyliss didnt really want to marry him and didnt love him, she still fells slightly betrayed.The only male in The Melancholy Hussar of the German Legion who doesnt treat women as though they are objects and treats Phyllis with the amount of respect and freedom she truly deserves is Matthaus Tina. He was a German soldier in the York Hussars regiment and was staying close to where Phyllis lived. He had travelled to England with his brother Christoph, due to The struggle of the Second Coalition, and h ad left his mother in his native town of Saarbuck. by and by Phyllis had first met Matthaus she couldnt stop thinking about him and described him as so striking, so handsome, and his eyeball were so blue. He was twenty-two and had rather a high position in the German Army as a corporal.He treated Phyllis as though she were equal to him and there was no hint of a divide between them due to her being female. He respected her fully and neer let her down, unlike Humphrey Gould who bust off the engagement. He may have treated her with more(prenominal) respect and freedom than the other main men in her life as he was German and in his country they may have been more hospitable towards women.Martin is the male in focus in Weekend and his is a very obnoxious character. He is married to Martha and he is a freelance designer and there are clues in the story which suggest that he is in his forties, for example he watches the BBC2 news, which is typical of a middle-aged person. Martin tre ats Martha as more of a servant than a wife and he directs all of the responsibilities onto her. He seems to think that he is too good to be doing housework and odd-jobs and Martha is left to do extensive lists of chores, prepare tea and sandwiches for the family so she would denudate four beds, the chores seem endless. Martin is also very particular about how he like things to be done, which means extra work for Martha. Martin thinks mash is stick-in-the-mud(p) and ordinary and instant mash is unthinkable, which means Martha has to take a long time to saut the potatoes and he thinks pork is a dull meat if its not cooked properly, so she has to spend ages cooking it just how he likes it.Martha doesnt say much in the story as she cant get a word in edgeways because in his eyes he is the man of the house, even though Martha runs the household. She doesnt have much of a chance to voice her opinions directly, but she does voice them in her thoughts as the story is mainly written in first person memoir with her as the narrator. She helps us to get inside her head and with her use of lists she helps to inform us of just how many things she has to do. She seems to scared to disagree with Martin and goes along with whatever he says I expect your right, just to keep the peace.Martha and Phyllis are confusable in many ways, even though they are in different situations and from different backgrounds. They are both overpowered by the men in their lives who are closest to them and they are both deprived of having their own lives. Neither of the women seem to have a say about what happens in their lives, for example Phyllis was told who to marry by her father and Martha was told what to with her life by her husband. Despite the number of similarities between the two women there are also some differences between them. Martha put up with her way of life and didnt question it much, but Phyllis did take root to change things. She chose to carry on the affair with Mat thaus Tina as she saw a break from her regimented lifestyle and went once against her fathers wishes. Phyllis became quite insubordinate when she was planning to escape to Saarbuck with Matthaus and Christoph. This is something that Martha would never have considered doing.Both of the women are victims in each of the stories, but I think that Marthas suffering was worsened than that of Phyllis as hers was constant and she never got a break from it. Phyllis is treated rectify than Martha in that respect as she had someone in her life who was treating her very well. That person was Tina as he was the only one who saw the square(a) Phyllis and respected the true Phyllis.To me, Marthas victimisation is worse than that of Phyllis as in 1981 Martha should have had more chances and opportunities due to the development of society, than Phyllis did in1801. I felt very kind towards both of the female characters due to the fact that they are seen as victims and I also felt sympathetic tow ards Matthaus Tina. I felt sympathetic towards him as he did so much for Phyllis and did his best to keep her happy. It was very sad when he was killed at the end of the story and I again felt very sympathetic towards Phyllis as she lost the one person she truly trusted. The rest of her life is touched by the scandal, even though she was blameless for what happened.The type of vocabulary used in each of the stories is desirable to the time that it was written and they are very different to each other. The language in The Melancholy Hussar of the German Legion is formal and uses traditional English, such as unsrupulous and melancholy, as that type of language would have been used in the nineteenth century. It contains more complex sentences than that used in Weekend and they are sometimes harder to comprehend. The archives in The Melancholy Hussar of the German Legion starts in first person, which is Hardys narration to introduce the characters and scene to the reader. It then pro gresses into third person narrative to involve the reader in the story, earlier returning to first person narrative to tie of all relinquish ends in the story, for example Matthaus date of death. The use of third person narrative enables the reader to see more deeply into the story and become more involved in what is happening.The narrative style and language used in Weekend is less formal than that used in Hardys stories. There are many non-sentences, such as Katy versus Janet, which do not contain a verb and are more of a thought .There are many compound sentences that use words such as then, but, and, so, which helps Martha to express how many jobs she has to do. This use of language is well suited to the date in which the story was set.The role and rights of women changed quite a lot in the rate of flow of time between when the two books were written. In 1801, nobody had the chance to take and your right to a say depended on your position in society. hands with homes got th e vote in 1867, all men got the vote in 1916 and women didnt get the vote until 1926. This meant that for along time women were seen as being dismay than men and were provided for by their husbands. Other turning points for women in this time twain were that they were able to get jobs and were protected by The Sex Discrimination Act,1975. This explains wherefore Martha had a job and Phyllis didnt, but there is still no exposition to support why Martha was treated so badly in modern day Britain. My conclusion is that Fay Weldon was trying to get across that some traditions never change.