Tony Kites, the Arch Deceiver Essay Example

it sounds as if she doesn't even care about where her own daughter is, it is as if she is speaking about a total stranger.She then mentions how her daughter is getting money; she suggests quite willingly that her daughter has turned to prostitution. 'Do you go with men, is that it? ' she says this about her own daughter which says to the reader that she doesn't have much respect for her daughter. She then goes on to say how she doesn't like the thought of her daughter hanging around with 'drug addicts', how its 'not very nice'.

The mother now becomes very selfish, only thinking about how her daughter running away is affecting her. I'm sure you'd of never of left if you realised I'd be this upset. ' We can see that the mother is very self-involved is thinking what will other people think a lot of the time. 'It's not their fifteen year old daughter.

.. ' When reading the story we can see that the shoes have been used to put across the mothers feeling towards her daughter. ' It is as if she is communicating to her daughter through the shoes, as long as she can see and feel the shoes, then she feels a connection to her daughter. The images of the shoes are mixed up with the descriptions of the girl.

She often starts off by mentioning the shoes and then goes into a thought about her daughter 'I locked the wardrobe on those rebellious shoes. They could be like me and grieve in the darkness. For a bit. Then I let them out. I'm not cruel.

But they've got

to learn, haven't they. Kids these days. Well' it sounds as if the mother is talking to the shoes not her daughter. This is quite ironic because there are quite a few references to shoes not just in the mother daughter relationship but also in the narrator's mother and the narrators association.You've got small feet just like mine.

Like hers. All the women in our family have small feet... ' These women all have the same thing in common- their small feet.

I think this is symbolising the fact that all the women are the same, they 'fit' in the same shoes, all the women in this family are alike and each mother and daughter have the same problems. In this story there are two more sub-relationships with the narrators father and husband. We can clearly see that the bond between the narrator and her father is strong and special. ' He told me I was bright'.The father and narrator obviously got on well; I think maybe he spoiled her slightly. 'I had a white weeding.

My father had been saving for years. ' The mother of the narrator doesn't seem to be involved in what goes on between the narrator and her father, she wasn't included. 'We talked about things she couldn't understand. ' She looked down on her mother, but not her father although he was strict wither her, maybe this is because her mother wasn't so firm.

The narrator says that the mother envied the relationship the narrator had with her father.'She was jealous because I loved my father more than her. Did the narrator know this, or is she just saying

it to make herself feel better? I think that the narrator may have been jealous of the father and mothers love. The narrator's relationship with her husband doesn't seem very loving; she married him to get over someone. 'I married your father on the rebound, everybody knew I was desperately in love with Pete.

.. ' this makes us think the relationship is not based on love but maybe need. 'In their proper places, no fuss, like a husband and wife. ' It as if the wife married her husband because she had nobody else, and needed the security.

Tony Kytes relationships with the three girls he proposes to are not very strong. He doesn't have much reverence or respect for the girls as he willingly asks each of them to marry him when he is well aware that the others are in earshot. Through his conversation with the girls, he reveals himself as being an indecisive, weak but well meaning character. He finds it difficult to refuse any of the women a lift, and seems beguiled by the beauty of each of them when the others were out of sight as when he says to Unity 'I never knowed you was so pretty before!The female characters are not very diverse, and they are described very superficially as stereotypes of manipulative femininity when Unity says 'and-can you say I'm not pretty, Tony? Now look at me! ' we can see a clear example of this.

It is often difficult to decide who is being more manipulative, Tony or the girls. Tony seems to be in less command of the situation than any of the girls. As he

is continually acting on impulse. The girls on the other hand are each acting with the clear intention of securing Tony for a husband.

However, because of the nature of a woman's place in the society of the time, Tony ultimately has the upper hand. The women must wait to be chosen. The women overall in Tony Kytes are submissive, timid, naive and typical of the period as they 'almost swooned', then 'screeched' and sobbed. When both Hannah and Unity 'dump' him, they do not show revenge they just tell him firmly no and have a reason. Milly is asked last by Tony and when she is finally asked she responds by saying: 'You didn't really mean what you said to them' Tony declares 'not a word of it'.Once again he is deceiving Milly and his charms get the better of her as she accepts him.

But we know the circumstances forced her to that decision His attitude changes when his father comes onto the scene, Tony's attitude changes, he talks to his father as if the women are objects and he is merely playing a game. 'I've got rather into a nunnywatch', form this we can see he only half heartedly bothered about what happens. He has more respect for his father this is because his father is a male and I the 1800's men were simply thought of with more admiration and they had more power.Tony's father makes it very clear that if a respectable woman mounted on the horse and wagon without invitation she was not worth marrying.

Tony however disregards the opinions of his father and chooses Hannah. The purpose of Tony

Kytes, the Arch Deceiver is to entertain and humour, but also to gently show a moral issue that men can be deceiving. The purpose of Your Shoes is to entertain but not in such a humorous way. Your Shoes tells us of a sad, poignant story of a family that have many problems and the strain of the family's relationships with one another.All the relationships in this story are fraught with anxiety and emotion. This is written as a first person narrative with the speaker telling us the story and her emotions.

Her thoughts are mixed and tumble out at us - this shows her confused and emotional state at the moment. She is obviously in pain 'If I wrap my arms around myself and hold tight it keeps the pain in. ', but recalls much of her own pain form her childhood and the influence her mother had on her. The narrator ends up curled in a foetal position sucking on the shoelaces these enable her to feel closer to her daughter, but it is as if she has become the child now.In the last lines she imagines her daughter home with her, but could also be translating her own feelings for her mother into the situation. The last line could be her professing her love to her own mother, something she hasn't done and should have done.

In contrast, Tony Kytes is a lighthearted tale of a man who would be seen in the present day as a 'player' somebody who messes around with women. He is very easily led on and finds it hard to say no, similar to the girls in

this prose.In this story attitudes change quickly when an elder, or male is around, people become more respectful and aren't so impractical. The time in which this was written is particularly important as if a similar thing occurred nowadays it would not be so shocking and the male would be thought of as a bit stupid.

The girls would have been seen in the same light. If Your Shoes was wrote over 200 years ago then the daughter's behaviour would not of been acceptable and the mother wouldn't be so remorseful about marrying her husband, emotions would have been bottled up more.