The Sons Veto - Essay Example

November 16, “The Son’s Veto” Thomas Hardy’s “The Son’s Veto” is a story about love, marriage, social standing,and above all pride. The story focuses on Sophy, a middle-aged widow of poor birth who is denied the chance to remarry by her well-educated and genteel son. The action of the story takes places mostly in London, where Sophy is living as a widow. The theme of social standing is the most obvious throughout the piece, but Hardy also presents us three different views of marriage. There are also suggestions of the power of death. Hardy also changed the story quite a bit from its initial publication to the final version. There are two distinct classes in the story, split into both urban and rural and genteel and poor. These are shown in various ways, such as how Mr. Twycott has several servants who are from the village he is vicar for. Mr. Twycott’s marriage to Sophy, one of the rural poor, is such an unusual thing that he knows it will have disastrous effects on his life. He “knew perfectly well that he had committed social suicide by this step, despite Sophys spotless character” (Hardy 155). The last point is especially important: not even the fact that Sophy is a good and honest person matters when it comes to social standing. This difference in social status obviously has a big effect on Sophy and Mr. Twycott both, as they must move to London and she becomes virtually a recluse. The theme of social status is more obvious later in the story as well, through the way that Sophy’s son treats her and the way she thinks about him. Her son Randolph is embarrassed at her poor origins, which are “his painful lot as a gentleman to blush for” (Hardy 157). For this reason, he refuses Sophy when she requests to re-marry with Sam. Randolph is angry at the suggestion because of what it will do to people’s perception of him, which is to “degrade [him] in the eyes of all the gentleman of England” (Hardy 163). Sophy is well aware of the difference in class between her and her son. Interestingly, she thinks about and worries over this problem that her son creates even when it is not to her advantage. These social standings are highlighted by the second theme of the work: marriage. Hardy shows that there is more than one reason for a woman to get married. The first of these is represented by Sophy’s aborted marriage to Sam Hobson, whom she does not particularly love but, now that she is lame, feels that she needs to marry because “it would be a home for [her]” (Hardy 154). This is tied to social standing as well: Sophy wants to marry so she is not a burden on Mr. Twycott with her lameness. The second type of marriage is one Sophy is pressured into because Mr. Twycott loves—or at least pities—her. Sophy “did not exactly love him” but did “respect” him and “hardly dared refuse a personage so reverend and august in her eyes,” so she agrees to marry him (Hardy 154). Sophy’s second attempt to marry Sam, this time because she does love him—or at least because she is depressed and lonely—also fails. This marriage would have been an escape from her dreary life, but is rejected by her son, who is disgusted with Sam’s low social status. The power of death, the third major theme, is what makes the last two of these marriages possible. The first Mrs. Twycott dies at the beginning of the story, which is what allows Sophy to marry her husband. The first wife’s death has a noticeable impact on the story, because it both brings Sophy and Sam closer together as “two young people, in that elevated, calmly philosophic mind which is engendered when a tragedy has happened close at hand, and has not happened to the philosophers themselves” but still has “its bearing upon their relations” (Hardy 153). Mr. Twycott’s death later allows Sam to renew his suit, with all the consequences laid out above. Finally, Sophy’s death at the end of the story brings into sharpt relief the percieved social relationships between Sophy, Sam, and Randolph. As the funeral procession goes by Sam’s shop, Randolph is described as “a young smooth-shaven priest in a high waistcoat [who] looked black as a cloud at the shopkeeper standing there” (Hardy 165). Hardy made several revisions to the story from his original version during the four different times it was published. There were over seventy differences in the various versions of the story. Most of these changes are, for instance, a lot were just to make the story fit with an American audience, in terms of spelling and such. In some cases Hardy’s changes clarify the details of the moment he is trying to portray, or they add or subtract some aspect of it. Two of the most interesting changes are between the pre-serial and serial. In the pre-serial form, the mother does not bring up the matter of marriage for three whole years, but in the final version she tries to convince her son every few months for the same period. This change obviously adds a lot of tension to the story that would not have been there otherwise, and even highlights some of the class differences. Another big change is the description of Sophy’s cheeks losing their color. In the revision, Hardy added more comments about how she spent hours and hours on her hair, making her depression more realistic and making her a more sympathetic character. In some regards, the changes and the themes in this story reflect George Darwin’s influence on Hardy. Hardy was introduced to Darwin’s ideas early on and they stuck. That can be seen in this story through the grim survival of the fittest type conflict between Randolph and his mother. Since the mother is not fit, she does not survive. This is typical of Hardy’s writing and also reflects the grim ideas of Darwin, where Man must successfully change to survive. Works Cited Hardy, Thomas. “The Son’s Veto.” The fiddler of the reels and other stories, 1888-1900. New York: Penguin, 2003. 150-165. Print. Read More