‘Old Mrs Chundle’ is known as a short tale set in a village in southern Britain. It was written by Thomas Sturdy between 1880 and 1890. It is a account of a kind popular at that time, a gripping story which is amusing although also has a character we can sympathise with. It is set up against the background of country people to whom religion and the clergymen who displayed religion had been very important. Clergymen were remedied with wonderful respect and people attended house of worship services frequently, with the house of worship activities becoming a main concentrate of the their lives.
It was especially the case in non-urban communities. ‘A Visit of Charity’ is actually a short history set in an extremely different place, a small town in America in 1949. That concerns those activities of a Campfire Girl, the industry kind of Woman Guide, and the sort of group which central class women of that time would become a member of. These girls would take those aims and activities from the Campfire Young ladies seriously, as well as the story is around Marian, who will be visiting the older in order to get points.
She requires points to have a badge.
Both stories possess a common twine which makes these people comparable, although they are so distinct ” attitudes to and treatment of the elderly and to charitable organisation, in the sense of caring for the elderly. Both concern the connections between a do- gooder ( Hardy’s curate) and Welty’s Marian) and outdated ladies (Mrs Chundle and the old women in the Home) In ‘Old Mrs Chundle’ we satisfy the curate, new to the parish, who wants to produce a good impression, certainly to his managers. He is an enhanced young man whom sketches ‘he thought he’d make slightly water shade sketch’.
This individual does not speak in the vernacular of the locals which reveals how he can socially previously mentioned them and more educated than them. He uses patronising phrases such as ‘my good woman’. He can not able to understand what makes a person like Mrs Chundle tick, as he does not have any kind of experience. The rector, who will be from the same social qualifications as the curate, provides learned a number of things from experience, and warns the curate ‘you should have still left the old woman alone’. The curate are not able to understand why any person would sit about likely to church. He’s not able to cope when things become difficult or messy and he gives up.
When the smell of Mrs Chundle’s oniony inhale blasts into his deal with from the ear canal trumpet, these kinds of a unpleasant incident because could be predicted from a great elderly person, is beyond the curate’s ideal community. He is disheartened and disappointed easily the moment faced with a setback. He immediately programs to back out of helping Mrs Chundle, preferably with no telling her. This reveals the curate as a rather cowardly person. It would have been completely better intended for him to explain to Mrs Chundle that his idea had not performed, and that he will try to consider something else.
He only wants to help her in a ” light ” way in order to promote himself as performing as he considers it should be completed. He are not able to cope. This individual avoids going to see Mrs Chundle after the pipe can be removed so as not to need to discuss it with her, and by enough time he will go, she actually is dead. He then feels accountable at having let her down and that she thought so extremely of him she put him in her Will certainly, and kneels in prayer. However this is simply for some a few minutes, then he “rose, cleaned the knees of his trousers and walked on’.
In other words, this individual brushed Mrs Chundle aside. The image of him cleaning dust off his trousers is short for brushing apart the old girl. However , the death of Mrs Chundle upset him ” “his eyes had been wet and Hardy tells us that the curate was “a meek youthful man. The curate “stood still thinking, and perhaps he was considering just how badly he previously handled the problem. Hardy leaves us to wonder if the curate really does certainly not care about what has took place, or whether during his reflections he has regarded better techniques for dealing with persons in the future.
Mrs Chundle is portrayed because an independent and capable older lady ” she develops and at home cooks her individual food, and runs an appropriate home. She respects the clergy ‘I don’t want to eat with my betters’. She has never travelled. Nobody seems to have helped her get over her deafness and she’s pleased by the curate’s attempts, enough that will put him in he Will. But she does have neighbours who also care about her. The gulf between the interpersonal class of Mrs Chundle and the curate is emphasised by the reality he is by no means named and she is. Marian, in ‘A Visit of Charity’ through contrast a new teenager.
She’ll visit some old girls whom she does not know in a Home, with regards to earning Campfire Girl items. She will not really want to try this as she’s frightened of what the lady might find. Your woman only needs a plant to earn another point. Her main fascination is to get away as quickly since possible- any old lady will perform. The lady probably seems under pressure in the girls in her group to acquire these points, so as to be similar to all the other Campfire Girls. The nurse in the home is impersonal and cold. She is not very alert to Marion because she has viewed Campfire Young ladies before and knows why they have arrive.
She presents the establishment ” she actually is dress in white-colored (a cool colour) her hair is similar to a ‘sea wave’ (the sea is definitely cold and you will drown in it). Chinese used in both the stories helps you to set the scenes and enable the reader to picture the situations and understand the character types. In ‘A Visit of Charity’, the scene is set at the beginning like a “very cold day. The American term “Campfire Girl shows us that the account is set in America and the information of Marion’s clothes gives us an idea that the period is overdue 1940’s to 1950’s.
The atmosphere in the story is cold. The house is around the “outskirts in the town, separated rather than inside the cosy centre. The city is said, ironically, to have beautified your home with “dark prickly shrubs. The author uses the suggestions of sizzling and cool, light and dark to paint a rather grim forboding picture of the Home. The character of the nurse is given formal language, which represents the cold of the Home. The girl speaks curtly and curiously formally’Aquainted’¦. Rather than ‘do you understand ‘ or perhaps ‘have you met’.
Your woman refers to the plant by its Latin brand “multiflora cineraria instead of like a ‘pretty plant’. She says “Visitor! to the old ladies, as if it was a command word instead of an introduction. The nurse’s speech can be short well-defined and thinning which is malicious. Her setting of speaking adds to each of our image of the treatment of the old females being a period wasting work or annoying job rather than them being treated since people who want care. Both old girls have a conversation rather in which that they repeat what each other claim “Did not ” “Did so. “Pretty flowers ” “they are certainly not pretty.
By use of this kind of repetition, there is certainly emphasis on the pointlessness from the conversation, plus the pattern in the words, “pretty and “not pretty draws the reader’s attention to this. One of the old ladies refers to the plant since “stinkweed plus the adjective “stink could refer to the ladies or the Home. Throughout the visit, in the old girl’s room, Marion has problems speaking “Marion breathed. She also forgot her own name. Yet a clear , crisp contrast can be presented once she leaves the Home to return into her own world, because the girl shouts a command for the bus driver “wait intended for me.
In the Hardy history, the language frequently reflects the different age where the story was written and uses terms or constructions which strike us because old fashioned for example , ‘ was not a week ‘ ‘passed in the way hither’. The curate had a ‘cambric handkerchief’. Chinese used in the speech of Mrs Chundle is unusual to all of us but if read aloud, the patterns reveal her western world country language. The words provided to the curate and to the rector include only formal language, similar to the story on its own. The language is quite stilted, in contrast to that in ‘A Go to of Charity’, which is more similar to this language.
Robust conveys the heat of Mrs Chundle in her dialect, and in the detail of her home ” a ‘wood fire’ sounds cosy. Her meals are warm ” ‘boiled bacon’ onion stew’ and they are comfortable. The rector is place across like a warmer, milder character compared to the curate. The rector has been around his job for ‘thirteen years’ which provides an older even more experience guy. He ‘chuckles’ which softens him when compared to curate. ‘Old Mrs Chundle’ consists of formal old fashioned British, and presentation dialect. ‘A Visit of Charity’ consists of less formal English, since it is American and was crafted later.
The speech can be not in dialect. There may be more variety of language in ‘Old Mrs Chundle’. This ladies in ‘A Visit of Charity’ are described as insane and bodily repulsive ‘like a sheep bleating’. The property is unpleasant. It aromas ‘like the inside of a clock’The old lady’s hands had been claws and one of them cried. The whole place made Marian feel sick. Eventually Marian escaped throughout the heavy door. The whole experience made her scared of old people, since these aged ladies had been presented as being so upsetting and distressing.
The grimness of the Home can be conveyed by the imagery in the ‘heavy door’ through which Marion ‘escapes’ (as if by a prison). The picture is completed by the ‘prickly’ plant outside of the large door. If the Home had been warm and welcoming and a kindly place, the doorway would have been described as being created of a warm type of real wood and there would have recently been pretty or attractive plants and flowers as a pleasing sign. The imagery of a kind of penitentiary frontage, along with the day staying cold offers us an effect of the behaviour of the Home.
Although Mrs Chundle is pictured as an eccentric hard of hearing old lady, she is displayed as actual and warm, with a residence. She has nearby neighbours and is element of a community. The curate attempted to bring her into the chapel. However , the ladies in ‘A Visit of Charity’ are described as angry and unpleasant, made also by their unpleasant uncaring surroundings and impersonal carers. The 2 stories display how care of the elderly acquired changed in the years among when they were written coming from being respectable within a community to becoming degraded in a Home, and only went to for the visitor’s purposes.
At least the curate, although this individual does not totally have Mrs Chundle’s well being as his main concern, truly does do something to assist her, but nothing is done intended for the old women in the Home. Another contrast involving the two testimonies is demonstrated in the way we could introduced to seniors people. In Mrs Chundle, our character is reported by term frequently and she has a charming way of speaking in the west region dialect; dialects often reflect warm, simple types of individuals. In ‘A Visit of Charity’ the nurse tells Marion ‘there are two in every room’ and Marion miracles of what are there two.
The nurse is actually talking about elderly people nevertheless shows with this expression simply no respect to them. She also would not greet them by brand ” she rudely announces ‘visitor’ not really explaining whom the visitor is definitely. This displays how the aged ladies in the Home are considered with contempt and as of low importance, certainly not as proper individuals. The thoughts of Marion likening a few of her experiences in the Home to sheep and bleating enhances the impression presented to all of us of the care or additional wise of the elderly women.
One outdated lady really does refer to her room lover as ‘old Addie’ but it is not clear whether that truly is her name or perhaps ranting for the old lady. These two testimonies illustrate the giving of charity in different techniques. In the ‘Old Mrs Chundle’, the curate tries to ensure that the old girl mostly since it is his job, but she’s shown as being in a community that cares. Although the efforts of the curate were temporary and perhaps certainly not from solely selfless reasons, the nearby neighbours cared for her and she lived in her own home and was content in her own way.
The curate was not really cruel to her and your woman appreciated him more than he deserved. Nevertheless , in ‘A Visit of Charity’ no caring personality appears without character provides anything to the old ladies ” the nurse is doing a pain job plus the girl is definitely gaining items for himself. The old girls get absolutely nothing from the two of these people. It is probably rare for anybody to totally offer of themselves for nothing inturn, but in the two of these stories, the smoothness who benefits most is clearly Mrs Chundle.
The stories illustrate the fact the fact that best care and matter comes certainly not from paid workers ( curates or perhaps nurses) yet from the people in the community (in the Hardy story the neighbours, but they could be family). Care of seniors in the late nineteenth century country England and immediately content war America is not really similar. However , there has been for many years a decline in care in communities and the help of friends family or perhaps religious organisation and a rise in care by social employees medical employees and paid out homes.
This really is a tendency in communities in the western world, the place that the elderly will be increasingly thought of a nuisances (the authorities does not wish to increase the Old Age Pensions as it believes the money can be better put in, and private hospitals do not need to treat old people as being a doctors think it is more cost effective if the old person dies) instead of as property to be respected for their experience and knowledge. The clashes in perceptions to and care of the elderly in the two stories examined reflect these trends.
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