THOMAS HARDY & THERESA TOMLINSON RAISE SIMILAR ISSUES BUT IN DIFFERENT WAYS. A study of 'Tony Kytes, the Arch Deceiver' by Thomas Hardy and 'The Oakum Room' by Theresa Tomlinson. 'The Oakum Room' by Theresa Tomlinson is clearly a feminist story where the female characters stand up for themselves and unite in protest. At first reading, 'Tony Kytes the Arch Deceiver', instead seems to mock women, portraying them as weak, desperate and gullible. Although, upon re-examining …showed first 75 words of 1247 total…

…showed last 75 words of 1247 total…Arch Deceiver' to show that society makes everyone, including men, act stupidly. He could see how society turns one person against the other and so took advantage of this and turned it into a comical story. Perhaps his reason for decribing the women superficially as stereotypes of manipulative yet weak and gullible wiles was so that the majority of his readers and critics (mostly male at the time) would not react badly to his work.