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Alicia Roddenberg
Dr. Hobbs
Eng 122 CA16
01.14.09

Thomas Hardy’s The Three Strangers
In Thomas Hardy’s The Three Strangers, the way he introduces his characters helps to predict the outcome he intends to capture. Slowly Hardy brings the strangers whom arrive at the Shepard’s desolate cottage into the story. When the first and second strangers arrive, there is no sign of conflict or main objective in the story, yet the plot only beings to unravel with the entrance of the third and final stranger. With all guests having been introduced, Hardy allows for the conflict between justice and injustice to become blatantly clear. The author I believe is looking to show to the reader that things are not always as they seem, that a stranger’s intentions may be different than what you’ve expected, which inescapably can make someone feel deceived and mislead.
The story begins with the description of the Shepard’s cottage as a quaint and quiet home. It depicts the Shepard and his wife as reliable respectable citizens of a town they are hardly affiliated with. This is easily portrayed when the first stranger arrives and the Shepard does not think twice about allowing the intruding guest into his home. While the guest warms himself near the fire, the second guest arrives; he enters with more confidence about him which concerns the Shepardess. “He flung back his long drab greatcoat, revealing that beneath it he wore a suit of cinder-gray shade throughout, large heavy seals of some metal or other that would take a polish, dangling from his fob as his only personal ornament.” (Roberts 213) A bond between the first and second guest begins to form, as they converse and share a mug of mead.
Finally the tale all begins to become clear as the third stranger knocks. With his shaking knee he arrives and leaves within the same breath, which forces the guests of the cottage to look deeper into his purpose for stopping. This is where it is clear what the authors point is, that believing that everyone is genuine just makes you naïve. When the third stranger flees, the guests of the cottage all go in search after him when they learn of an escaped criminal from the neighboring jail. Yet once all the men leave, the first and second strangers return for more cake and mead, which just emphasizes the fact that neither of their intentions where pure and for the justice of the law.
Once the third stranger is cornered it brings the story to a close. He confesses that the first and third strangers are brothers, and the first stranger is actually the escaped criminal not the third. The way the first stranger deceives the Shepard shows how easy it is to be fooled by someone you don’t know the intentions of. “But the intended punishment was cruelly disproportioned to the transgression, and the sympathy of a great many country-folk in that district was strongly on the side of the fugitive.” (Roberts 221) Everyone was fooled, even the second guest who was the scheduled hangman for the criminal. This story just shows that believing that everyone is honest and genuine is the easiest way to be misled.
When Thomas Hardy’s The Three Strangers begins the story is lacking in a direction for remainder of the story to proceed. Hardy develops his characters well which allows the reader to form their own opinions pertaining to them. This concludes his moral to the short story by proving that even the audience can be fooled by their own opinions. Hardy’s lasting point is that the Shepard welcomed in the drifters without thinking of the hazards of their entry and left the Shepard awestruck by a lesson that will forever be etched in his memory.

The Three Strangers: Close Reading
In the short story The Three Strangers, the narrator starts off by describing where the events of the story take place. As the narrator ends illustrating the setting of the story, he or she gets into the events of the story. Also, along with the setting and events of the story, the speaker begins to introduce many different characters. By starting with the very first event to the ending of the short story, the storyteller gives the reader information throughout the events to aid in brainstorming a conclusion or the climax of the story.
The narrator begins the story by introducing the setting of the story. The setting is in England where a small cottage is stationed no more than five miles from a country-town (Roberts, 208-08). The setting comes more into play during the climax of the story. The setting and the climax binds together to help create a conclusion. When the third stranger knocked on the door and became frightened of the first stranger and ran is where the climax and setting conjoins. The setting includes the cottage being near trees and uneven land, so when the third stranger ran off it was hard to find him in the dark with the trees scattered everywhere and the land being unequal.
The first of events of the story starts off begins with a party by Shepherd Fennel. “For that cheerful rustic was entertaining a large party in glorification of the christening of his second daughter.” (Roberts, 209) The next event was the first stranger appearing at the party. The first stranger claimed to be on his way home when he got caught in the rain near the Shepherd’s cottage. The event after that was the arrival of the second stranger, who was on a business trip and got caught in the rain. The third event was the appearance of the third stranger, who ran away from the cottage after seeing the first stranger in Shepherd Fennel’s cottage. The last event of the short is the capture of the so-called criminal and the ending of the story.
The most important characters of the story are the first, second, and third stranger. Stranger one was supposedly on his way home when he got in the rained and asked to wait at the cottage for a while. He appeared to have a supple frame, he might have been about forty years old, his clothes looked inexpensive, he was not more than five-feet eight or nine, he was dark in complexion and he had a deep rich voice. (Roberts, 211-12) The second stranger explained that he was on a business trip and got caught in the rain and asked to stay at the cottage for a while. “He was several years older than the first arrival, his hair was slightly frosted, his eyebrows bristly, whiskers cut back from his cheeks, and he had a full and flabby face and wore a suit of cinder-gray shade. (Roberts, 213) “The third stranger came and knocked on the door lightly. After seeing stranger number one, the third stranger began to tremble and shake and finally left the cottage quick.” (Roberts, 217)
The conclusion of the story ends with the narrator telling the reader about the gunshot the other two strangers and the people in the cottage heard after the third stranger ran away from the cottage. The gunshot was from the jail alerting people that a prisoner had escaped. The people at the house assumed stranger three was the escaped convict; they found him but soon learned he was not the prisoner. The third stranger than tells how he was going to the jail to visit stranger one but ran from the cottage when he recognized him at the party. After searching high and low, the first stranger was never found.

Katie Ganning
English 122 CA17
Dr. Hobbs
February 9, 2009

The Connection of Three Strangers

The overview of Thomas Hardy’s, Three Strangers, is a descriptive narrative that explains the 1800 English lifestyle, how simple people lived and enjoyed the nature surrounding them. During the story, a christening party is going on during a vicious storm and the people of the party are greeted by three suspicious characters that are passing by the small cottage. Each stranger is unknown, but by the end they ironically each have a strong connection. The narrator explains the story in two descriptive tenses, third-person limited-omniscient and omniscient point of view.

According to Robert’s text, Hardy uses a “mingling point of view” (Roberts 84). The narrator begins with their present time and explains in deep description of the small town in England. The narrator is unknown, but brings you to the conclusion they have listened to this story before and it has been passed down to him through the towns’ folk. Right away they recollect the past, of fifty years ago, and give you a specific scenic description about what the country and town look like, “Five miles of irregular upland, during the long inimical seasons, with their sleets, snows, rains, and mists, afford withdrawing space enough to isolate a Timon or a Nebuchadnezzar...” (Hardy 209). The narrator enforces the fact that the family who owned the cottage, which was a shepherd family, kept to themselves out in the country side and was very pleased with the small group of 18 attending their child’s christening party. Hardy’s language for the narrator is formal with the time the story was written and explained the characters voices as old English. They use explanation of the settings and emotions, rather than having the characters speak right away and throughout the scene.

Thomas Hardy has the narrator use a third-person omniscient limited and omniscient point of view. The narrator only speaks of the shepherd, shepherd’s wife and the three strangers’ thoughts and dialogue. The first two strangers do not speak a lot, but because of their mysterious appearances, continuous small talks and failure to give each stranger a name show that the narrator did not want you to forget about how creepy they interacted with the family and give away the connection between the three strangers. He emphasizes on the shepherd’s wife to be curious with both strangers “But what is the man’s calling, and where is he one of, that he should come in and join us like this?” (215). Once the narrator has exposed of who the second stranger is and explaining the third strangers quick escape out of the house, the point of view becomes omniscient. As the characters run to catch the third stranger, the first stranger returns to the cottage along with the second stranger. As they catch the third character, and the other two characters have already left, it is revealed of whom each stranger’s name.

Since the third-person speaker is presenting the story that happen almost fifty years ago, it is hard to understand if the story can be accurate or if the story was passed down. He/she seems to know enough information to make the reader believe that the shepherd family could possibly be apart of his family history. When the third stranger began running away from the cottage, you draw a conclusion that he is obviously hiding from someone, but ironically the first stranger was running away from the second stranger and knew all along whom the second stranger was.

Works Cited
Hardy, Thomas. “Three Strangers.” Edgar V. Roberts. Writing About Literature. Brief 11th ed. Upper Saddle River: Prentice Hall, 2006. 208-222.
Roberts, Edgar V. “Writing About Literature.” Brief 11th ed. Upper Saddle River: Prentice Hall, 2006.