Middle Class Housemaid Analysis

For my creative task I’ve chosen to write a diary entry piece, where a middle-class woman Catherine feels pity for her young lower-class housemaid and also has feelings towards her as she would for a man, thus spawning a debate in herself wheter to succumb to those feelings or keep herself on a pious path. At the time in England, during the industrial revolution, young lower-class women were hired by the wealthy women as babysitters or housemaids and they could work up to 12 hours a day which resulted in spending much time at the presence of her employer who also stayed home much of the time. The previous often developed a friendship or a trust between those women which I got inspiration from. Also, at the time homosexuality was frowned upon thus ruling out all those types of feelings and relationships, escpecially in the higher-classes who were firm on the strict moral code and prudent values. I tried to mimic a Victorian high-class woman and to make those diary entrys as authentic as possible taking into account the literary works published and writers thoughts at the time, for example Charles Darvin and R.L.Stevenson.

1. May 1866

She was begging at the docs all dirty and stinky like. My husband made quick with her arrangements for he would be traveling in the next year and I would be in need of a maid. Maybe. Well, I bathed her and clothed her and sat her. I’m not acquinted with keeping a maid but she does have stories, only nineteen but worked for ten, family is dead and she, mercy me, has no place but the street. Pity. Well I reckon she can scoop up the occasional lint and she should be able to cook, atleast she don’t have to sleep on the ground no more. Still and all, I’m going to miss my husband. Strength be with