Thomas Hardy The Ruined Maid

“The Paradise of Bachelors and the Tartarus Maids,” shows an interesting contrast between two different social classes: that of the extravagant bachelors and the hardworking maids. Melville uses symbolism and metaphors to expresses the economic reality between both environments and the inequality between genders. The maids work very hard to make the paradise for the bachelors, and the bachelors only worked hard in making a living hell for the working women. The bachelors only hired single women to work long hours for little pay even if their health was declining from the hazardous conditions. The bachelor’s only concern was maintaining

Context: For centuries, women have been unjustly considered inferior to men and have had to cope with many inequities. While they have gradually gained more rights, the Industrial Revolutions have created new ways for men to exploit women and have made women even more dependent on their husbands.

“To be happy in life you must learn the difference between what you want vs need” (unknown). Most people who can not decipher between want and need don not appreciate life and objects to the fullest. An imbalance of these things can cause unhappiness, bad relationships, and debt. Deciding between things people want and what is need can be hard. The pain of having an imbalance is shown in The Necklace, The Golden Touch, and Avarice.

Change is a part of life that can be beneficial, harmful, or both. Every day people dream of becoming something they are not with hopes they can achieve what they believe to be a better life. In “The Ruined Maid” by Thomas Hardy and “St. Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves” by Karen Russell, both narrators undergo a drastic transition in their lifestyles. In Hardy’s poem the narrator, Melia, goes from living a simple farm life, to living a luxurious life as a prostitute. In Russell’s short story the narrator, Claudette, transitions from life as a wolf-girl to becoming an average human girl. Though the content might be different, the theme of these two pieces of literature are the same. The theme being that change does not come without sacrifice.

''Greed is a bottomless pit which exhausts the person in an endless effort to satisfy the need without ever reaching satisfaction'' is a quote by Eric Fromm that can describe the character of Mathilde Loisel in ''The Necklace'' by Guy de Maupassant that focus on an unhappy woman who feels she is far above her simple lifestyle and wish for a more luxurious life, while the grandmother in ''A Good Man is Hard To Find'' by O'Connor Flannery, which focus on an old southern woman who look down upon everyone because of her past importance. Both story writing in a different place and time, however, both characters have the same struggle regarding greed and pride which lead to they downfall. The authors emphasis greatly on class, appearance and greed.

Dr. Swift’s, The Lady’s Dressing Room, is an 18th century satirical poem that addresses British social issues via the lens of feminine beauty, and how that beauty is a form of artifice. The poem uses beauty as a sort of philosophical metaphor for the main character, Strephon, to confront the realistic underbelly of feminine beauty/hygiene, which is portrayed as lurid and shocking, for the purpose of personal and social vanity. The poem was labeled misogynistic at the time of its writing, and continues to be viewed as such. Lady Mary Wortley Montagu issued a response to Dr. Swift in a poem called The Reasons that Induced Dr. S to Write a Poem Called The Lady’s Dressing Room. Lady Montagu’s poem fabricates a poetic and witty story as to why Dr. Swift would write his poem, which is an embarrassing encounter with a prostitute. While Montagu’s poem does not claim authenticity of the story being told, she does take Dr. Swift to task over the misogynistic tones that he used to write his poem. The primary issue that Lady Montagu argues in her poem is that Dr. Swift, despite raising valid issues, negates his argument because of his strong berating of

Throughout this piece of literature, “The Midwife’s Apprentice”, Alyce (or Beetle) went from having no self esteem to having self esteem back to no self esteem. Beetle self esteem raised in chapter 5, “The Merchant”, when a merchant gave her a comb and a compliment. The compliment was “Comb those long curls till they shine, girl, and sure you'll have a lover before nightfall.” This compliment was the first one Beetle ever had received and it made her feel better about herself. She was also called a person she was not, Alyce. This person could read. Since, someone thought that Beetle was that girl named Alyce. So, she changed her name to Alyce. Since someone thought that she was someone who could read, that also raised her self esteem. Then her self esteem dropped in chapter

The essay I chose to compare Dracula with was “Kiss Me With Those Red Lips: Gender and Inversion in Bram Stoker’s Dracula” by Christopher Craft. The essay explains the sexuality in Dracula, desire, gender, and even homosexuality. Craft mentions his essay gives an account of Stoker’s “vampire metaphor” (Craft 108). He highlights certain and very valid points in the story of Dracula that breaks the Victorian gender role, writing, “a pivotal anxiety of late Victorian culture.” (Craft 108). Craft examines the usual roles of the Victorian men and women, passive women especially, requiring them to “suffer and be still”. The men of this time were higher up on the important ladder of that era. Craft believes the men are the “doers” or active ones in

The poem Barbie doll by Marge Piercy is about a little girl who grows up only to kill herself for not living up to society’s standards. The speaker shows how she had a normal childhood and was happy playing with here baby dolls and toy stove. However, during puberty, her body changed and everyone noticed. She was criticized for her “fat nose and thick legs”. She tried to change by dieting and exercising, but soon tired of doing so. She then cut off her nose and arms in order to please the rest of society. Only at her funeral did people finally say she was pretty. As shown in this poem, the criticism placed on women in our society is a continuously growing problem today. By using imagery, symbolism, and diction, Piercy demonstrates the high standards placed on girls at a very young age.

‘Melia was a farm girl with little to her name, but by going against the norm, she improved her life. Each stanza of the poem compares her life to before and after her choice. One example of this in stanza four discusses the outward physical appearance of ‘Melia, “Your hands were like paws then, your face blue and bleak/ But now I’m bewitched by your delicate cheek…” However, while breaking the ideals of society may work for some people, it may not work as well for others. Hardy touches on this idea at the end of his poem saying, “My dear- a raw country girl, such as you be, / Cannot quite expect that.” Not all personality types can make the choice to ignore society like ‘Melia did, but there are other aspects of life which can be

In her personal narrative, “Context” (1994), Dorothy Allison explores the ways in which the context of her life impacted her childhood and adult life. She also shows that when context is not fully understood, it can often create a gap between people who have different backgrounds. Dorothy Allison uses comparisons, flashbacks, and gives examples from personal experience to support her claims. She describes scenes from her life in order for readers to recognize how context gives people the facility to understand others and have distinct perspectives of others. She targets the general public as her audience for this piece of writing.

Jane Austen lived in a period at the turn from the eighteenth century to the nineteenth century, which was a period of mixed thoughts, which conflicted all the times. Among all the conflicts, the most important one was the disparity in social status between men and women. Not only men’s status was in the center of the society but also common people thought it was right that men were much more important than women were. In those days girls were neither allowed nor expected to study much because they did not have to work for a living. They were supposed to stay at home and look beautiful in order to get suitable husbands. Jane Austen, especially in Pride and Prejudice has manage to convey that a woman can be intelligent and her intelligence can be very impressive. Elizabeth Bennet is good- looking but Darcy is more influenced by her witty answers and intelligence rather than her beauty. The present paper discuss that how Austen, through her character of Elizabeth Bennet, showed that intelligent woman can succeed in society.

Nick begins to give his point of view on Gatsby’s thought process closer to his death, describing how Gatsby must have seen an “unfamiliar sky”, “frightening leaves” and “grotesque...rose”. The eerie connotation of the adjectives in the phrases contrasts the positive connotation of the natural objects. Through the negative pattern of diction, Fitzgerald creates a haunting mood, which gives the reader a sense of how this new and strange reality that Gatsby has to endure frightens him. Because Gatsby was so caught up in his unrealistic world of old money, that after losing Daisy, he was left with nothing but the scary truth about his new reality, which emphasizes the isolation he must have felt during his time in his superficial world. Nick’s description of how grotesque a rose is to Gatsby contrasts with the romantic symbolism behind it. According to Fitzgerald, the grotesque rose highlights the destruction of the relationship between Gatsby and Daisy. Upon Daisy’s decision to leave Gatsby to be with Tom, Gatsby starts to see how his rose is disfigured because now he is starting to see that Daisy is not the perfection he strived for her to be. This highlights how Gatsby starts to see that he was isolated from Daisy and Tom since the

It is no secret that men and women are treated differently still to this day. However, during the Victorian Era women were treated with very little respect. They were expected to be homemakers, and not voice their opinions. "The Ruined Maid" by Thomas Hardy and "The Yellow Wallpaper" by Charlotte Gilman were both written during this time. Even though these stories were written in the same time period, the protagonist thoughts about the Victorian Era were different.

Feeling himself as a 'misfit ', Hardy was always in a disagreement with editors and critics, thus he had to edit his texts to conform the Victorian Society. In this way, he identified himself with the suppressed classes. Rosemarie Morgan thinks that continuous censure, criticism and frustration is precisely what increased his sympathy towards women who were coerced to conform to the men 's world (Morgan, 2006, p.15).