The Ruined Maid

• "Ruin"

  • repeated at the end of every stanza (makes it seem desirable)
  • connotes that ruin is inescapable
  • connotes that she is not ashamed of her social status
• "O didn't you know I'd been ruined?"

  • casual tone
  • her defining quality in the eyes of society
  • irony of wealth being equated with ruin
• "But now I'm bewitched by your delicate cheek."

  • her new found status is supernaturally alluring and enticing
  • something her friend can only dream of having
  • delicacy is associated with wealth
• "Your hands were like paws then, your face blue and black."

  • laboring class described as being inhuman (animalistic)
• Written by Thomas Hardy who was a Victorian realist (examined social constraints). He also critiques the sexual exploitation of women.
• Written in the Victorian period

  • return to themes of isolation
  • deep divisions between rich and poor, men and women
  • accelerated growth in European economy
  • strict in terms of permitted sexual relations
  • poetry was idealistic
• SYNOPSIS

  Reunion of 2 former neighbors who are now in opposing circumstances

  • the mistress of a rich man/a prostitute
  • a farm woman in poverty
• AABB rhyme scheme

  • lively beat
  • evokes the rural friend's babbling tone
  • 2 rhyming couplets - like dialogue
  • cyclical - trapped in poverty and societal judgments
• LINKS TO GATSBY

  • the 'friend' focuses heavily on Emilia's clothing, displaying a materialistic type of love - like Daisy crying over Gatsby's shirts
• CRITIC (AO5)

  • Feminists would argue that there is gender inequality as both women are ruined in some way