CONTEXT

• Written in Victorian era. Deep divisions between the rich and the poor, the upper classes and lower classes and men and women. Hardy critiques the Victorian norm of sexually demonising and exploiting women.
• England experienced great changes under queen victoria such as advances in technology, through the industrial revolution, which led to accelerated growth in the economy. This in turn saw the creation of large amounts of wealth which mostly benefitted the middle classes.
• Sex in the victorian era was rarely discussed so most were ill-informed and emotionally separated from sexual matters. Aditionally moral panic over prostitution was at it's height in the 1850s and 1860s. Partly because it symbolised female power and independence.
• Advances in tech led to further use of factories and a disregard of agriculture - evident in the poem.
• The victorian period was known to be carefully censored from themes like Sex. Hardy passionately opposed these constraints and wrote about the horrors of war and the suffering of the poor.
• The victorian period tackled issues of love, truth and justice. It often brought light to the lower class struggles and women's place in society and their reliance on men which is heavily discussed in the poem.
• Hardy is considered to be a Victorian realist examining the social constraints on the lives of those in Britain.
• Hardy was deeply influenced by his rural upbringing where he saw and experienced the kind of suffering examined in "The Ruined Maid" Hardy became passionate about the denouncement of sexual hypocrisy and misogyny.
• The poem casts a weary eye on the Victorian woman's life; femininity was demonised nd constantly exploited by men remorsefully.
• Queen victoria's reign was contradictory - she was very successful and well respected but her approach to society was that we must maintain traditional gender roles and that women must be subservient to the man.
• Double standard: Women constricted to being reserved and unable to express sexual freedom whereas men could do as they pleased.
• A women known to have had an affair was rejected by respectable society. They often resorted to prostitution and class divisions and the wealth gap only alleviated this problem.
• Hardy's purpose of the poem is to illustrate how although moving to the city, away from the countryside, to become a mistress to a wealthy man can be desirable, it comes with a lot of prejudice including societal shame.
• It takes the form of a conservation to highlight the distinct differences between a countryside girl to a city girl.