Stanley Renner's 'The Ruined Maid'

Poverty and hardship are shown to create vulnerability in female characters, particularly the female servants, allowing powerful men to manipulate and sexually abuse them. Kent illustrates how poverty perpetuates maltreatment and abuse in a society like Burial Rites using the characters of Agnes’ mother Ingveldur and Agnes. Agnes’ mother is forced to make invidious choices as her children are “lugged along” from farm to farm, where she is sexually exploited by her employers. In spite of these circumstances, Agnes’ mother is commonly referred to as a whore in their society which abhors female promiscuity yet disregards male promiscuity as a harmless character trait; as in the case of Natan, who is merely “indiscreet” despite all his philandering. Born into poverty, Agnes experiences similar sexual coercion and manipulation from her “masters” and yet is labelled “a woman who is loose with her emotions and looser with her morals”. The severe poverty of Agnes is explicitly demonstrated to the reader by Kent through the intertextual reference of her entire belongings - a very dismal, piteous list to be “sold if a decent offer is presented”. Furthermore, Kent contrasts the situation of Agnes, a “landless workmaid raised on a porridge of moss and poverty”, to the comparative security Steina has experienced using a rhetorical question from

The maid with the lime panties is one of Heller’s most obvious commentaries. Her entire role in the book is to be of service to the men. "Her allure stemmed from her accessibility; like Mt. Everest, she was there, and the men climbed on top of her each time they felt the urge."

In the story “The Wedding Gift” the protagonist is Kezia Barnes. She is an orphan taken in at the age of fourteen by the Barclay’s as a worker. In the beginning of the story Kezia is well-mannered, naive and very quiet. In the text it says, “She was a meek little thing, as become an orphan brought up as a house help in the Barclay’s home.” The Barclay’s behavior towards Kezia is that they treat her, as if she is less of a human in the house. An example of this is when the Barclays’s fixed an arrange marriage for Kezia with someone much older than her, for their own good. Although, Kezia was not very fond of the decision. She remained quiet. As the story evolves, Kezia becomes rebellious. During their journey to Bristol Creek, due to a brutal

Society is often seen to have different biases or perspectives on topics such as the role and perception of women. The short story, “Girl” by Jamaica Kincaid, consists primarily of a catalog of commands and instructions, the purpose of which is to make sure that the mother’s daughter is constantly in check and not getting into any trouble. Jamaica Kincaid utilizes a wide range of techniques such as symbolism and diction in order to showcase the theme of how the depiction of women rely mainly on how they present themselves in the public and how they are so easily described as impure or filthy.

The narration of the mother lecturing her daughter with commanding diction leads to the theme of women conforming to domesticity and if they don’t conform then they will lead a life of promiscuity that will affect the way people perceive them. Women in the past believed that a woman’s role was that of a domesticated housewife. The narration of the third point of view in this story and the commanding diction of it places an importance in the reinforcement of this idea, that if a woman doesn’t follow social norms, she will eventually turn to a “slut” one that her family will be ashamed of. She must set the table for lunch and for breakfast that is “how to behave in the presence of men who don’t know [her] very well, and that it the way they won’t recognize immediately the slut that [the mother has] warned her against becoming.”(Kincaid 485) through her commanding diction, the mother is telling her daughter how to set a table, how to cook, she

Women in history stood best known for a less ascendant sex in the mid-nineteen centuries. Since times have gone by women had fought for their equal rights and freedom. There had been many stereotypes, where the women were considered as a slave to the men’s because the women’s position was to be the homemakers and a mother to their children, while the men’s are out socializing with others. If they were not happy with the marriage, they cannot just walk out or complain because a women role is to endure all these pains without a word coming out of their mouths. Two out of the ordinary short stories, “The Yellow Wallpaper” and “The Story of An Hour,” mostly focused on a women’s dilemma that they faced near the 19th century. The two main characters in the short stories show some resemblances in some ways, but both characters portrayed them in different ways of how they dealt their sorrows in their marriages.

Almost like her parents didn’t even know who she was anymore. The narrator thought that “sleeping with someone was perfectly normal once you had done it” and afterward, “you didn’t really worry about it” (418), but there were always more things to worry about then just the sex. “It was different for a girl” than a guy with how many your body count was. (417) For a guy, “the more girls a boy has, the better”, but “for a girl, each boy it’s as though a petal gets plucked each time.” (419) This quote represents most of the story because she is saying as she goes on the story that she isn’t herself anymore, nor feels like

For centuries, women have had the role of being the perfect and typical house wife; needs to stay home and watch the children, cook for husbands, tend to the laundry and chores around the house. In her short story “Girl”, Jamaica Kincaid provides a long one sentence short story about a mother giving specific instructions to her daughter but with one question towards the end, with the daughter’s mother telling her daughter if she had done all the instructions to become a so called “perfect” woman, every man would want her. Kincaid’s structuring in “Girl,” captures a demanding and commanding tone. This short story relates to feminist perspectives. The mother expects a great deal from her daughter to have a certain potential and she does not hesitate to let her daughter understand that. As a matter of fact, the story is about two pages long, made into one long sentence - almost the whole time the mother is giving her daughter directions to follow - conveys a message to the reader that the mother demands and expects great potential in her daughter. The daughter is forced to listen and learn from what her mother is telling her to do to become the perfect housewife. Throughout the story, Kincaid uses the symbols of the house and clothing, benna and food to represent the meanings of becoming a young girl to a woman and being treated like one in society. Women are portrayed to appeal to a man to become the ideal woman in society, while men can do anything they please.

The Farmer’s Bride is a poem written in the point of view of a farmer who chose a bride “three summers ago”. He describes their relationship and how they were wed. At one point in the story, his bride ran away and he forcefully recaptured her and locked her up in his attic. He expresses his sadness and frustration at not having children with her. He was wrong to forcibly capture her and lock her up in his attic, but because of how he was raised, and being a farmer - he should not be blamed for his actions. As readers, we know that his intentions were not to hurt his bride.

Through it’s carefully chosen soundtrack of cheerful music on a drearily rainy day, the film’s opening underscores an immediate clash perfectly coinciding with it’s opening characters dispositions, and the entire movie’s demeanor. The pleasant mood of Mary the maid is contrasted with her dreadfully miserable and snobbish ladyship, the Countess of Trentham. Even though Mary suffers being drenched in the rain, she appears excited for the trip, while the securely dry and well taken care of Countess appears to be vehemently protesting.

What if beer was never invented? What would fraternities take pride in? What would they do in place of a keg stand? What would be the drink of choice for white dads across America? A world where my dad can be seen drinking a girly drink while admiring the freshly cut lawn is a humorous yet alarming possibility. This nightmarish thought would be reality without women. Research lead by historian Jane Peyton, supports the idea that women's specialty for millenniums was brewing beer. Although women are more to society than the keepers of the art of brewing, this is one startling difference that women have made on society. Women are capable of working hard, specializing in areas of expertise and intellectually competent. Marge Piercy would agree that women hold great potential, if not hindered by the harmful effects of misogyny and the patriarchal tendencies of society. Although to the untrained eye, “A Work of Artifice” may appear to be simply about bonsai trees, the poem actually uses an extended metaphor to emphasize

Everyone wants control in his or her lives simply because control is a significant aspect of one’s psychological well-being. Many of the most difficult situations in life involve cases where events are happening, and the person has absolutely no say in how they turn out. In the play, The Cripple of Inishmaan, Billy is exactly that. He is powerless in the sense that he has no personal power. In his case it is more about the power that one has over himself rather than over others.

The Ruined Maid was written by Thomas Hardy, who back in the Victorian days was all about exploring into the sexual norms. Being "ruined" in those days meant to have sexual affairs outside your marriage or to lose your virginity before getting married which was frowned upon back then. The "ruined" maid in the poem was a young girl who became a rich man's mistress to escape her own poverty. Her un-ruined friend, who still is a poor country farmer envies her "ruined" friend, "You left us in tatters, without shoes or socks, Tired of digging potatoes, and spudding up docks; And now you've gay bracelets and bright feathers three!"

In Gabriel García Márquez’s short story “Innocent Eréndira and Her Heartless Grandmother,” fourteen year old Eréndira makes a mistake that changes the rest of her life. When she accidentally burns down her grandmothers house by leaving a candle burning at night, her grandmother states that Eréndira’s “life won't be long enough […] to pay [her] back for this mishap” (Márquez 7). In order to pay her grandmother back, Eréndira is sold into prostitution, losing her virginity to “the village storekeeper […] who was quite well known in the desert for the good price he paid for virginity.” They continue on, going town to town selling Eréndira to any man who was willing to pay. Despite the fact that Eréndira is still just a young girl, her grandmother

In 1960s, a young beautiful western girl, a daughter of a normal couple from the underclass, is sold to an aged duke to be one of his concubine. She has a person she loves at the moment, they are childhood sweetheart; however, she has no choice to resist her parents’ decision but giving up her happiness, since her family need money to survive. She attends the wedding with desperation and hopelessness. Under the pitiless and contemptuous gaze by those guests, she realizes that there will only be darkness and endless unhappiness left in the rest of her life.