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Thomas Hardy's 'The Ruined Maid'

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Thomas Hardy’s “The Ruined Maid” is very similar to Reba McEntire’s most known song, Fancy. In Hardy’s poem published in 1866 a story is told about a once farm girl who left life on the farm and is now pursuing prostitution. After sometime, her job has her living in a very nice town, rich, and well put together. In the Reba McEntire song “fancy” a story of an impoverished mother whose husband just left her. The mother had two kids, a baby and a daughter Fancy who had just turned eighteen. Due to the fact Fancy was now ineligible for welfare, her mother spent all the money she had to buy fancy a dress. The mother then left Fancy on the street corner with her lasts words of advice “just be nice to the gentleman fancy and they’ll be nice to you”.
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Throughout life, evolution, or change, becomes the center of each day as people overcome many different obstacles. Literature, such as in Thomas Hardy’s poem, “The Ruined Maid” and Karen Russell’s, “St. Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves,” often upholds the same idea about change. In Hardy’s poem, two country girls simply conversate about the times they were apart to emphasize how ‘Melia changed in the city, yet she kept her same individuality. On the other hand, Russell displays through her writing more obvious change as girls were trained by undergoing five different stages as a way to teach them how to conform to new environments while remembering who they were at the beginning. Both authors illustrate the importance of change while hanging on to one’s roots, but Hardy uses a naive tone to create tension between the two girls while Russell uses an abundance of symbolism to represent each stage of change.

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She had been born in squalor and lived in it all her life.” Miss Lottie dealt with the poverty-stricken life for years. She owned the most run-down house in the town, along with having a mentally disabled son. To her, the beauty of the marigolds lighten and bring colors to the ugly surroundings. Despite how desperate times are, Miss Lottie still enjoys painstaking the breathtaking yellow flowers that washed her worries away.

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She attempts to act as though things of luxury are nothing new to her, as members of the elite would. An instance this ideal becomes apparent is when she speaks of her dress, which represents her trying to assimilate into the upper class. In fact, “with the influence of the dress her personality had also undergone a change”(34), and upon being complimented on her dress she responds “‘It’s just a crazy old thing,’ she said. ‘I just slip it on sometimes when I don’t care what I look like’”(35). As a wife of an auto-shop owner, she hasn’t seen too much luxury in her life, and a luxurious dress of chiffon is not of commonplace to her.

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The speaker states, “I wish I had feathers, a fine sweeping gown, / And a delicate face, and could strut’ about Town!” While the victorian society creates the mindset of the people to believe that if you are ruined you are going to have a horrible life, but Hardy insists that those who are ruined do not suffer as much as those who are pure. Thomas Hardy may have put a twist on the poem, to make you believe the one who is “ruined” is Melia, where in reality it is those who still have their virginity. Throughout “The Ruined Maid,” Thomas Hardy displayed anapestic meter, rhythm, closed-form poetry, and imagery explaining the views of the victorian society among those who have become ruined.

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Polly sometimes envys the Shaw’s for having money, being able to buy what they want when they want it, while she on the other hand has to earn her own money to buy practical things rather than new dresses. The conflict intensifies when Tom was talking to Fanny one night at the opera, and said to his sister “It’s just Polly.” This deeply upsets Polly to hear one of her dearest friends say such a thing, and to refer to her as just Polly rather than a friend. Even Fanny continues to call Polly “Old fashioned” she might not mean it to be rude, but it still hurts Polly to be called names by her friends.

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Herman Melville allows us to join his narrator into “The Tartarus of Maids” on a quest to retrieve paper for packaging his seeds. Growing demand for the seeds came from Missouri, North and South Carolina who used them to repopulate forests like the Eastern and Northern States (1503). The economic climate pushed our seedsman narrator to leave behind the industrious wholesale market of the villages, “among bright farms and sunny meadows” (1502) sprouting upon the New England landscape. The seedsman narrator drove horse and sleigh to the foot of Woedolor Mountain into the Devil’s Dungeon and the Devil’s Dungeon paper-mill. There he purchases his paper from the bachelor proprietor Old Bach and his boy servant Cupid.

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In “St. Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves” the nuns use a shockingly casual tone when speaking to the girls, as if they understand the sacrifices the girls are going to have to make. For example, when the girls first arrive at St. Lucy’s and are running rabid around the courtyard the sister asks, “And what is your name?”(239). The nun asks this question as if she is speaking to a girl who knows how to respond despite the fact she knows the girls can not speak. In “The Ruined Maid” the author uses word choice to set the tone. By repeatedly using the word ‘ruined’ Melia does not let the country girl forget that despite how glamorous her life seems it does not come without a price.

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Thomas Hardy in his novel Tess of the D’ urbervilles has highlighted the life of a women who was being exploited by the society and her purity and chastity is questioned upon throughout the novel. In the nineteenth-century society, there were two types of women: Fallen women and good women. Good women were seen as pure and clean i.e. virgins until they get married and their bodies were seen as that of a goddess in a temple which should not be used for pleasure. Their role was to have children and take care of their household chores. The woman who did not fulfill the expectations of the people in the society and their family was considered as a fallen women.

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