Irony In 2 Short Excerpts In “The Ruined Maid”Essay Preview: Irony In 2 Short Excerpts In “The Ruined Maid”Report this essayThis poem has long been a favorite of mine. In playful verse, Hardy manages to make a life of sin seem more attractive than one of virtue. By contrasting Audrey and her grubby country life of drudgery with that of Amelia, the fallen woman with fine clothes and leisure, he suggests that virtue is its own reward. Audreys parting comment about wishing she could enjoy such a life is countered by Amelia pointing out that she cannot unless she is also ruined. One wonders if Audrey follows in her friends footsteps. Incidently, Elsa Lanchester recorded this poem as a song on her Bawdy Cockney Songs album, some decades ago. It is a delightful ditty.
In The Ruined Maid, which Hardy wrote in 1866, Hardy focuses on one womans recent loss of chastity and how she is perceived by a once close friend who is returning to town. This Maid has found herself marring above her status and prostituting herself for riches and prosperity. Rather than feeling ashamed of her actions, she expresses a sense of pride in her self and confidence in her sex, much like a suffragettes attitude of the time. In the last line of each stanza, she points out how she is ruined; however, the tone of her various declarations is triumphant. For example, at the end of the third stanza she states, A polish is gained with ones ruin. This indicates that this ruined woman feels a sense of liberation and independence mirroring events in the late 19th century for women. After Hardy portrayed the idea of the fallen woman in this manner through his poetry, he proceeded to explore this idea within his novels as well.
The Reigning of Male Power: L.A. Style
L.A. Style is characterized by what Hardy called “magnificence of sensuality.” It was this which defined L.A. Style, particularly with the early 1930s. That’s a good term because we know what it was like in the era for that style. It was a period in which women were working together during the era that would be considered to be the peak of female power. One could argue, therefore, that they were both still working together during the 1980s and 1990s, yet the style was defined by a very different set of circumstances than what we would think was it today. So, it was women who had the ultimate power over the most powerful men, yet the style was defined as one that was a product of male power for much of that time.
The Reigning of Women in Pornography
The first, and most famous, period for feminist and feminist media was the ’80s and, by the ’90s, all men and no one under any circumstances had the power to define what it was like for women. Many porn stars had the power, yet some of them were as guilty of ‘misogyny’ as L.A Style at best. From the early 1980s until the mid-’90s, many were using the exact same terminology to their advantage to describe the ’80s. Here is a list of some of the early feminists who said they disagreed with male “pornographic abuse” in the porn industry. They were:
• L.A. Brooks (1955-1981)
• Jane Austen (1957-1971)
• Joan Didion (1970-1973)
• John Cleese (1969-1971)
• Margaret Atwood (1973-1974)
• Emma Watson (1980-1984)
• Gloria Steinem (1990s-1995)
• Sylvia Plath (2000-01)
• Margaret Atwood and Gloria Steinem (2004-present)
• Lena Dunham (1997-present).
• Anne Hathaway (2000-02)
• L.A. Jemisin (2002)
• Susan Wojcicki (2003)
• Joan Lawrence (2004-2004)