Quirke's Reputation In Rebecca De Winter And Christine Falls

The difference the Judge telling Quirke the truth and Maxim telling the narrator the truth is that the Judge doesn’t need to gain Quirke’s trust, and he doesn’t seem too intent on it. Rebecca was of the same social class as Maxim, and he needs to gain the trust of his new wife so that he can have her on his side in a trial. Because Christine Falls was not seen as important by the rest of society, the Judge doesn’t see Quirke’s knowledge as quite as much of a threat. The church already knows that the Judge has been taking children and illegally sending them to America to be slaves to the church, and that Christine Falls’ baby was one of those children. With the church already on his side, the Judge doesn’t see Quirke as threatening. Society …show more content…
A man’s reputation was inherently worth more than a woman’s entire life, which is a direct representation of how women were viewed during the time period. Because Rebecca de Winter and Christine Falls didn’t adhere to the rules that society had set for them, they were easy to get rid of without much thought.

It is interesting to note that both Christine Falls and Rebecca de Winter were thought to be pregnant at the time of their death, which would have been inconvenient for the men who had impregnated them. If it was revealed that the Judge was the father of Christine Falls’ child, it would soil his reputation, although he would likely not be jailed or face any serious repercussions. Because a wealthy man needed to keep a good reputation, the reproductive rights of the women were taken …show more content…
The magdalene laundries were a horrible system in which women and children were forced to work for the church indefinitely because they seemed to have no other place in society. Miriam Haughton describes the magdalene laundries in the article titled "From Laundries to Labour Camps: Staging Ireland 's ‘Rule of Silence’ in Anu Productions ' Laundry,” saying that “Outcast women were sent to convent-run, state-supported laundries for penance and protection (67). Women who had children out of wedlock or were abused by men and children who didn’t have a father were seen as less important than other members of society, and were therefore disposable. Many women and children disappeared to the church without a trace, and without anybody bothering to look for them. Quirke encounters a girl named Maisie, and he doesn’t understand why she seems so nervous. Maisie reveals just how little the public knows about the magdalene laundries, telling Quirke that “You’d be frightened if you knew them crowd” (Black, 220). Nobody misses girls like Maisie, so nobody comes looking for her. If a girl of a higher class had gone missing, she would have been missed because she would be seen as more