“The Ruined Maid,” by Thomas Hardy, is a closed-form poem that uses imagery of the “ruined” maid to satirize Victorian social conventions. Thomas Hardy wrote “The Ruined Maid” in closed-form to magnify the poem’s imagery. The poem is Anapestic meter and follows the unstressed, unstressed, stressed syllabic pattern. This meter gives the poem a sense of joy and bounciness that adds to the maid’s new happiness. Hardy also uses an AABB rhyme scheme for each stanza. The rhymes, along with the meter, add to the bounce and joy. Every stanza in this poem is a quatrain containing two couplets. The first couplet captures the woman’s remembrance of how the maid use to be, and the second couplet describes how the maid is now. These two couplets per stanza
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Besides the rhyme and meter of the poem, Hardy’s descriptions of the maid also create imagery. Each stanza contains two couplets that juxtapose what the maid use to be like and what she is like now. The last line of every stanza is the maid saying she is better now because she is “ruined.” Hardy uses the repetition of this statement to draw attention to it. The maid is somehow better because she has been ruined. In the Victorian era, it was common, and socially acceptable for men to treat women like property. Women were basically trapped in the social class they were born and married into. Obviously the woman is shocked, because she cannot comprehend how the maid has advanced in her status. Hardy is satirizing the social conventions of the Victorian era by showing that although being “ruined” by sexual impurity or other reasons, the maid is actually happier and has advanced her social class. For example, in line 5 the woman says “‘You left us in tatters, without shoes or socks,” and then says in line 7 “And now you’ve gay bracelets and bright feathers three!’” Before the maid was ruined, she did not have luxuries, such as shoes or socks, but now she has bracelets and feathers. Instead of being trapped in her social class because of the oppression that woman felt during the Victorian era, the maid sacrificed being “ruined” to move up and gain a happiness she deserved. Now the maid has jewelry
Besides the rhyme and meter of the poem, Hardy’s descriptions of the maid also create imagery. Each stanza contains two couplets that juxtapose what the maid use to be like and what she is like now. The last line of every stanza is the maid saying she is better now because she is “ruined.” Hardy uses the repetition of this statement to draw attention to it. The maid is somehow better because she has been ruined. In the Victorian era, it was common, and socially acceptable for men to treat women like property. Women were basically trapped in the social class they were born and married into. Obviously the woman is shocked, because she cannot comprehend how the maid has advanced in her status. Hardy is satirizing the social conventions of the Victorian era by showing that although being “ruined” by sexual impurity or other reasons, the maid is actually happier and has advanced her social class. For example, in line 5 the woman says “‘You left us in tatters, without shoes or socks,” and then says in line 7 “And now you’ve gay bracelets and bright feathers three!’” Before the maid was ruined, she did not have luxuries, such as shoes or socks, but now she has bracelets and feathers. Instead of being trapped in her social class because of the oppression that woman felt during the Victorian era, the maid sacrificed being “ruined” to move up and gain a happiness she deserved. Now the maid has jewelry