"The Ruined Maid" - Not So Ruined, After All.

  Thomas Hardy’s “The Ruined Maid” deals with the topic of fallen women - women who deviated from the path of righteousness and had sexual relations out of wedlock. This doesn’t just apply to prostitutes, but any sort of women who engaged in this sort of activity; it didn’t necessarily have to be a repeated offense, a one time occurrence was enough for a woman to take a fall. These women were disgraced and ousted from society’s social structure, as no one truly respected these “ruined” women.

In this poem, Hardy attempts to show that fallen women (in this case, a prostitute) are not what society makes them out to be, but rather depicts them as classy, refined individuals. I interpreted the poem as an argument against the accusations that society made on these women. 

  “The Ruined Maid” is comprised of a conversation between a farm girl turned upper-class prostitute, Melia, and an unnamed girl that is implicitly from Melia’s old country home, possibly a close neighbor. Each stanza begins with the unnamed farm girl making some sort of explanation of how much Melia has changed since she left the farm life; she presents a previous memory of Melia followed by the Melia in the time of this poem. For example, in the second stanza, the girl remarks how Melia left them “in tatters, without shoes or socks (5),” but now she has “gay bracelets and bright feathers (7).” Each stanza follows the precedent made from the first, always expressing the change from one of lower-class or melancholy feelings to one of wealth, prosperity, and happiness. Melia’s repeated explanation is that it all comes with one’s ruin. 

          Hardy expresses through this poem how much better off  “ruined” women are - they are more prosperous, more educated, more refined, and more lively - than the average women. Hardy presents an entirely opposing view of what was typically thought of these kinds of women. He claims that these women aren’t down-trodden, dirty, unintelligent, and rough, but the direct opposite. 

When the unnamed farm girl in the sixth stanza (Beginning on line 21), expresses her want and desire for everything that Melia is - her polish, her wealth, and her attitude - Melia responds in a manner different than the rest of her previous answers. She says:

“‘My dear -- a raw country girl, such as you be,     (23)

Cannot quite expect that. You ain’t ruined,’ said she.” (24) (My italics)

  Melia says that the country girl can’t expect to have everything that she does, as it is something that comes when you are “ruined.” But more interestingly, she calls the girl “raw” (23). This choice in wording is curious; according to Merriam-Webster’s dictionary, to be raw is to be unprepared or imperfectly prepared for use; not being in polished, finished, or processed form (http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/raw). By stating that the country girl is “raw,” Hardy is implicitly stating that Melia is beyond this stage. He’s implying that Melia is past this stage -  she’s prepared and perfectly prepared for use, she’s polished, finished, and processed. Clearly, Melia is in a better form than the country girl, and this form, as said by Melia, comes when one is ruined. Hardy says that she’s the better of the two.

  Is being “ruined” as bad as the word implies? Clearly, Hardy doesn’t think so. It doesn’t look like everyone was against these fallen women.