StudentShare
Contact Us
Sign In / Sign Up for FREE
Search
Go to advanced search...

First-hand narrative of a Gilded-Age Prostitute - Essay Example

Cite this document
Summary
Date Madeline was a girl brought up in a middle class home with a doting father and loving mother; she had the life her friends and neighbors envied and as a young child, she describes her existence as a happy one. Her father would beat her up whenever he was drunk and dote on her when sober, such emotional inconsistency as well as abuse made her insecure and affected her psychologically, “When he was sober I was his favorite child…
Download full paper File format: .doc, available for editing
GRAB THE BEST PAPER94.7% of users find it useful
First-hand narrative of a Gilded-Age Prostitute
Read Text Preview

Extract of sample "First-hand narrative of a Gilded-Age Prostitute"

Download file to see previous pages

The father’s joblessness ensured their discontinued education while her mother’s ill-timed pregnancy, sickly child and poor health rendered her incapable of doing much to help her family. It is in their neighborhood that Madeline got involved with the wrong company and came pregnant outside wedlock, a situation of often warranting phenomenal stigma at the time. Mrs James, a former servant in Missouri sends for her and she goes to work in a factory; however, due to her pregnancy she runs off with her saving to hide herself from the shame.

This is when she realizes that surviving in the town without a job is next to is exceedingly difficult and getting a job without references and experiences is impossible. When her savings run out, she starts taking men to bed for money although it is not easy for her and she is at times “robbed” of her earnings. She tries picking clients in the streets, but she finds she lacks the “brass” for it and ends up being a kept woman for a man who looks after her In addition to infecting her with, a venereal disease and expects payment in sex.

She finally entered a brothel and commenced, her career as a prostitute under the management of the owner of the “house” Miss Laura and it is here that she acquired the name Madeline. That was the beginning of her life as a prostitute and she went on to ply her trade, from Butte, Montana, and she later became the Madame of her own house in San Francisco. Life in the gilded age was characterized with aspects of acute social stratification distinct in the differences between members of different classes, with the gap between the upper and lower classes being predominantly based on financial prowess.

For instance, one of the most brutal beatings she got form her father was because of playing with the child of one of the servants whose friendship was frowned against (Lindsey 6). Society was highly patriarchal and men in most institutions be it family or work had the last word, while women were often subject to harsh and unfair treatment and could not take control of even their own lives. After their father abandoned them, it is Madeline’s brother who takes up the responsibility of “Man of the House” evidently a house had to have a man to run properly.

The moral condition in Kansas City according to the writer was abominable, there were vice flourished all over and there were many houses of pleasure not only in Kansas but also the other cities such as Texas. This was the period of industrialization, rural decline and urbanization; the rural decline is seen in the way her idyllic life in the country comes to an end due to her father’s failure and like many who failed to survive in the rural areas, her family moved to a town and she later moved to town and thus completed the cycle of urbanization.

It is here that she comes face to face with the reality of industrialization urbanization and they significantly affect her life, she works in the dressing factory as a check girl a job she didn’t dislike although the noise of machines haunted her for many nights. The rural urban migration inevitably leads to overcrowding in towns which as well as unemployment, and this hit her hard when she runs out of her job and tried to secure another one.

...Download file to see next pages Read More
Cite this document
  • APA
  • MLA
  • CHICAGO
(“First-hand narrative of a Gilded-Age Prostitute Essay”, n.d.)
First-hand narrative of a Gilded-Age Prostitute Essay. Retrieved from https://studentshare.org/history/1467921-first-hand-narrative-of-a-gilded-age-prostitute
(First-Hand Narrative of a Gilded-Age Prostitute Essay)
First-Hand Narrative of a Gilded-Age Prostitute Essay. https://studentshare.org/history/1467921-first-hand-narrative-of-a-gilded-age-prostitute.
“First-Hand Narrative of a Gilded-Age Prostitute Essay”, n.d. https://studentshare.org/history/1467921-first-hand-narrative-of-a-gilded-age-prostitute.
  • Cited: 0 times

CHECK THESE SAMPLES OF First-hand narrative of a Gilded-Age Prostitute

The similarity and differences of No Country for Old Men and Dead Man

No Country for Old Men is a murder mystery written by Coen and Joel, and is based on the McCarthy narrative.... The story begins where Anton Chigurh is paid by his boss to find stolen money that he lost, in the failed drug deal.... In short, the film is filled with mysteries and uncertainties of life, which correlates with the title, No Country for Old Man....
10 Pages (2500 words) Research Paper

Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood

This is a woman who, because of her background as a fertile woman (she had a daughter) previously married to a divorcee (making her marriage null and void in this society and herself a close-cousin to a prostitute because she had broken her original vows), has been reassigned in the new world order to provide an elite couple with a child....
9 Pages (2250 words) Book Report/Review

Hogarth Print and the Enlightenment

Hogarth Print and the Enlightenment Name Title of Course Date Introduction William Hogarth was a renowned artist in England during the eighteenth century and is mostly famous for his pictorial stories called ‘modern moral subjects'.... hellip; Hogarth, born to parents of modest means in London, began his adulthood career as an engraver, doing book illustrations and greeting cards....
9 Pages (2250 words) Essay

Asian American women before 1950

This is amply attested by first-hand accounts of discrimination and maltreatment by early immigrants.... Asian American Woman before 1950s It is fair to state that the status of Asian American women before 1950s was not any better than that suffered by minorities from any racial-ethnic group during this period....
4 Pages (1000 words) Essay

The Handmaid's tale is a story about power structures existing in life and relationships. Discuss

It is about the power structures that exist in life, relationships and in this particular theocracy which seeks to subjugate women and strip… Told in narrative style, by a handmaid the novel brings to life a dystopian world – the Republic of Gilead where everyone is a pawn in the game of power.... In the course of her chilling narrative, Offred deviates from the present in order to talk about the past and in doing so helps the reader reconstruct the events that led up to the present state of affairs....
12 Pages (3000 words) Essay

The Role of Women in The Handmaids Tale, by Margaret Atwood

The paper states that the reading of A Handmaid's Tale is illuminating in many ways regarding the silence of women by emphasizing the details that work to erase Offred's identity and existence, reduce her to little more than an object, and detract from the entire society in so many ways.... hellip; She remembers how things used to be, but she cannot imagine thinking of herself now as anything more than a walking womb, one of the state's greatest national resources and not an individual at all....
8 Pages (2000 words) Book Report/Review

Childrens Literature in the 20th Century

Amongst the tools used the paper looks at the narrative styles used and the depiction of adults in the work to get insight into the impact that the social and historical elements have on children's lives.... The paper covers works that were written in the 20th century for children and how each of these reflect the social context in which they were written and the different styles they use to show children's perspectives and reactions to what is happening around them....
21 Pages (5250 words) Essay

The Piazza Navona, Trevi Fountain and Piazza di Spagna

The essay "Roman Art Plaza" discovers the nicest places to visit in Rome, which is Piazza Navona.... According to history, this place was originally built for athletic meets and chariot racing but it now hosts several luxurious cafes and Baroque palaces, giving a warm Mediterranean.... hellip; Rome is known for its rich religious tradition but along with it is the splendid artworks spread throughout the city....
27 Pages (6750 words) Essay
sponsored ads
We use cookies to create the best experience for you. Keep on browsing if you are OK with that, or find out how to manage cookies.
Contact Us