Comparison Of Crazy Jane And The Ruined Maid Essay, Research Paper

Both poems, “The Ruined Maid” and Crazy Jane Talks With The Bishop, use two people to portray two contrary forces. These forces are rich vs. poor and fair vs. foul. The difference in these poems is the way the poet portrays these forces. Hardy uses more concrete characteristics to describe O melia; where Yeat focuses on Jane s opinions and not her physical state.O melia was part of a lower class and has apparently moved into a higher class. I use the word ‘apparently’ because it appears that she has moved to a higher social class, which caused her to move lower in her moral status. Hardy portrays O melia as previously being a very hard working maid. This is shown in the second and fourth stanzas when the poor woman says, you left us in tatters, without shoes or socks, tired of digging potatoes and spudding up docks . The poor woman uses the words left us to show that they don t want to be in the social class that they are in. O melia is a snobbish person because she was once in the same class as the poor women; and knowing that the poor woman envies her, O melia doesn t encourage her to try and change her status. O melia continues to accept compliments and doesn t attempt to compliment the poor woman. The only time she speaks about the poor woman is when she discourages her in the last two lines by saying, My dear-a raw country girl, such as you be, cannot quite expect that. You ain t ruined . She is saying that a poor person cannot expect to be a rich person when she is a living example of a poor person who has become rich.

Yeat s character, Jane, feels that she has changed for the better. This change is showed when she says, Love has pitched his mansion in the place of excrement . Because of lines three and four, Those breasts are flat and fallen now, those veins must soon be dry , we know that the bishop knew Jane when she was a younger woman. Jane is defending the right to be foul by saying, fair needs foul . The opposing forces in Yeats poem are fair and foul. Jane’s character is portrayed through her opinions. She speaks using phrases that sound like philosophical quotes. For example, fair and foul are near of kin and fair needs foul and in the last stanza, For nothing can be sole or whole that has not been rent .The portrayal of Yeats character compared to that of Hardy s, can be seen by analyzing the way pronouns are used in each of these poems. Neither Jane nor the Bishop directs their statements to a particular person; whereas “The Ruined Maid” uses the words ‘you’ and ‘your’ continuously. O melia is obviously a slob while Jane is a person who has strong opinions about things that are right and wrong.