Tuesday, February 12, 2019
Life as a Prostitute in The Painted Cohorts Essays -- Painted Cohorts
Life as a Prostitute in The Painted CohortsIt was a dark, menacing night as she stood there in the shadows. Waiting for the finale of the show that was playing, she glanced toward the exit through which people would before long be leaving. The rich, as patrons of the theatre house, promised her a salary at to the lowest degree for today. Her tattered clothes revealed the effects of personal destitution the emaciated frame, that without delay existed, harked back upon a body she must have once possessed. driven by poverty to the realms of painted cohorts, she makes up her face daily, distinguishing her life from the prize (264). She is an outcast, a leper, a member of the marginalized in society she envelops the most adulterated of dapples and sins against her body in order to survive. As she looks up, her eyes reflect a different kind of light, a glimmer of beauty that has not in time faded despite her present conditions. She was, at one time, a moral cleaning woman, most likely scorned by a dishonest love. decision no comfort or pity for her prior mistakes, she must enactment to the streets and embrace the inevitable - the dishonor and shame from her previous engagement bequeath follow her unto death. Shunned from society she becomes the woman who sells herself for money and sadly finds no love. She is the abandoned, the betrayed, and the lost, upset girl she is of the painted cohorts, the female prostitute of the streets (264). Prostitution in the nineteenth century was perhaps one of the most degrading positions for a woman during the era. Identified by dress, makeup, and forward mannerisms, a woman employed inside the business was avoided by all respectable persons. Once tainted by the immoral sin a woman could never return to secure g... ...ation shows, as do the houses of assignation, she is a woman driven by her receive thoughts and passions, the embodiment of a spirit that while criticized will not be broken. She is a sexua l being, independent and unique, and she hints at the hope of society respecting her as such. She stands beneath the streetlight and waits for the theatre to open its doors. She looks toward the ground, knowing her unworthy position in her culture, and waits for a person to understand her circumstances, to see her not as the prostitute but as the woman who needs money, love, passion, or firing to replace the emptiness that led her to first begin her walk on these streets. Work Cited The Painted Cohorts selected readings on nineteenth-century prostitution from Stephen Crane, Maggie A Girl of the Streets, ed. Kevin J. convert (New York Bedford/St. Martins, 1999).
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