The two readings I have chosen for this essay are “Advice to My Son” by Peter Meinke and “The Ruined Maid” by Thomas Hardy. How our life pans out depends on the choices we make as youth. Both these poems best exemplify this expect of our journey from innocence to experience. “Advice to My Son” talks about the importance of making careful choices because the choices we make today come back to haunt us later in life. “The Ruined Maid” is about a young girl who made a choice that had both positive as well as negative impacts on her life. Both these poems also underscore the effect society has on our happiness.
Meinke’s advice to “marry a pretty girl/ after seeing her mother” is his way of telling us that the temperament of the people we surround ourselves with has a profound impact on our happiness. On the other hand, the repetitive use of the word “ruin” by Hardy shows that even though ‘Melia may be better off than she was in her former life, she cannot be truly happy because society does not accept prostitutes. As we know from experience, we are often forced to make choices by the circumstances, which rob us of our innocence. But losing our innocence should not be synonymous with losing our happiness. In this essay, we shall discuss how social opinions shape our perception of happiness as we grow more experienced.
Meinke’s “Advice to My Son” gives tips on living a happy life. Meinke tells his son that the trick is to live in today while planning for tomorrow. He goes on to give several practical pieces of advice and emphasizes the importance of enjoying life to the fullest.
Thomas Hardy’s “The ruined maid” is the interaction between a country girl and a city girl who happen to meet in the city after a long time. The country girl is impressed by her old friend’s newfound prosperity as she compares it to her old life when she was dressed in tatters and had to work hard. She wishes that she too could have similar prosperity, obviously unaware that her friend’s wealth is the result of prostitution.
Although there does not seem to be any similarity between the two poems, they both show the contrast between experience and innocence. “Advice to My Son” is the advice of an experienced father to a son who is probably still in his teens and unaware of the ways of the world. So the poem is full of practical advice such as living in the present while planning for tomorrow. Meinke talks about the need to create a proper balance between beauty and substance when he says that “between the peony and the rose/ plant squash and spinach, turnip and tomatoes.” He hints at the consequences of our choices when he says that we shall “arrive at our approximation here below/ of heaven or hell.” “The Ruined Maid” is about the consequences of a decision that the girl named ’Melia took.
A country girl coming from the poorest of backgrounds, in her former life ‘Melia was “in tatters, without shoes or sock/ Tired of digging potatoes, and spudding up docks”. She was obviously unhappy with this life as she “used to call home-life a hag-ridden dream”. So she made a choice to escape from this life of drudgery and ran away to the city in hope of better prospects. In the city, ‘Melia ended up being a prostitute, as a direct consequence of her decision. While she managed to escape poverty, we realize her prosperity has not made her happy, since she dissuades her friend from joining her profession. Here, having learned from experience she advises her “raw country girl” friend on the ways of life and the consequences of our decisions. Thus, both the poems have an experienced person advising a “raw” or an innocent person on the facts of life based on their own experiences.
Despite this similarity, there are also some major differences between the two poems. In “Advice to my Son”, the father’s advice is more generic and pertains to the general truths of life such as enjoying each day while planning for the future and balancing beauty with substance. Meinke is not counseling on any particular situation but giving general advice to his son who is about to step out into the big bad world. In the “Ruined Maid”, this advice is limited to a particular situation as ‘Melia tells her friend, innocent friend, to not run after the riches as it would lead to her getting “ruined”. While Meinke gives his advice directly, ‘Melia’s advice is indirect and in the irony of her “ruined” situation.
Both these poems are about human beings’ quest for happiness. Meinke’s poem is about his advice to his son on how to achieve happiness, while the “ruined maid” is the story of a young girl who came to the city in search of happiness, and ironically, though she became prosperous, happiness still eluded her. Her unhappiness is mainly because of the way society looked at her profession. Although prostitution is looked down upon, it was not always considered the profession of fallen women. The earliest prostitutes were probably even worshipped and considered divine as evidenced by the worship of Astarte, Ishtar, and Aphrodite. In Mesopotamia, the priestesses of Babylon were prostitutes, a custom which has continued to this day in the part of India and Morocco (Clarkson 297). Besides, sex work is also working, “even an ‘industry’” and prostitutes often employ savvy marketing tactics (Miller 145).
It is a low-skill, high-income job and most prostitutes view “their work as ‘easier’ and less oppressive than other survival strategies they might have chosen” (Edlund & Korn 188). And as Bliss’s (165) research into the lives of Mexican sex workers tells us, even though prostitutes are often portrayed as a threat to the family, ironically they engage in these activities so that they can support their, often numerous, family members. In view of all this, we have to agree that even though their work may not be socially acceptable, just like everyone else, a prostitute too hopes to gain happiness from her work, and just like everyone else she too has the right to this happiness and a right to have pride in her labor for she subjects herself to the risk of abuse, violence, and disease so that she can protect herself and her family (Bliss 167).
Irrespective of whether we accept prostitution or not, we have to accept that prostitutes too are humans. Because of the nature of their job, prostitutes exemplify Meinke’s advice of living in the present. Even though the search for happiness is central to human existence, since Socrates, mankind has not been able to identify the kind of life which would make us happiest (Haybron 207). Aristotle believed that “happiness is the sole end of all human actions” (Haybron 209) and yet the collective human experience has not been able to identify the path to happiness. Haybron continues to explain that happiness is a kind of well being wherein a person can live a “successful, fortunate or enviable life” (209). Going by this criterion, obviously, a prostitute can never be happy. But if happiness is the sole purpose of human existence, than it is the duty of the society to not deny happiness to a person who is working hard to achieve it. Unfortunately, by condemning prostitution, we deny this right to the prostitutes.
Since happiness is an extremely elusive commodity, any advice on how to achieve it should be treasured and every person should be allowed to pursue happiness in whatever way their experience tells them they can. If we are fortunate, we could achieve happiness simply by marrying the right person. But for the unfortunate, achieving even this basic human right can prove to be an uphill task. And so, in the twenty first century, it is high time that the society gave up its Victorian morals and gave everyone the opportunity to pursue happiness in whatever way they deem fit. For after all, there is certain innocence about a happy person which needs to be preserved in an increasingly corrupt world. And the happiest are those who can use their experience to preserve their innocence.
Works Cited
Bliss, Katherine Elaine. “A Right to Live as Gente Decente: Sex Work, Family Life, and Collective Identity in Early-Twentieth-Century Mexico.” Journal of Women’s History 15.4 (2004): 164-169. Academic Search Premier. EBSCO. Dwight Marvin Library, Troy, NY. Web.
Clarkson, F. Arnold. “History of Prostitution.” The Canadian Medical Association Journal 41.3 (1939): 296-301. Web.
Edlund, Lena and Evelyn Korn. “A Theory of Prostitution.” Chicago Journal 110.1 (2002): 181-214. JSTOR. Dwight Marvin Library, Troy, NY. Web.
Haybron, Daniel M. “Two Philosophical Problems in the Study of Happiness.” Journal of Happiness Studies 1.2 (2000): 207-225. Academic Search Premier. EBSCO. Dwight Marvin Library, Troy, NY. Web.
Miller, Heather Lee. “Trick Identities: The Nexus of Work and Sex.” Journal of Women’s History 15.4 (2004): 145-152. Academic Search Premier. EBSCO. Dwight Marvin Library, Troy, NY. Web.