The Prostitute in Victorian Society

Sarah Darkes, ENGL 200C F01:

One of the most fascinating elements of Dante Gabriel Rosetti's poem “Jenny” is the way the narrator's attitude toward Jenny and toward her profession and place in society change throughout the poem. The Jenny of this poem is clearly a high-level prostitute and we view her through the eyes of a man who has just spent the night in her rooms. The narrator seems to view Jenny with alternating condemnation of her state as a fallen and corrupt woman, and with pity for her beauty, youth and helplessness in Victorian society. Though Jenny herself is a completely passive character throughout the entire poem, the narrator's musings grant the readers many insights into the character and situation of the fair Jenny.
The initial portrayal of Jenny in the first two stanzas of the poem is not promising: “Lazy, laughing, languid Jenny / fond of a kiss and fond of a guinea.....” (“Jenny” 1-2) This seems to bid fair to paint a portrait of the Victorian stereotype of a prostitute – gay, shameless, lascivious, and thoughtless. At this point in the poem, the narrator seems to be treating Jenny with a kind of easy-going contempt, seeing only her surface gaiety and dismissing that there may be more underneath. Yet later he adds with a flash of insight:
“For sometimes, were the truth confess'd,
you're thankful for a little rest,--
Glad from the crush to rest within,
From the heart-sickness and the din....” (“Jenny” 67-70)
This indicates that the narrator is not entirely insensitive to the existence of prostitutes as people and is conscious that Jenny may not be as happy in her life as a fallen woman as appearances suggest.
Nor is he entirely ignorant of the role men play in the creation of prostitutes and in their continued oppression. The narrator recognizes the hypocrisy of the male-dominant society that takes advantage of the services offered by prostitutes, then turns around and condemns them for offering those same services:
“...But most from the hatefulness of man
Who spares not to end what he began,
Whose acts are ill and his speech ill,
Who, having used you at his will,
Thrusts you aside.....” (“Jenny” 82-86)
Victorian society abhorred the existence of prostitution, yet so long as Victorian men continued to patronize prostitutes, the business would remain. The speaker seems to recognize and reflect upon his own blame and that of all men in Victorian society in objectifying and oppressing a class of women which their own needs and lifestyles created.
In direct contrast to the tone at the beginning of the poem, the ending of the poem and the waking of Jenny is much softer and more sympathetic. The poet seems to have come to see Jenny as a human being, capable of feeling, rather than just a prostitute and an object for his pleasure and scorn. Indeed, the poem ends almost in sadness, for with the dawn comes the resumption of the roles that society has laid out for the narrator and for the young prostitute, and the ending of the brief time of rapport between the two: “And must I mock you to the last, / Ashamed of my own shame, --aghast...”(“Jenny” 380-83) The poet seems almost despairing as he faces the fact that in the eyes of society the pity and compassion he feels for Jenny are misplaced and shameful, simply because she is not “respectable” and so he must mock and scorn her in direct contradiction to his better nature and the sympathy he has come to feel towards her after seeing her not only as a prostitute but as a young girl, not very much different from his own young cousin, yet separated by the unbridgeable gulf of social status. The final lines of the poem seem to contain a resolution on the part of the narrator to see the world more clearly:
“Well, of such thoughts so much I know:
In my life, as in hers, they show,
By a far gleam which I may near,
A dark path I can strive to clear.....” (“Jenny” 384-88)
The world has not changed, but one man's view of society and his role within it has changed indeed.