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. hold for the finale of the show that was playing, she glanced toward the exit through which people would soon be leaving. The rich, as patrons of the theatre house, promised her a salary at least for today. Her tattered wearing apparel revealed the effects of personal destitution the emaciated frame, that presently existed, harked back upon a body she essential have once possessed. Driven by poverty to the realms of pied cohorts, she makes up her face daily, distinguishing her life from the respected (264). She is an outcast, a leper, a member of the marginalized in society she envelops the most degraded of positions and intrudes 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 yet faded despite her present conditions. She was, at matchless time, a virtuous woman, most likely scorned by a dishonest love. Finding no comfort or pity for her prior mistakes, she must turn to the streets and embrace the inevitable - the dishonor and shame from her previous engagement will 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. set by dress, makeup, and forward mannerisms, a woman employed within the business was avoided by all respectable persons. Once tainted by the immoral sin a woman could never return to good g... ...ation shows, as do the houses of assignation, she is a woman driven by her own thoughts and passions, the embodiment of a heart and soul that while criticized will not be broken. She is a sexual 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 inconsiderate 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 involve money, love, passion, or excitement 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 girlfriend of the Streets, ed. Kevin J. Hayes (New York Bedford/St. Martins, 1999).