Comparative Analysis: “When I Was One and Twenty” and “The Ruined Maid”, Essay Example

In A.E. Houseman’s “When I was One and Twenty” and in Thomas Hardy’s “The Ruined Maid” the theme of life lessons’ acquisition through rough means are viewed in two very different contexts. In “The Ruined Maid”, the character of ‘Melia is remembered by her friend, a fellow farmhand with the following lines: ‘You left us in tatters, without shoes or socks,/Tired of digging potatoes, and spudding up docks’ (II, 5-6). During ‘Melia’s time as a farmhand, she had frequent maladies and dressed poorly as befitting her meager salary and station. However, the friend then states that since ‘Melia’s time working on the farm, now has ‘gay bracelets and bright feathers three!’ (II, 7). To this ‘Melia’s reply is sarcastic: “Yes: that’s how we dressed when we’re ruined” (II 8). At the sacrifice of her reputation in the Victorian era, ‘Melia has acquired fabulous wealth and a happier life as a prostitute. To find true happiness, she had to put aside societal mores and live life for herself, rather than conforming to societal norms while living the miserable life of a farmhand.

In A.E. Houseman’s “When I was One and Twenty”, the speaker has come to the revelation that he has learned much in one year. His reflective account laments not having listened to an old man who had given him good advice when he was twenty-one. However, the speaker states “But I was one-and-twenty, no use to talk to me” (I, 7-8). The old man warned him: “The heart out the bosom, was never given in vain;/’tis paid with sighs a plenty, And sold for endless rue” (II, 11-14). And only now, after a year has passed has the speaker come to the revelation: “And I am two-and-twenty, and oh, ‘tis true, ‘tis true” (II, 15-16).

Like the ‘ruined maid’, the main character in this poem has come to learn a life lesson the hard way. In the case of the speaker in Houseman’s poem, the lesson he learned came at the price of a broken heart and the wasted time of the year it took to learn the lesson. If he had listened to the old man when he was twenty-one, he could have saved himself the time and the torment of a suffering heart.  In the case of “The Ruined Maid”, ‘Melia came to the prosperous life she’d always wanted, but she had to sacrifice her reputation in the stringent Victorian era to progress to where she wanted to be.

Works Cited

Hardy, Thomas. “The Ruined Maid”. 1901. Poetry-Online. Web. 1 December 2010

Houseman, A.E. “ When I was One and Twenty”. 1896. Bartelby Web. 1 December 2010.