Quote:
Originally Posted by gmw
Prior to her capture and subsequent incarceration, the book seems to suggest that Grace was not trapped. She had had a number of positions before going to Richmond Hill. Leaving Richmond Hill may have presented difficulties, but then the fiction presented gives her that option and has her turn away from it. I'm not suggesting she had anything like the options that men of the time had, but the book didn't convince me she was tightly trapped. (I would not be surprised to learn that - in reality - she was indeed as trapped as you say.)
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I think she was always trapped. What were her choices? Servitude or prostitution, basically.
Did she have any option to report a possible murder plan? As she says, who would have believed her? Wouldn't she just have been dismissed as a troublemaker and fantasist? Was she supposed to run off without any way to live? She'd seen what happened to Mary and Nancy, both used by men, both subject to a man's whim.
Here's where Dr. Jordan provides a counterpoint--when his landlady suggested murder, he didn't report it to anyone either, but he DID have the option of extricating himself from the situation, and did so by running away. His departure didn't require any hardship--he did it easily and without retribution, unless you want to see his later wartime injury as divine karma.