We begin with the first victim, Polly. Polly's story is one of an educated, poor girl, who ends up married to a man with a wandering eye. Marriage for a woman is binding, with no hope of divorce, even if her husband is known to be having an affair (although, a husband is able to divorce on these grounds). So, she simply walked away from her husband, and children, knowing she had no other options (and her children would be cared for with her husbands earnings). After years of safe living, Polly ends up in the workhouse, where the poor must earn a nights rest and food with hard work. Annie, the second victim, lived a good life as the wife of a high ranking servant. Unfortunately, her downfall was alcohol. The drink lead her to be kicked out of her home and she ended up in Whitechapel, with no means of work and an illness for drink. Elisabeth, the third victim, was a farmer's daughter and meant for the life of a servant. However, once entering the city, she ended up in the family way, likely from an employer, and had to leave her position. Unfortunately, this also lead to syphilis and being put on the "prostitute list" with the police (even though it was only one encounter). Kate, the fourth victim, fell in with a traveling man and a life on the road with children. Unfortunately, the relationship became abusive, and she became addicted to alcohol. Any money she was able to beg, which could have gone to a bed for the night, ended up going to drink instead. Finally, the last, and youngest, victim, Mary Jane, is the only admitted prostitute of the five. She is also the most mysterious, as she seems to have changed her identity entirely and told many false stories about her life. This may have been to escape sex traffickers she encountered in France. Each of these women were let down by society and heir community. They had no means of escaping the cycle of poverty. Women in this time had no means of living on their own, they were simply meant to contribute a small means to a man. They were meant for child bearing, for servant life, for caring for their fathers, brothers, husbands. In a household, the wife was the last to get food, even when she was breastfeeding and caring for several people. Life as a woman in Victorian times was hard, many women would experience the death of a child, or would become ill themselves and die, leaving their children orphans and beholden to a workhouse. Workhouses were terrible, with everyone inside being fed very minimal food (none of it nutritional) and living with rats in communal quarters. The poor would be used to this, as they often lived in family homes that were single rooms. In some cases, living children would have to share a bed with a dead sibling until the body could be buried. The horrors of this time were never ending, and these five women unfortunately became the centre of a story that gripped an entire nation. Their humanity was taken, making them objects, and their killer became legendary. To this day, Jack the Ripper is an obsession, his crimes continuously being investigated, while his victims are simply names, their stories lost for centuries. Even in all of the researching, much of the novel was speculation, because the original inquiries of the victims have been lost and several of the statements are contradictory. What is obvious, is that these women's lives were misconstrued by the media of their time in order to sensationalize, sell news, and make others feel safe because they did not live the life of depravity these women did. They were brutally murdered, and then their characters were also destroyed. This book was hard to read, sad and horrific, but it was so important and necessary. Reading this novel made me realize how much we seem to remember the killers and completely forget those they kill. The truth is, people are more interested in figuring out why killers do what they do, and are less interested in the victims they brutalize. However, we should be shifting our interest and learning about those whose lives were taken from them. I highly recommend reading this novel, and I am so glad it was the first of my year of non-fiction reads (where I will read one non-fiction novel/month in 2020).
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