"While we live, we shovel your coal, cook your food and spread our legs, and then, when we have the gall to die, you tell us our work is still not done" (266, Holman). The Dress Lodger, by Sheri Holman, is an intriguing novel that takes place in the 18th century in Sunderland, England. It is a story about a fifteen year old dress lodger, named Gustine, who works day and night in a quarantined town so her baby can survive from Ecopia Cordis, a birth defect where the heart is abnormally located. Due to her baby’s condition, she rents a costly blue dress and finds men who are interested in hiring her for the night. The book discusses her journey as she meets important characters along the way, such as Dr. Chiver, who claims he can help cure her son, and the Eye, who she initially believes is a threat to her and her child. The Dress Lodger uses both Gustine and Dr. Chiver to emphasize the gap in social classes and to illustrate how the world seems more chaotic.
Gustine is an ambitious young girl that would do anything so that her baby can survive. In the quarantined streets of Sunderland, Gustine roams the streets at night seeking men who she can sleep with for a price and during the day she works at the potter’s house. “She has only been working two jobs for his sake; has cared not whether she lives or dies except that through her work, she might perpetuate him. She has scrimped and saved to buy him food, to clothe him warmly” (Holman 199). I believe that a fifteen year old girl should be worrying about her future rather than being responsible for a baby. It is evident that her being a mother goes hand in hand with the theme of poverty because Gustine is in a situation where she has no choice but to sell her body to feed her baby. Although this novel takes place in the 18th Century, teenage pregnancy is still common, particularly in developing countries such as South Africa which has a widespread teenage pregnancy rate that continues to increase....