Jailor's Wife

A detailed Summary of Jailor's Wife

After reading Michael Kunze's The Highroad to the Stake , I feel that the Ironmaster's wife has a very unfortunate life, yet she did not look for pity, she made the best of the situation. Her lifestyle is one that is not glorious or even desirable, yet the way she lives it is almost admirable. She has to deal with certain appalling facts about herself and her husband that most l people normally don't even think about and she did it the best way possible. I feel that she solely responsible for maintaining some type of sanity in her entire household.

To be a member of the lowest caste of society during the early modern period in Europe meant that you were involved in some type of lowly profession. A few examples of these professions included things such as gravediggers, beggars (which was considered a profession as you needed a license to do this at the time) and a jailer. When one was a jailer they were excluded from society, people turned their heads away from them. Reasons for this may have been that people didn't want to see the man that carried out the brutal punishments the courts concocted. The people had no problem with torturing a man and his family, but they couldn't actually face the man who had done it.

Michael Kunze goes on to state that the Ironmaster's wife was the only person to show the prisoners a bit of comfort in Falcon Tower. Although she did not make it her mission to improve the lives of the people in the tower, she did go above her expected duties and responsibilities. I feel that deep down inside she felt sorry for these people that her husband was going to or in the process of maiming and torturing, but she did nothing for she knew that this was the only way to put food on the table. When the jailer was given money, he had to buy food for his family and the prisoners, so obviously he and his wife would cut the prisoners a bit short, but solely for the existence of their family. She fed them enough to stay alive and even giving them that much food is admirable in its own way because she knew that these people were inevitably going to die. I believe that the jailer's wife was the only warmness in the frigid coldness of Falcon Tower. She was the one who tended the prisoners dungeons and often times she washed their clothes and opened cell windows upon request. "And so she became their confidante: she carried messages from one to the other, told them something of the outside world, and sometimes warned them in advance when the commissioners were coming." (Kunze 293) I feel that she comforted the prisoners just enough to console them, but not so much that she became personally attached to any of them. This act takes an extremely large amount of discipline and heart. I think the way she deals with

Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 1028
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: English