Rich Girl
The protagonist and her husband are described early on in direct terms as well as metaphorical ones. “They were rich, really rich, not just comfortably well off, which is odious and stuffy and sounds like one’s grandparents.” The simile comparing not being really rich to grandparents serves a definite purpose. The very first paragraph specifically describes Rosemary Fell as being “extremely modern.” The use of this comparison underlines that element of modernity. Since the story is about modern ideas of gender equality, this element is integral to the story.
Poor Girl
The narrative turns on the crux of wealthily wedded Rosemary deciding to improve not just the life but the perception of a poor beggar-girl. The narrator, reflecting Rosemary’s life experience, asserts that “Hungry people are easily led.” Although the poor girl is literally hungry, in this sense hunger is used metaphorically. The narrator is not saying merely that a girl who hasn’t enough money to buy a cup of tea will almost unquestioningly accept an invitation to have tea at the home of a rich person. It is a metaphorical assertion that poor people are easily manipulated by their own greed embodied in the envy of wanting what rich people have.
Milliner Girl
Rosemary’s wealthy husband embodies all the snobby qualities of the really rich. He chides his wife by asking saying to her “let me know if Miss Smith is going to dine with us in time for me to look up The Milliner’s Gazette.” Rosemary’s response to this may seem out-of-sync when she replies with “You absurd creature.” The absurdity of Philip’s snide remark is lost on modern-day readers. He is actually suggesting something about the girl through metaphor. The employment of young women in milliner shops would be to someone of Philip’s background equitable with prostitution. The reference to The Milliner’s Gazette is a metaphorical putdown of not just Miss Smith but his own wife as it subtly implies that she is a prostitute and Rosemary is her customer.
Detachment From Reality
One message the story is sending is that the really rich live a life detached from the reality in which most people live. Simply being asked by a poor girl for enough money to buy a cup of tea becomes for the isolated Rosemary “like something out of a novel by Dostoevsky.” The story begins with Rosemary unable to see any common bond between her and a poor street urchin other than their sex. She is so detached from the greater reality of her own life that even something as common as being asked for change by a person down on their luck seems unreal. For the time being, Rosemary is still stuck in this isolated sphere in which the most common of experiences can only be compared to something in a work of fiction.
Names
The author uses names metaphorically for the two women at the center of the story. The narrative trek of the novel is all about how Rosemary fell. In other words, how the wealthy Mrs. Fell falls from her comforting perspective of clearly being superior to the poor woman. When she attempts to introduce the girl to her husband, the girl gives herself an obviously false name: Miss Smith. Smith is one of the most—if not the most—common last names in the English-speaking world. It automatically underlines in metaphorical terms the massive class divide between her and the Fells by proving to Philip that this common girl knows her place. Philip has just one response to Rosemary’s clear intent to narrow this divide when he blithely asserts “it can’t be done.” In this sense, Rosemary’s name becomes doubly metaphorical as Rosemary fails spectacularly in her intended plan to prove to the girl the existence of a sisterhood which defies that social divide of class separating the two women.
