Female purity
The largest theme in "Jenny" is that of female purity. The speaker spends much of the poem thinking about what it means for Jenny to have lost her purity and the consequences of her profession as a prostitute. The climax of the poem, in which the speaker compares Jenny to his cousin Nell, speaks to this theme. In this part of the poem, the speaker notes that comparing Jenny and Nell, who is a virtuous woman, is like "mak[ing] a goblin of the sun" (205). In other words, a pure woman and an impure woman are incomparable and comparing them would be nonsensical. This tells us something about the society that the speaker and Jenny live in, which ranks women according to their promiscuity or lack thereof. The impure woman is far beneath the pure woman in this society, and purity is a favorable description that says something about a woman's inherent value.
The difference between an impure woman and a pure woman is so great, the poem emphasizes, that they cannot even come into contact with one another for fear of the pure woman being tarnished by what the impure woman knows. "If but a woman's heart might see / Such erring heart unerringly / for once!" the speaker laments in lines 247-9. In these lines, the pure woman is referred to simply as "woman," which suggests that women were understood to be baseline pure and innocent in this period. Anyone who deviated from this norm, like Jenny, were less than "woman" because of their "erring heart." In "'The Case of Jenny': Dante Gabriel Rossetti and the Censorship Dialectic," Celia Marshik emphasizes "Jenny"'s overall message about pure and impure women: "Nell, like the once-innocent Jenny, cannot learn from a prostitute's experience because the obscene woman/rose/book only provides 'shameful knowledge.' According to the poem, a virtuous woman remains pure through ignorance—through refusal to or prevention of contact with the 'vile text.'"
Another image from "Jenny" that touches on female purity is the speaker's meditation on depictions of women with halos surrounding their faces in Renaissance paintings: "Fair shines the gilded aureole / In which our highest painters place / Some loving woman's simple face" (230-2). In these lines, the speaker is conjuring associations with religious beauty and iconography. Jenny is a stark contrast to these women because of her impurity, despite the fact that she shares several "features" with these women (233). This observation causes the speaker to bemoan the corrupt society that stole Jenny's purity: "What has man done here? How atone, / Great God, for this which man has done?" (238-9).
In "D.G. Rossetti's 'Jenny': Sex, Money and Interior Monologue," literary critic Daniel A Harris underscores the irony that Jenny is being compared to paintings of haloed women. The contrast between Jenny's impurity and the purity that is implicit in depictions like these underscores, Harris argues, the speaker's own hypocrisy as well as the ambiguous relationship women have with purity. There is also a secondary meaning to this image, Harris argues. A secondary definition of "aureole" is a gold coin, which suggests that Jenny's face is being imagined as etched on the back of a coin. Harris emphasizes that this image describes a process by which Jenny is literally being commodified and objectified as the "economic emblem of male desire." In this way, Jenny's impurity furthers her own oppression within their society.
Morality
The theme of morality is closely related to the theme of female purity, but it is more concerned with the speaker. Because the speaker is a man who has paid to spend the evening with a prostitute, his morality is in question throughout this poem, whether or not he and Jenny actually engage in any illicit activities. The overall morality of this poem, and that of the speaker, has been a point of contention for critics since the poem was published (see the About section of this guide for a discussion on the initial reactions to "Jenny" in Rossetti's time).
The speaker's morality is questionable because he spends much of the poem criticizing prostitution and immorality, while engaging with the sex work economy at the same time. We know that he used to frequent prostitutes in his recent past, though, according to him, he no longer does so: "It was a careless life I led / When rooms like this were scarce so strange / Not long ago" (36-8). The fact that the speaker tries to assert that he no longer visits prostitutes while he is currently in the presence of one is one of the many ironies of the poem. It puts his honesty into question and also underscores the fact that spending time with Jenny is shameful. The speaker feels this "shame" in interacting with Jenny, but, paradoxically, he spends the entire night in her presence: "And must I mock you to the last, / Ashamed of my own shame—aghast, / Because some thoughts not born amiss / Rose at a poor face like this?" (377-80). In this way, the speaker is aware that he is committing an immoral act, and he feels further shame because he is so aware of this truth.
Most readers leave "Jenny" confused as to whether or not the speaker of the poem is self-aware, and whether or not what occurred between him and Jenny is an illicit interaction. This moral ambiguity is one of the poem's strengths, prompting readers to really think about themselves and their own moral choices.
The motif of censorship throughout the poem speaks to the fact that it is dealing with questionable material. When the speaker compares Jenny to a book that cannot be read by pure women in Stanza 22, he effectively censors Jenny because of the danger her existence represents to the moral order. As critic Celia Marshik points out, however, the speaker's understanding of base knowledge puts the poem's own morality into question. By suggesting that Jenny, the woman, is immoral and unreadable, the poem—which depicts Jenny as she is—takes on those qualities as well: "As 'Jenny' puts a ban on Jenny, Rossetti's poem implicitly raises the question of its own purity."
Sometimes it's hard to successfully toe the line when it comes to questions of morality, which is precisely why "Jenny" had such mixed reviews when it was published. However, it is best to read "Jenny" with an open mind and lean into its contradictions and ambiguities. "Jenny" is neither a "moral" nor an "immoral" poem—the truth is much more complex than that.
Inequality
It is important to keep in mind while reading "Jenny" that the theme of inequality runs beneath every interaction between the speaker and the sleeping Jenny. The speaker enjoys much more social power than Jenny herself: he has more money than her, his reputation is not tarnished in the same way that hers is, he is a man, and he is well-educated. These facts are implicit within the poem itself, but they paint a strong contrast between Jenny and her client. Jenny is a silent prostitute who spends the entire time sleeping with her head on the speaker's knee. The way that their bodies are positioned also speaks to the power imbalance between the two characters, as Jenny is laying down and the speaker is sitting up, "looking down" on her as he contemplates her life. While the speaker has a rich internal monologue within the poem, Jenny is completely silent, even when she is awake in the first few stanzas. We do not see her voice or her point-of-view at any point within the poem.
Several literary critics have accused the speaker of "Jenny" of contributing to the objectification and oppression of Jenny within the poem itself. While he laments that society has silenced her and pushed her down, she does not speak a single word in the poem and his opinion of her is often disparaging. For example, when he imagines what Jenny's dreams are about, they are exclusively about himself or about money: "Whose person or whose purse may be / The lodestar of your reverie?" (20-1). In these lines, the speaker reduces Jenny completely to her profession and assumes that she does not think about anything outside of that. He perpetuates the same violence that he disparages in society upon Jenny herself. Similarly, the speaker often objectifies Jenny by comparing her to books, flowers, and paintings. These descriptions indicate her beauty and illicit power within the poem, but they also turn Jenny into a commodity rather than a human being.
The inequality between the speaker and Jenny is emphasized by the fact that he has the power to decide whether or not Jenny is awake or asleep throughout the poem. For example, when the speaker becomes too despaired after musing about the difficulties that Jenny faces in her life, he tries to wake her up despite the fact that she needs the sleep: "Well handsome Jenny mine, sit up, / I've filled our glasses, let us sup, / And do not let me think of you, / Lest shame of yours suffice for two" (88-91). The speaker fears having to take moral responsibility for Jenny's lifestyle and wants to wake her up to distract him from that "shame." That he can decide whether or not she sleeps or wakes—and that he is not automatically ashamed even though he is complicit in her profession, which he considers shameful—speaks to the power imbalance between Jenny and the speaker. This power imbalance does not change: at the end of the poem, the speaker tries to wake her up again. "Jenny, wake up," he urges her, "Why, there's the dawn!" (300). We know that the speaker could wake up Jenny from her sleep if he wanted to, with little consequence. It is not truly Jenny's decision whether or not she is awake, and she sleeps only with the speaker's implicit permission.
Another important facet of the theme of inequality within "Jenny" is the oppression that Jenny faces on a day-to-day basis. The speaker emphasizes Jenny's less-than-comfortable living conditions as well as the bullying that she faces on a day-to-day basis on the streets of London. At the very beginning of the poem, the speaker notes that Jenny's room is very different from his own. He also imagines the city of London as witness to Jenny's shame, "have seen your lifted silken skirt / Advertize dainties through the dirt / Have seen your coach wheels splash rebuke / On virtue; and have learned your look" (144-7). Jenny is fundamentally different from the "common" Londoner because she is a prostitute, which makes her stand out to everyone and be at the mercy of their cruelty. A "pale girl . . . rebuke[s]" Jenny and a "wise unchildish elf" points her out to his friends (72,76).
