The Interplay of Luxury and Modesty in Sarah Millwood’s Life, and Why She is Not to Blame Alexandra Bayer College

The one character who perfectly demonstrates how her own luxuries and extravagance lead to others’ modesty is Sarah Millwood, the scheming prostitute in The London Merchant by George Lillo. However, I am going to argue that despite her manipulative and heartless actions, she is merely a product of her upbringing. This will be backed with studies of prostitutes around 1731, when this play was first performed (Lillo 847); a case study of Fanny Murray, a real-life prostitute from the time period; and textual evidence that points out the similarities between the three cases, as well as an explanation as to why Millwood hates men so much. Once we add up the factors that led Millwood to her profession, we can see that Sarah Millwood is cruel because others have been cruel to her.

Kristin Robinson neatly summarizes Disorderly Women in Eighteenth-Century London: Prostitution and Control in the Metropolis, 1730-1830 by Tony Henderson in a short review of the work. Robinson points out that prostitutes tended to be in their late teens or early twenties (1); their reasons for entering the trade stemmed from “economic need and their lack of other marketable skills” (1). These reasons are consistent with factors as to why prostitutes become...