Both Eunice and Polly had to sacrifice a lot to achieve their positions. What trade-offs did they have to make? Do you think it was worth it? What would you have done in each of their positions?
While I get that Eunice became more and more absorbed in her work and while it was clearly important work, her angst over Lisle’s feelings of dejection and resentment when she basically abandons him to focus on her work - especially when she “forgets’ his award ceremony seem inauthentic. She seemed to want to believe - even despite evidence to the contrary - that he was somehow “jealous” of her success and that he wanted her to just stay home and be a supportive wife. If she had ended up losing her marriage, I don’t think it could be fairly blamed entirely on him.
Polly was an intelligent woman yet she had no opportunity for education and ended up as a madam. She made a financial success of her life, but she was degraded by the men she served and lost societal and family respect in the bargain.
I feel like Polly’s tradeoff was a family of her own. She took care of her father, brother, and mother from afar. Then she took care of “her girls” and she had no room to have a life of her own outside of any of that. Eunice was a little different. She had to sacrifice her son going to another country while they worked through all the threats and the case. I worried for a time that she was also going to lose her marriage so I liked that wasn’t the case.
Eunice is clearly sacrificing her family. As a mother and a wife she has to give up a lot with her family to advance her career and more importantly do what she thinks is right. This shows a lot of character in the gift she gave to New York City. Polly gave up safe position to extend herself to also do the right thing. The had different compasses but they both ended up pointing to the same place. Both women gave up an amount of safety to achieve this larger goal.
What individual has achieved big things without making trade-offs and sacrifices?
Both women chose to sacrifice a degree of family life. Polly substituted her girls and her parents for a family of her own (but I would argue, a family is what you make it) . Eunice’s plight was the more difficult. Not only did she miss out on parts of a traditional family life, she put herself out there for a higher calling - to advance her gender and her race, and I think she was very conscious of that.
Eunice had to take time from her personal life and to endure work and home pressures and criticisms. Her creative mental capacity was a driver, and a detriment to her marital relationships. She did what she could to balance both and remained committed to her pursuit of professional achievement at the high risk of losing the marital relationship. Polly was motivated by the threat of losing all that she had built to Luciano’s thugs, and she was concerned about what would happen to her “girls”. She took numerous risks in attempting to sabotage the mob’s pursuits in the prostitution arena. She risked her life and those of the women in her realm. In the long run, it was worth it for both of them. They each had to be terrified throughout in their own ways.
Eunice’s and Polly’s sacrifices were not the same. Eunice’s drive and ambition were more self-serving in my opinion. On the other hand, Polly’s care for the well being of her girls as well as the care and concern for her family back home spoke volumes about her personality. Polly but others first, Eunice put herself first in place of her family.
Polly had no personal life. No life partner, no ability to just be herself. She lived her life looking over her shoulder, always ready to run if the law caught up with her. And she had the added stress of a family that demanded she financially support them. (Losers.) I wouldn’t have been in her profession, but I didn’t have the disadvantages as a young child that she did.
Eunice risked her very life and werl-being, as well as that of her family. She had to send her son and other away to keep them safe. I don’t know if I could have done that. I know the pressure of litigating a high profile case intimately. It’s something a very small percentage of attorneys ever have to deal with. But no one was threatening me or my family, even though my opponents hated me & badmouthed me every chance they had, including to the press. I got the best revenge. I kicked their sorry asses in court, including before the California Supreme Court . . . and have never stopped laughing at them & their pathetic whining afterward.
I have no way of knowing whether either woman ultimately felt that their sacrifices were worth it. No authors’ notes were provided revealing what happened to the women later. I’ll have to do some research via Google.
Eunice gave up time with her son, and her own experience of losing time with her mother was often in the front of her mind. She wasn’t readily able to say that she didn’t hate her mother when she was sent away. She worried that her son would end up hating her. She nearly lost her husband, and although the book offered a renewal of Lisle’s pride in Eunice, I found the rapid change hard to understand, especially after Eunice forgot his award ceremony.
Polly had to give up the cocoon of safety she’d wrappeed around herself. She eventually had to give up her self-perception as someone whose interest in her “girls” well-being engendered love and affection from them. She also had to give up a reconnection with her mother.