Jack the Ripper & social excess

Through the process of urbanization, more and more people started to move to cities, since they believed that they could get better lives in cities than rural area. However, most of them thought wrong. Huge amount of people came to cities and worked in factories, and lived as low class in the society. Gilded Age was a great time for the society if we stood on the point of view in the entire world. People created enormous amount of money; at the same time, the total production in society showed as an increasing direction. However, the gap between rich and poor was enlarging. Through the total wealth in society increased, poor were still living in terrible situations, which were even worse than ever before. They lived in crowded, high-level polluted cities and they endured the pressure of the working competition. At that time, societal excess existed in the society. If you could not afford the pressure of work in industry, several people were waiting for your position.

In that environment, part of those people suffered even worse situation than normal poor. They were low-class women. Unlike upper class women enjoyed the benefits of industrialization, low-class women lacked the advantage of working in the factories. If they wanted to live in cities, they had to find their own way to survive; for a large part of population, they chose prostitutes. Although they found a way to survive in the cities, they were still in the bottom of society.

In the story of Jack the Ripper, which was also the model of From Hell, they talked about a serial killer in both United States, and England. He killed specific women, who were mainly prostitutes. During the Gilded Age, many other people could possibly be chosen as targets, but killer just locked at women. On one hand, low-class women were the weak group at that time; on another hand, it also showed the excess of population in the cities. People could create wonderful lives in rural area, but they gave up those opportunities. Choosing to come to cities, they lost their land, peaceful lives, and came to cities just for living in dreadful conditions.