The Judge

"The Judge" by Rebecca West is a story set in the early 1900s, about a young woman named Ellen Melville, who is trying to find herself. Ellen is part of the Suffragette movement in Edinburgh, and she feels trapped by society and her boring everyday life. She wants adventure and to feel important, surrounded by the beautiful yet complicated world around her. The story shows how she struggles with who she is inside, alongside themes surrounding women's rights and what society expects from them. When the book begins, Ellen is thinking about her life as she watches the sunset in Edinburgh. It is a scene of beauty that is the opposite to her feelings of being unhappy and alone. She thinks about her past, school, her mother, and her job. When she meets men like Mr. Philip James and a man named Richard Yaverland, they make her even more aware of the world outside of her own. Even though Ellen is frustrated, she is imaginative and ambitious, which show the potential for her to grow and change as she questions the rules of society.