The young adultress in the story, Cruel and Barbarous Treatment, lives her life as a play. She loves being the center of attention, as well as having the opportunity to reinvent herself to play a new role. As a mistress, she imagines being found out.... and thus, she plays the role of concerned wife. As a confessing wife, she plays for sympathy. As a pending divorcee with a lover, she seeks acceptance, and uses social engagements to place herself in the center of a love triangle. When she realizes, however, that she does not love her lover, she reinvents herself as a divorcee.
Cruel and Barbarous Treatment