Hunt very much admired the "modern moral subjects" of Hogarth, and attempted to bring to modern-day painting the same treatment of current social issues.
In this work, we find a very sympathetic portrait of a "fallen" woman at the very moment that she first feels shame for her position, and a not-so sympathetic rendering of her lover.
"My desire," Hunt later wrote, "was to show how the still small voice speaks to a human soul in the turmoil of life."
