The Rake's Progress as a narrative construction was used in the 18th century as a way to secularise previous redemption narratives, esp. English folk narratives. Hogarth's material culture created in response to the Rake's Progress continued the securlaisation, while allowing a rising mercentile class to engage in both aspirational instincts and schadenfreude. It became a moral warning, and a lifestyle to lust after. Mad Men is also a Rake's Progress, but about the loss of liberal social values, as opposed to religious texts. It allows an unstable post-mercentaile class to enjoy taboos of gender and class, while being well hidden as a narrative of social control/satire. This essay uses the narrative of the Rake
s Progress as used by Hogarth, Mad Men, and the surrounding material culture of both texts as a way to discuss how we use formerly religious language to construct secular narratives.

also, OMFG DON DRApER, SLAP ME AROUND, AND THEN FUCK ME, HARD.