A Child for Sale

Summary

Set against the bohemian yet unforgiving backdrop of a pre-gentrified Greenwich Village, this 1920 melodrama navigates the labyrinthine psyche of an artist whose creative aspirations are abruptly decapitated by the death of his spouse. Stranded in a liminal space between parental devotion and the visceral sting of penury, the protagonist undergoes a catastrophic moral erosion, ultimately bartering one of his two offspring to a sterile, affluent couple. The narrative functions as a harrowing exploration of the commodification of innocence, tracing the artist's descent into a purgatorial guilt that eventually ignites a frantic, desperate campaign to rescind his Faustian bargain and reclaim the fractured remnants of his domesticity.

Synopsis

A struggling artist in Greewich Village is devastated when his wife dies. Left with two children and with little money to support them, in desperation he sells one of them to a childless but wealthy couple. When he realizes what he has done, he determines not to go through with the "deal".