Tuesday, September 9

Main Points:

            Defoe writes “Fortunate Mistress” as a response to Eliza Haywood and there are certain rules that differentiate his “history” from Haywood’s novel. The first distinction that Defoe makes from Haywood is that his story is a history, as dictated in the preface on page 35. He claims that if the readers believe the story is true, there will be a greater moral impact. Defoe also chooses to use first person narrative unlike Haywood who uses free indirect discourse. Defoe will convince his reader that this is a true story by:not using names, but dashes in place of names, in order to create an illusion that they are real people. Defoe also places the narrative within time and history (pg 37).

More than structural difference, Defoe’s thematic elements and plot structure are different from Haywood. Defoe’s plot is not driven by accidents or chance, because he feels this makes the moral lessons less obvious to the reader. Since Defoe intends to make his moral lessons explicit to the reader he chooses to use divine providence as his ultimate ruler instead of chance. There are also no chapter breaks within Defoe’s narrative. The Fortunate Mistress is a combined serial narration into one book. However, one way to organize the book is to categorize by the men in the narrator’s life.

            The first man is the Brewer aka “The Fool”. This first husband has a lot of issues (see P 43). He constantly spends money, has no concept of being a businessman, he is stupid, and he only likes to go out and hunt. One day, the narrator tells us, he goes to hunt and never comes back, leaving her completely alone. This is when family kinship ties are shattered. The narrator feels completely alone (see page 45) and it’s striking because the narrator must deal with this crisis.

The second man in her life is the landlord. The landlord tells Roxana that she can stay in the house if she has sex with him. This man also reveals the relationship between Amy and the narrator. The narrator makes Amy sleep with the landlord as well she states because, “my maid should be a whore too” (80), in order to bring Amy down to her level. Also Amy is the one who convinced her to sleep with the Landlord. There is a sense of reciprocity, a notion that the narrator has thought this through enough, which also demonstrates that she has a conscience. However in the moment she has a “stifled conscience”. The duality guilt and reflection in the moment is something Defoe is interested in examining the psychology of the characters.

The third man is the Prince. Interestingly, with each male in her life we see a move up the social scale. The prince appears to be her pinnacle, however the relationship with the Prince is repeating her number one mistake of moving away from the class in which she belongs. She criticizes her husband for going outside of his social class, but here she does the same thing.

Close Reading

We talked a lot in class about Defoe’s preface to Roxana/The Fortunate Mistress (p. 35).  Defoe’s Fortunate Mistress is a direct response to such novels as Haywood’s Idalia: The Unfortunate Mistress.  Whereas Haywood writes novels, or stories of “Modern Performances,” Defoe feels the need to rise above that and labels his work as a “history,” one based on “Truth of Fact.” He does not directly implicate Haywood, but to a reader in the 1700s it would have been an obvious reference to Haywood.  Defoe employs many strategies within the preface to make his “history” seem real and truthful.  He claims the words in the story are those of “the Lady,” Roxana, and not his own.  He also claims to be acquainted with Roxana’s first husband, his father, and with the “Bad Circumstances” surrounding the event.  He also explicitly states the reader must, and will, learn a moral lesson from the story.  If not, is it from some “Defect” in the reader him/herself.  This, too, is unlike Haywood whose moral lesson is not as obvious nor is it implicitly implied the reader will learn anything from it.

After having read Roxana and come back to it, we understand Defoe, like Richardson, is trying to teach the young, curious readers of Haywood’s novels about how to act and behave in the “real” world.  In essence both Defoe and Richardson are attempting to create “real world” scenarios in fiction to instruct not only their characters, but more importantly their readers; the authors plan to instruct by example.  However, Fielding shows the reader this technique does not always work.  He gives us the example (taken straight from Don Quixote) where the puppet master in Tom Jones wishes to instruct the audience with his puppet shows by using example.  However, we see this does not work because Merry Andrews who has seen the performance a number of times has learned nothing and is still a lecherous rogue.  Fielding challenges both Defoe and Richardson by saying whether we be reader or audience member, we should take fiction or performance for what they are – entertainments.  They are not real worlds, they are constructed representations of worlds and fictitious paradigms should not be imposed on models of reality.  Defoe would disagree.

3.) from page 37 "when the Protestants were Banish'd from France by the Cruelty of their Persecutors"

      This refers to the Edict of Nantes which was originally issued by Henry IV to give the Protestants of France more rights and freedom in what was a heavily Catholic nation. This edict encouraged and supported freedom of consciousness, religious tolerance, and secularism by offering amnesty and the reinstallment of civil rights to the Protestants. However, for the next century as French absolutism increased, there were random occurances of fighting and this edict was never justly adhered to. What is important about this edict, in relation to Roxana, is that fact that it was revoked in 1685 by Louis XIV. In addition to revoking the Edict of Nantes, Louis XIV made the practice of Protestantism in private homes illegal. As a result of this revokation, many of the Protestant refugees, such as Roxana’s parents, fled France for other countries including England, Prussia, and Switzerland.