I. MAIN POINT of the Fortunate Mistress Part II:

o RECAP: Similarities to Haywood
    • Takes Haywood’s title and turns it around; also takes her serial form and meshes it together
Differences from Haywood
    • Explicit invocation of a moral context
        o Several instances of self-reflection and invocation of a conscience
    • Thicker texture of detail and circumstance
        o All of this is done in the interest of convincing us that this is a true story

Theme of Fortune
    Original title: The Fortunate Mistress
        •this resembles Haywood’s title Idalia, The Unfortunate Mistress
        • Also a pun
            o Mistress in that she is married Ms./Mrs.
            o She is a kept mistress to a Prince, and a Dutch Merchant
            o She is a mistress to a servant, Amy

Fortune
 • Defoe wants to take the kind of fortune that we saw in Haywood and turn it on its head
        • In Haywood, we saw that a lot of what was going on was explained by fortune and chance, no one is really held accountable – bad and good luck

        • Defoe thinks of this as a deeply objectionable way for looking at reality –He has a wholly secular way of looking at the world, unformed by an understanding of the significance of God’s providence
        • He instead wants to invoke moral, conscience, consequence, God, etc.

Female Fortune (depicted in the picture)       

• Women are changeable and fickle, so is fortune
        • Fortune is unstable – standing on a ball
        • Fortune seems nurturing, but then will disappear
        • Women are attractive, Fortune is attractive

 Pp. 33 – “The History of this beautiful woman…”
    • The book is designed to create an image that is also a beautiful emblem, and the more impressive it is, the better it will be to teach the reader things
    • Defoe goes to the trouble of having illustrations
        o This is unusual for this time, and significant
        o Turkish dress – Muslim origin but wearing Christian cross
        o Her stance is like, tada! – theatrical element, a masterful performance – curtain drawn up to one side
        o Vanity – holding a mirror
        o Alone, no maid, no man

Pp 216 – “Immediately, the folding doors were flung open…”
    • What do we learn?
        o She is in a masquerade and she has taken on this role, which is deeply problematic
How do we relate this moment to the images we looked at before with Fortune?
    • She has embraced it

Wheel of Fortune
    • One day Fortune favors her, the next she must fall with her husband’s Fortune
    • What goes up must go down: Moment that she is on the top, the height of her fortune, is also the beginning of her   downfall
This is COMPELTELY different than Haywood
    • Fortune just IS in Haywood
    • Defoe defines fortune as God working in mysterious ways
         o Christian view of the universe

Roxanna’s “Sea Providence”
    • Begs for forgiveness when she thinks she is going to die
    • The storm is a sign from God- she is given a chance to reform herself, this is not random, it is part of God’s plan
    • But she misses this and as soon as she is safe, she goes back to her old sinful ways
    • There really aren’t any accidental events in this book- they are really signs from God
    • The reason Roxanna is damned in the end is not because she sinned, it is because she believes Fortune is just Fortune and doesn’t recognize a sign from God when it hits her in the head
     • Behind that work of Fortune in Haywood, is a God that deals out this Fortune


II. CLOSE READING:

p. 189 Context: Where Roxana is explaining to the Dutch Merchant her reasons for not accepting the Dutch Merchant's offer of marriage: “How often have I seen a Woman living in all the Splendor that a plentiful fortune ought to allow her? With her Coaches and Equipages; her Family, and rich Furniture; her Attendants and Friends; her Visiters, and good Company, all about her to-Day; to-Morrow surpiz’d with a Disaster; turn’d out of all by a Commission of Bankrupt; stripp’d to the Cloaths on her Back; her Jointure, suppose she had it, is sacrific’d to the Creditors, so long as her Husband liv’d, and she turn’d into the Street, and left to live on the Charity of her Friends, if she has any, or follow the Monarch, her Husband, into the Mint, and live there on the Wreck of his Fortunes,…”
(*Mint= a sanctuary for debtors)

1. This passage is crucial for enlightening the reader on 18th century marriage culture. In 18th century culture, women were bound by a marriage-contract under generally accepted “Laws of Matrimony”  to relinquish all legal ownership of their property or “Fortune” to their husband upon marriage. In essence, Roxana embodies the definition of a commonly used and very important term to remember which is "femme covert": A woman who upon marriage is covered by her husband's indentity.

2. Consequently, Roxana is discontented and unwilling to submit to this prescribed cultural marriage practice. She adamantly postpones marriage to the Dutch Merchant because she would ultimately rather have autonomous control over her material wealth than marry a man to whom she is genuinely attracted. It is important to re-iterate that, at this point, by remaining single, Roxana is able to freely and independently manage her own wealth/”Fortunes” simply because she is not married.

3. Although Roxana's thoughts that are expressed in this passage are intimately concerned with the female's loss of autonomy over her monetary “Fortune” upon marriage, it seems that the established marriage culture of the 18th century resulted in more than just a monetary and property loss for the women in the marriage. Rather, it seems that in conjunction with the loss of “Fortune”, the wife's general loss of autonomy and individuality to her husband was at issue. For example in this passage, Roxana states… “or follow the Monarch, her Husband…”: by substituting the word “Monarch” in the place of "husband", Roxana creates the allusion that the husband controls more than just the money. In fact, husbands have the cultural reign to rule over every aspect of his wife’s life even into the most private and intimate confines of the home. According to Roxana, this cultural marriage practice is especially cumbersome and personally unacceptable.

4. Finally, this passage is a great example of the theme of a wheel of fortune in the novel. In this scene Roxana acknowledges the theme of fortune through her portrayal of what can become of a woman in marriage. Roxana acknowledges that; first you're up, then, suddenly and precipitously, you're down.

In perspective, as the need to react against this problematic marriage system is undoubtedly a very pressing and disconcerting issue for Roxana in Defoe’s novel, it would be interesting to trace throughout the semester the reactions of other characters who confront this same point of concern and see how female's opinions and marriage laws change and evolve throughout the 18th century.



III. REFERENT: PALL MALL
Upon her return to London, Roxana resides in, and frequently walks about, the Pall Mall district.  The term can refer to a specific road, or to an area of St. James’ Park.  As mentioned in Footnote 175, the street itself runs through the King James neighborhood of London, and is situated quite near to the King’s Garden of St. James’ Palace.  The road was constructed in 1661 along the south side of St. James’ Park (Pall Mall Field).   The row of houses was bordered by a tennis court (B, in the diagram) and a “Physick Garden” (area A), for growing medicinal herbs and other plants.  Once developed, the Crown passed ownership of most of the houses on the row to the Earl of St. Alban’s, who possessed the properties until roughly 1730, thus likely making him Roxana’s landlord! The 18 th century saw a rise in the popularity of the neighborhood, being “the ordinary Residence of all Strangers, because of its Vicinity to the Queen’s Palace, the Park, the Parliament-House, the Theatres, and the Chocolate and Coffee Houses, where the best Company frequents”1.  Roxana, then, was living in a neighborhood entirely appropriate for her.  She was surrounded by those “Strangers” who might remain nameless (perhaps owing to their lack of familial connections), but who were clearly looking to enjoy life and what it had to offer from leisure activities.  What is exactly meant by "strangers," however, is open to interpretation; the OED includes numerous definitions of "stranger" that deviate from what our collective contemporary definition may entail.  "Stranger" may be taken to mean an individual who is not registered within the the local parish--then these strangers of Pall Mall may be seen as lacking in religious devotion, just the sort of place one might expect to find Roxana.  The word "stranger" may also be taken to mean anyone who is not an official member of a given group of society.  In this context, Pall Mall can be seen as a sort of neighborhood of posers, of individuals attempting to fit in with a level of society to which they do not belong.

   1. John Macky, A Journey through England, 1714, vol. i, p. 107.
Diagram, information, and quote accessed through: “Pall Mall.”  British History Online. http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=40579 .

IV. INFORMATIVE WEBSITE
Roxana appears at the height of her fortune in the Turkish dress at the masquerade ball.  This website gives some insight into the social aspects of the masquerade of the 18th century discussing topics of gender and sexuality, and intermingling of social classes.  It also talks about masquerades in fiction and allows the user to go to a virtual masquerade with general descriptions of costumes and behavior.

http://www.umich.edu/~ece/student_projects/masquerade/index.html