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Fantomina, Or Love in a Maze
British
Age of Reason
Eliza Haywood, a London writer, was self-educated, an amazing accomplishment for a woman of her class at a time when no formal education was available to women. Her childhood is relatively unknown, but we do know she married a clergyman, and then proceeded to live apart from him, giving her a somewhat sordid reputation that would follow her all of her life. She was a prolific writer, producing seventy books, mostly romances in the form of plays and novels. She was also the author of an anonymous magazine, The Female Spectator, which was the first of its kind-by and for women. In an attempt to make a living by writing, she focused on stories that would sell to an audience who enjoyed scintillating tales. Her plots of strong-willed women foreshadowed later works of feminism, but were considered scandalous during her lifetime. The virtuous woman, plagued by a wicked rogue, is a plot line that would be imitated in many novels of the eighteenth century that were written by men, including Samuel Richardson's tremendously successful novel Clarissa (1748). Her work demonstrates an early fascination with the dominated female who had few options and the underlying anger and despair that defines the existence of most women of her time.
Fantomina, Or Love in a Maze (1725)
In her novella Fantomina, Haywood employs the mysteries of disguise and intrigue in the tale of a young Lady who desires to experience the world without suffering the consequences of her experience. Bound by a rigid social class system, the upper class Lady takes on the persona of four different women of varying classes: from a prostitute to a woman of means, the heroine takes the audience through the affectations of each of England's social classes in an attempt to win the heart of a rake. Haywood's work inverts the thrill of the chase-in this case a woman deceitfully pursuing the affections of a man-and reinforces the way in which each woman's circumstances dictate her ability to form a real relationship with her partner. Even though she seems to have her way with the man she desires, in the end the Lady must pay the price of every woman who dares to defy the conventions of her society.
Consider while reading:
- What prompts the female protagonist to first assume a disguise?
- Describe the different ways Beauplaisir relates to the different women he encounters through the ruse of the heroine.
- What social role does the heroine's mother play at the end of the story?