Term Paper on "Price Beauty?"

Quoted Instructions for "Price Beauty?" Assignment:

email *****cs1@aol.com for file needed to complete this order.

I need a general chapter about Beauty/female beauty. It should consist of a general introduction about the idea of beauty, from some ancient theories to the present—for example, maybe from the ancient philosophical discussion/different ideas about beauty, then to eighteenth century aesthetics discussion, then to some modern theories about beauty……

And I hope, if possible, some discussion of the theory of beauty can more or less turn to the discussion about female beauty. For example, feminist sees female beauty as a suppression from the patriarchal society, which undermine female autonomy (for instance, The beauty myth : how images of beauty are used against women / Naomi Wolf); biological theories sees female beauty or any good-looking persons advantaged, because their good appearances implicates their good health, good balance physically and mentally, (for instance, Survival of the Prettiest: the science of beauty/Nancy Etcoff)……..and any other theories………

Indeed, mostly we view beauty positively. And nowadays more and more research shows that good physical appearance is advantageous in many perspectives such as career, social relationship, and so on. And due to some factors, appearance is more important for a woman than it is for a man (for instance, according to Linda A. Jackson in her Physical Appearance and Gender: sociobiological and sociocultural perspectives)……..

I am researching on a 18th century novel—Roxana, the fortunate mistress by Daniel Defoe. Due to long patriarchal tradition, women are always commoditized, which also means their appearance are always judged. And generally speaking, lovely appearance is of great advantage. On the one hand, I see Roxana as gaining power from those powerful men who are obviously attracted to her by her beauty and becoming financially powerful herself, but on the other hand, her final tragic ending makes me wonder if the exploitation of her beauty is really a good way for survival, or for social upward mobility…. because she then labeled herself a whore and she claim she becomes more and more vain about her beauty and more wicked. She cannot reconcile her very first decision of yielding to her landlord, who is obviously attracted to her, which opens the door for her mistress career. And her shame makes her not able to face her daughter and eventually causes the murder of her daughter…..

What does her reliance on her beauty means and how does it affect her? This is what I want to figure out, trying to explain her tragedy in this perspective. Her beauty makes her a fortunate mistress to powerful men, but this career makes her feel both vain and guilty.

In this chapter, the most important thing is to describe generally as many as important theories about beauty/or female beauty, from ancient to the present, and these theories don’t have to conform to each other, just bring them out. If any theory can relate to Roxana and explain her situation, that would be great; but if not, it is OK. What I need most is a general chapter on as many as theories about beauty/female beauty, both consistent and contradictory ones.

ps. 1. please don't use unnecessary spacing (my last order had two much unnecessary space)

2. Recommend resources (books):

* The Power of Beauty / Nancy Friday

* The beauty myth : how images of beauty are used against women / Naomi Wolf

* Survival of the Prettiest: the science of beauty/Nancy Etcoff

* Physical Appearance and Gender: sociobiological and sociocultural perspectives / Linda A. Jackson

* Beauty in History: Society, Politics and personal Appearance c.1500 to the Present / Arthur Marwick

Thank you very much for the help!!

Here is the source:

Name

Outline of the Project: The Beauty-Empowered Fortunate Mistress--Roxana

Bearing such an indicative adjective as “fortunate” in it’s title, Daniel Defoe’s novel Roxana, the Fortunate Mistress, arouses in the readers an interest in how different her adventure will be from those of other contemporary fictive characters, as to be called “fortunate.” Following the biographical story of Roxana, we find her really fortunate in the sense that every time she is faced with misery or difficulty in surviving, there is always someone, powerful man in particular, to help her out of her misfortune. However “fortunate” she is, ironically, Roxana is Defoe’s only one novel that ends in tragedy. Does Defoe imply that under the system of patriarchy, a woman, no matter how successful and powerful she becomes, is doomed to be a loser? This seemingly fortunate mistress’s tragic ending has room for discussion.

In addition, observing the narratives and Roxana’s rise to prosperity from her earlier mishap, we may assume that she is so blessed with “beauty” and so aware of it that men are attracted to her. If a man, under patriarchy, is considered to be both dominating and powerful, then a woman, possessed with beauty, can be capable of turning the power of an influential man into hers and makes herself become twice as powerful, by the use of her physical beauty, the seduction for example. In a word, in Roxana’s case, she is empowered greatly by her physical beauty. Furthermore, this kind of female power of beauty is an “alternative power,” which is underlying and obscure but can be manipulated so well as to transcend the “dominant power” of men.

In the early modern days, like the eighteenth century, people tended to value women according to her good marriage and her charming beauty; it is mainly a means to stabilize male supremacies in the social construction. Ironically, a woman like Roxana reversibly deploys her beauty as an apparatus to manipulate people around her, particularly the seemingly powerful men. They are factually her servants in many senses, as long as they still find her attractive and adorable. Beauty and sex still function as a prevailing currency up to now, so was the society back in the times of Enlightenment.

The main objective of this paper is to give as full as possible a perspective about the process of Roxana’s “fortunate” adventure and to apply psychoanalysis to the aspects of Roxana’s prostituting herself, that is, her use of the physical attractiveness to gain power from men and furthermore to fulfill her ambition for fame and vanity. In this perspective, the issue of gender and human sexuality may be taken into account. Besides, the historical background of such period as eighteenth-century enlightenment, during which the formation of taste of the middle class, as well as the appreciation of (female) beauty, constituted a claim to cultural fluency and intellectual capacity, will be researched too.

Roxana and Her Men

With the obscurity and variety of its titles, editions and authorship, Daniel Defoe’s last novel, Roxana, or the Fortunate Mistress, is indeed an interesting fiction that deserves scrutiny from a diversity of perspectives. Besides, Roxana, the heroine of the novel and also the narrator of her own life, is a character that has given rise to a lot of different interpretations and criticisms regarding her conduct and morality. In this last novel, the experiences of Defoe’s heroine are in some way equivalent to those of his previous famous heroine, Moll Flanders. Roxana, faced with the problem of survival, like Moll, employs a strategy for living, which is in close relation to men, with different manipulations and purposes, though.1 However, ironically and differently, Roxana, Defoe’s “fortunate mistress,” ends up falling into “a dreadful Course of Calamities” (Roxana 329). Being the author’s only one novel that ends in tragedy, the autobiographic novel, Roxana, or the Fortunate Mistress, therefore, while describing the “fortunate” protagonist’s rising from adversity to prosperity, by the exercise of the power of her beauty over influential and wealthy men, deserves close attention and analysis with regard to the process of the heroine’s calculating management of her life as a mistress and the meaning that lies behind.

Observing Roxana’s life story, some critics consider her a woman victimized by the patriarchal system and the male-dominated society. In regard to her first marriage, this may seem quite true. However, following her management of her life after the desertion of her brewer husband, we see her becoming more and more powerful, growing more and more perceptive to the situations she is in, and hence exerting her influence more and more effectively. It is undeniable that Roxana owes her later great progress in accumulating fortunes to her beauty, with which she is born, and by which she transforms men’s power into her own, and becomes twice as powerful herself. She seizes every chance to pursue fame and fortune and would avoid anyone or anything that threaten her seemingly secure and comfortable life. In the light of her management of life and the narrative she gives about it, it is discernible that Roxana is definitely not just a weak woman trapped in a system that is against her, but instead a very ambitious and clever woman, who not only paves her own way for great financial success, but also has us readers sympathize with her, despite of her “wicked conduct.” As Mona Scheuermann suggests in the introduction to Her Bread to Earn: Women, Money, and Society from Defoe to Austen, “Defoe’s women are capable of virtually any accomplishment that men can achieve;” and regarding the case of Roxana, she further notes that:

Defoe, in comparison to just about anyone else, has the most positive view of woman and her capabilities, insisting in both Moll Flanders and Roxana that a woman’s talent for productive work is limited only by society’s definition of what avenue for earning money are available to her. (2)

Therefore, in this chapter, I am going to discuss Roxana’s career from initial ruin as a result of a bad marriage which she does not really have an option but to accept whatever the consequences it may bring, then to her rising again, to giddy heights. The focus is on her clear awareness of her most useful resource to exploit, that is, her beauty, and on the way she exercises the power of it over men. Those men are obviously so attracted to her that they offer to help and give her as much as she pleases, even to the extent that she transcends them, regarding the financial resources she has at hand later. As a result, not only is she free from the threat of her former destitution, but also she lives an extremely agreeable life. In addition, being a mistress to one man after another, Roxana manages her mistress career better and better. From her very first benefactor, the jeweler, then the Prince, the Dutch merchant, the third and also the last of her men, to the Lord in London, Roxana manipulates these men more and more effectively to meet what she needs.

Bad Marriage as Dilemma

Never, Ladies, marry a Fool; any Husband rather than a Fool;

with some other Husbands you may be unhappy, but with a Fool

You will be miserable. (Roxana 8)

Under the patriarchal system, a woman in the eighteenth century did not really have the right to choose a husband. Rather, she was betrothed to a man picked by the head of the family, the father, according to the social class, or the prospect that the husband-to-be was going to benefit the whole family socially as well as economically. As long as the two families reached an agreement, the daughter could not but marry the man in question. Speaking of this kind of matrimony, Lawrence Stone remarks:

So far as the propertied laity was concerned, the ideal marriage began with the selection by the parents of the potential spouse, an agreement among both sets of parents upon the financial arrangements, and the acceptance of this choice by both parties, either voluntarily or under pressure. (Road to Divorce )

In Roxana’s case, her first marriage, which later proves disastrous, just follows this tradition: “At about Fifteen years of Age, my Father gave me, as he call’d it in French, 25000 Livres, that is to say, two Thousand Pounds Portion, and married me to an Eminent Brewer in the City” (Roxana 7). Considered from an economic point of view, Roxana’s marriage seems a perfect match of two families of equal standing: she being a daughter of a well-off middle class family, and he, the son of an affluent family and also the heir to the prosperous family business. However, this seemingly ideal husband later becomes the very destroyer of her life.

As a wife, Roxana is dependent on her husband, which means that if her husband is capable of managing the business, she is living a pleasant and carefree life; but if her husband is, in her own words, a “Fool,” “worthless Thing,” “Nothing-doing Wretch,” or “useless thing,” her life is so helplessly dependent on him that she is destined for disaster because of her husband’s poor management of life and family. Then, in this light, whether Roxana’s husband is leaving and deserting the family or not, the family is doomed to decline, due to his incompetence in financial management and his irresponsibility toward family affairs. In a word, the cause of Roxana’s predicament originates in the improper judgment in deciding the future spouse, whether the judgment be entirely her father’s or hers.

As to Roxana’s bad choice of taking the brewer as her husband, here lies something interesting. Among those men to whom Roxana is married, or have a relationship or affair with, the brewer husband is the only one that Roxana describes at all and says to find handsome.2 When Roxana introduces her husband, she gives a short account, which only reveals his physical appearance and skill—a handsome man and a good dancer. She remarks: “He was a jolly, handsome Fellow, as any Woman need wish for a Companion; tall, and well made; rather a little too large, but not so as to be ungentile; he danc’d well, which, I think, was the first thing that brought us together.” And after a few lines, she further confirms that “after I have told you that he was a Handsome Man, and a good Sportsman, I have, indeed, said all” (Roxana 7). Whether her consent to this marriage is on a voluntary basis or is forced, this judgment of a future mate according to his physical attractiveness proves to be a disastrous mistake. While Roxana’s beauty can grant her power to attract men and gain from them everything she wants, a man’s physical attractiveness does not operate in this way, and what really counts should be his ability, especially back in the eighteenth century.3 Firstly, in that period during which capitalism and mercantilism prevail after the long overseas exploration and colonization in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, running a business as a tradesman or merchant was definitely the best way not only to climb up the social ladder to a more prominent status, but also to maintain the family prosperity, especially for middle class families. Those middle class businessmen were well equipped with the capital to manage a business and thus progressed higher and higher. Discussing the economic themes in Roxana, Bram Dijkstra remarks, “The English middle classes of the late seventeenth century and early eighteenth century were caught up in a feverish pursuit of gain from commercial enterprises which seemed capable of unlimited expansion” (7). Besides, to promote as well as to guide the citizens’ participation in the business, Defoe even published a very lengthy volume—The Complete English Tradesman.4 Furthermore, reflecting on the narrative of Roxana, Dijkstra makes a comment on the relationship between the story and Defoe’s opinions about economics, observing that:

Key phrases, and even sometimes whole paragraphs from Roxana turn up nearly verbatim in The Complete English Tradesman (1725-7), A Tour thro’ the Whole Island of Great Britain (1724-5), Augusta Triumphans (1727), and A Plan of the English Commerce (1728). (4)

This manifests the importance of running a business, as well as Defoe’s emphasis on people’s sense of it, which Roxana’s brewer husband simply lacks. In addition, since capitalism and mercantilism are both based on a system of money making and accumulating to benefit both the individual and the nation, and principally a free market competition, a businessman’s ability to handle his investment and to manage his business, as well as the efforts he is willing to make, is of crucial importance. Otherwise, under this system, one can easily lose one’s competitiveness and all one’s capital is at stake, as well as one’s business and family.

Secondly, under the patriarchal system, the choice of a husband was not only not up to a woman, but also the marriage itself was hindering a woman’s independence and autonomy. In Her Bread to Earn, Mona Scheuermann mentions this dilemma of eighteenth-century women regarding their predicament after getting married:

In brief, a woman’s legal rights over her own property depended on her marital status. While an unmarried (and not betrothed) or widowed woman had control of her property and of her money, the married woman had virtually no such rights. (9)

Considered in terms of these two respects, that is, her husband’s incompetence in a commercial world and her dependence on him, Roxana’s marriage is doomed to fail her. She consents to marry a man, only knowing that he is running a business as a brewer and he is good-looking. She does not call in question whether he is capable of dealing with the brewery until she gets married to him and comes to the belated realization that “he was otherwise a weak, empty-headed, untaught Creature” (Roxana 7). What is much more dejecting is that since Roxana is a very smart woman, she can foresee the consequence of her husband’s way of leading his life, but the efforts she makes to prevent it are just in vain. She not only warns him against his poor business practice of the brewery house and his idle life, but also, after he luckily escapes from bankruptcy, proposes some suggestions: “I propos’d to him either to buy some Place with the Money, or with Part of it, and offer’d to join my part to it, which was then in Being, and might have been secur’d; so we might have liv’d tolerably, at least, during his Life” (Roxana 11). But her husband is such a fool who is “void of Council” that he “neglected it [her proposal], liv’d on as he did before, kept his Horses and Men, rid every Day out to the Forest a Hunting, and nothing was done all this while” (Roxana 11). Roxana’s dilemma lies in that she knows how to deal with it, even to save her husband’s business, yet as a wife, she has no right to manage it but to see her husband use up all the resources in idleness, regretting “I thought I saw my Ruin hastening on, without any possible Way to prevent it” (Roxana 11).

Compared with other men who help Roxana first in her struggle to survive and later in her pursuit of wealth, her first husband is indeed her “destroyer.” Yet his taking “French leave”5 is in fact, to Roxana, not so much destructive as “constructive.” Moreover, his disappearance is not so much a shock for Roxana as a secret wish that comes true. As a matter of fact, realizing her husband is too foolish to take her warning seriously, not to mention to make any improvement, Roxana is contemplating the idea of his being gone before it should be too late. Therefore she reflects that “When he said he wou’d be gone, I us’d to wish secretly, and even say in my Thoughts, I wish you wou’d, for if you go on thus, you will starve us all” (Roxana 11-12). And viewed from another angle, it is thanks to her husband’s deserting the family and thus leaving her in charge that she can have a chance to arrange for her five children, preventing their starvation, and then open the door to her later life as a beautiful mistress, a professional businesswoman, and most importantly, as a extremely rich and powerful individual.

Good Looks As Fortune

‘tis enough to tell you, how agreeable you are to me;

how I am surprised at your Beauty, and resolve to make you happy,

and to be happy with you.6 (Roxana 63)

After her husband disappears, Roxana is left without a protector, her father being dead and her brother in prison. She is all on her own then. Although, as discussed above, the social environment and particularly the marital laws frustrate a woman’s independence, Roxana, fortunately, is in possession of an “alternative” power, her captivating beauty. What is more, Roxana has learned her lesson and will find her way to rise again. Her later amours with her men best illustrate the power of beauty and the way the engineering of beauty captures attention and power from men. Indeed, despite of the long unequal social position of men and women, a beautiful woman is comparatively favored in some respects. And the eighteenth century did have its own contemporary interpretation of female beauty and viewed it positively.

During the eighteenth century, in addition to the emphasis on intellect, which was associated with the intellectual movement called “The Enlightenment,” people at that time also tended to pay particular attention and stir the controversy over the idea of “taste” and “beauty.” With the development of mercantilism and capitalism, a specific variety of self-establishing and promising middle class emerged. It consisted of self-sufficient businesspersons, who were secure in finance and thus they occasionally turned their attention to the realm of culture with their own claims. The eighteenth century can be said to be going through a change both economically and culturally. Discussing this phenomenon, Robert W. Jones in the preface to his book, Gender and the Formation of Taste in Eighteenth Century Britain: The Analysis of Beauty, indicates that in eighteenth-century Britain, “a reference to the concept of beauty constituted a claim to cultural fluency and intellectual capacity” (Jones vii). Of course here, at first, the concept and debate of taste or beauty was associated with the appreciation of art and any pleasing objects such as paintings. However, due to the long convention of women’s subordination to men, plus the tendency to “commodify” and “objectify” women, the term “beauty” was always related and applied to the appearance or physical charms of women and the concerns were then inevitably turned to the appreciation and judgment of female physical beauty. The term, though, was perhaps most strikingly deployed in relation to the role of women in cultural and social debate. For this, Jones further explains:

More directly, the perceived beauties of women received minute attention

as the signs, alternately, of virtue or depravity. Therefore while the beautiful was the object of judgment in cultural debate, it also functioned as a guarantor of moral discourses, this was particular true of those texts, which addressed the conduct of women. (Jones ix)

Jones also points out that, “Spence, for example, successfully united an investigation into the question of taste with an account of how women should behave, claiming that a woman’s beauty could make manifest her inner virtue” (1). In a word, it is her physical beauty, that best signifies a woman’s presence at that time. And Roxana is certainly not ignorant about that. Possessed of the charm that the society regards as a pleasant existence, despite that she is reduced so low after having been abandoned by her husband, Roxana will not be excluded from it for long, but will return to exhibit her power and influence when she is ready.

Being brought up in a well-off middle class family, Roxana is so well educated and trained that she, at a very young age, “had accomplished myself for the sociable Part of the World” (Roxana 6). In addition, her later self-description further reveals that she is clearly aware of her physical attractiveness, as well as her intellectual aptness and capability:

I was (speaking of myself as about Fourteen Years of Age) tall, and very well made; sharp as a Hawk in Matters of common Knowledge; quick and smart in Discourse; apt to be Satyrical; full of Repartee, and a little too forward in Conversation; or, as we call it in English, BOLD, tho’ perfectly Modest in my Behaviour. (Roxana 6)

After the tragic outcome of her first impulsive marriage, although Roxana remains in a dejected condition for a while, she is not in despair, nor is she ruined for good. Rather, she is moving on, just being more careful and experienced, and starting from arranging for her five young children to be sheltered from being starved. After getting rid of her five children, Roxana is alone again, except for the company of Amy, who is actually her efficient assistant, instead of an obstacle to her rising. Leaving the children in the care of the family relatives renders Roxana single and available, ready to arouse sympathy from the men who are attracted to her, to obtain supports emotionally and economically from them, and ultimately, to empower herself, although the “proper” management of ridding herself of her children at last turns out to be one of the main causes of her ruin.7 Citing Mona Scheuermann’s statement that “Roxana, having tried the socially prescribed course of marriage—a course that leaves her penniless and burdened with five children—becomes mistress to a series of men, accumulating a great fortune as she proceeds from relationship to relationship” (Her Bread to Earn 13), we may conclude this passage, asserting that from that time on, Roxana’s career as a mistress is set on stage.

Accordingly, the landlord, Roxana’s first benefector, after a period of visiting her for dealing with the rent, comes to help. Obviously attracted by the beauty of Roxana, the landlord, as she observes, “came oftener to see me, look’d kinder upon me, and spoke more friendly to me, than he us’d to do” (Roxana 25). As a landlord, he is very likely to have noticed what the old aunt and the poor woman see when they come to help Roxana out with the children—“they found me in that Posture, and crying vehemently” (Roxana 17). And the landlord later observes and says to Roxana that “it grieved him for my [Roxana’s] sake, realizing “how poorly I lived, how low I was reduc’d, and the like” (Roxana 25). This demonstrates that not only Roxana’s beauty but also her suffering is exerting influence on the landlord. In Crito: or a Dialogue on Beauty, Crito, speaking of the beautiful Mrs. B***, whom he sees weeping and later “wiping away a Tear,” praises the sign of suffering as an enhancement of beauty:

The Distress in her Countenance, and the little Confusion that appeared about her Eyes, on her first discovering me [. . .] added so much to the other Beauties of her Face, that I think I never saw her look so Charming in my Life. (Crito 5-6)8

Similarly, Roxana’s beauty may have earlier impressed the landlord but it might be her grieving that renders her so attractively beautiful that the landlord finally decided to come to her rescue. Roxana’s narrative later confirms this. One night, when they are spending time drinking together, what he says to Roxana makes her understand more clearly what, besides her beauty, has brought him to her:

[H]e told me, That as the sad Condition which I was reduc’d to, had made him pity me, so my Conduct in it, and the Courage I bore it with, had given him a more than ordinary Respect for me, and made him very thoughtful for my Good. (Roxana 26)

This confession of the landlord proves to be constructive, for later we will see Roxana employ this effect very successfully on her second protector, the Prince. To further manifest the influence of her distress, we may refer again to Robert W. Jones’ argument. In the chapter entitled “The Art of Being Pretty: Polite Taste and the Judgment of Women,” he observes:

Kames, for example, also employed an image of distressed femininity as part of his definition of beauty in the Elements of Criticism: Pity interests us in this object, and recommends all its virtuous qualities. For this reason, female beauty shows best in distress, and is more apt to inspire love, than upon ordinary occasions. (qtd. in Jones 95-96)

Besides, Jones continues:

According to Kames, pity warms and melts the spectator, thus preparing him ‘for the reception of other tender affections’. Spence’s Mrs B *** could also be described as a spectacle wherein ‘admiration concurred with pity to produce love’. (Jones 96)

Like Mrs B***, Roxana, as an afflicted beauty, kindles love from the sympathetic landlord. Therefore, after spending some time with Roxana, doing everything he can to relieve her distress, indeed, the landlord is so eager to keep Roxana by his side that he tells her that he loves her. And he wants to take her as his wife, regardless of the unlawfulness of this desire, for he actually has a wife from whom he has been parted for a long time. However sincere he is, Roxana, not yet recovered from the former misery of being ruined by a man on the one hand, and being virtuous at that time on the other, hesitates to consent.

In fact, before the landlord proposes to support and protect Roxana in the name of love, Amy has earlier noticed that he is attracted to her mistress and has foreseen that he will, sooner or later, disclose his adoration to her and furthermore ask her for favor. She suggests that Roxana take the chance to enjoy the benefit that her beauty has bring her and yield to the landlord, persuading her that “he knows your Condition as well as you do: Well, and what then? Why then he knows too that you are young and handsome, and he has the surest Bait in the World to take you with” (Roxana 28). At first Roxana is arguing time and again with Amy against her suggestion, insisting that “a Woman ought rather to die, than to prostitute her Virtue and Honour, let the Temptation be what it will” (Roxana 29). Then it follows that the landlord reveals his feeling for her and, moreover, offers her a contract, which is an emotional as well as financial guarantee. Considering the pleasant life the landlord can afford and the successful business he manages, Roxana cannot help choosing the road of security and admitting the validity of Amy’s contention that under that circumstance, it is perfectly lawful for her to respond to her landlord’s advances and consent to “lye with him for bread” (Roxana 28).

Speaking of the landlord, who is also a jeweler, there is one thing that deserves to be mentioned—his responsible business practice. Instead of first of all noticing his appearance, what Roxana sees in the landlord is that he is a reliable businessman. This is observed when one night Roxana, giving up her resistance and deciding to be obliged to him, asks him to stay and take a night’s lodging with her. Rather than promising to stay immediately and happily, he declines her request, or favor, by reason of his business in London. Roxana relates the situation: “he cou’d not deny me, but he would take his Horse, and go to London, do the business he had to do, which, it seems, was to pay a Foreign Bill that was due that night, and wou’d else be protested” (Roxana 35-36). Thus it is apparent not only that he is an honest man but that he is a wise man who knows how to get his priorities right. And he will, with little doubt, make a good supporter whom Roxana can rely on, at least economically. With the landlord, Roxana does live a comfortable and happy life until he is murdered.

After the jeweler’s murder, which terminates her second “marriage,” Roxana is left without a protector again. While the jeweler’s death is anything but a part of Roxana’s plan, her life with him had been so safe and happy that it prompts her to try initiating a beneficial affair again. As ***** Durant observes, she has become calculating:

As a relative innocent, she had been deserted, befriended, and seduced; as an older and wiser woman, what could make more sense than to plan to seem more innocent than she now is so as to set the stage for a rich man to protect her again. (Bloom 159)

To this end, Roxana calls herself “The pretty Widow of Poictou,” though she scruples against viewing herself as the wife of the jeweler when he is alive. By calling herself thus, she consequently attracts the attention of the Prince, to whom the jeweler was to deliver some valuable jewelry when he was robbed and murdered on the way. Learning from her earlier experience with the landlord, Roxana is “performing” the role as a grieving woman while the Prince comes to visit and console her for the loss of her husband. Asked by the Prince about whether she has still a fortune agreeable to the condition she had lived in before, Roxana reveals that “I reply’d, with some Tears, which, I confess, were a little forc’d” (Roxana 59; my italics). And accordingly her performance accomplishes the purpose of impressing the Prince. In response to her mourning over her husband, the Prince expresses regret over his death, and “at the same time he complimented me upon my being very handsome, as he was pleas’d to call it” (Roxana 59). After their first meeting, the Prince often sends his gentleman either to deliver gifts to her or to settle things for his visits. As a matter of course, she becomes one of the kept women of the Prince, but his favorite.

The influence of her beauty over men cannot manifest itself more on anyone else than on the Prince. When they are together, the Prince compliments her on her beauty, time after time, professing that she is “the most beautiful Creature on Earth” (61), and “the finest Woman in France” (62). Besides, he once comments to her that “my Quality sets me at a Distance from you, and makes you ceremonious; your Beauty exalts you to more than an Equality [. . .] ‘tis enough to tell you, how agreeable you are to me; how I am surpriz’d at your Beauty” (Roxana 63). It is quite apparent that if not for her beauty, Roxana would not have earned the caring and support from a man of such a high rank. Her beauty not only gives her power, but also exalts her quality, her seeming virtue, for example. And since the Prince adores Roxana extremely, he showers her with various gifts and treasures. Therefore, when the Prince’s conversion due to his wife’s illness leaves Roxana deserted still a third time, she is “grown not only well supply’d, but Rich, and not only Rich, but was very Rich” (Roxana 110).

If we probe into the reason for Defoe’s involving his heroine, extraordinarily, with a royal member due to her seductive beauty, it might make sense to relate the fictive character to a real person at that time. And this investigation can be attained according to two revealing allusions in the novel. Firstly, the full title of the novel says clearly that the context of the story is set in the time of Charles II, who is, in fact, known by the public to have kept several mistresses.9 Then secondly, in her essay “Defoe’s Protestant Whore,” Alison Conway makes the following statement:

The eponymous heroine of Defoe’s last novel, Roxana, titles herself “a Protestant Whore,” and in doing so introduces into the fictional universe of the narrative an historical woman, Nell Gwyn, mistress of Charles II. “Pray, good people, be civil; I am the Protestant whore,” declared Gwyn in 1681. (Conway 215)

Judging from these two points, we may reasonably relate the real legendary life of Nell Gwyn, who rises as an actress, to the fictional one of Roxana. And what they share in common is not hard to find. Besides the fact that they are both mistresses to a royal highness, Roxana’s use of her beauty as a means of manipulating people around her renders her capable of performance, which is exactly what Nell Gwyn is good at as an actress.

That Roxana is like a beautiful and professional actress lies in the sense that she performs in her assumed roles so well that she is able to arouse from the people around her or from the audience whatever feelings she wishes to benefit from herself. For example, before she presents herself to the Prince as a mournful widow, she has, like in a rehearsal, played the role to the public, even with effective management of necessary costume. She describes:

As I did not forget to set myself out with all possible Advantage, considering the Dress of a Widow, which in those Days was a most frightful thing; I say, as I did thus for my own Vanity, for I was not ignorant that I was very handsome; I say, on this Account, I was soon made very publick, and was known by the Name of La Belle venue de Poictou. (Roxana 57)

Afterwards, as asserted above, if the very reason that the Prince keeps Roxana as mistress is for her beauty, then the reason that he constantly rewards her with precious things is a result of her good performance as an obedient and decent woman. When the Prince gives her leave to use as much freedom with him and to have everything of him, Roxana “yet did not ask of him with an Air of Avarice, as if I was greedily making a Penny of him; but I manag’d him with such Art, that he generally anticipated my Demands” (Roxana 66). In other words, besides her calculating mind, Roxana is able to put her scheme into practice by her good acting. Besides, as a good actor/actress is very good at pretending to be somebody else, this is disclosed in the later episode when she hosts parties and dresses herself in the fashion of a Turkish princess to entertain the guests. Still a more impressive performance is her disguising herself as a Quaker, when she retreats from public life as Roxana and lives with an honest Quaker. In order to keep her identity from disclosure, Roxana sometimes assumes the dress, as well as the manner of a Quaker. And she does it very well too: “I had not only learn’d to dress like a QUAKER, but so us’d myself to THEE and THOU, that I talk’d like a QUAKER too, as readily and naturally as if I had been born among them” (Roxana 213).

Arthur Marwick, researching the looks and lives of famous beauties in history (in the chapter “Personal Appearance and Life Experiences, c. 1600-c. 1800”) makes particular comment on the court of Charles II: “However, if we look back across the Channel to the court of Charles II matters are more straightforward; in that environment beauty certainly brought rewards” (97). Indeed, his descriptions of those mistresses mainly put emphasis on their physical attractiveness and he comes to a conclusion that “The shared feature in all of the women who found favour with Charles II was undoubted physical beauty” (104). Beside, in the case of Nell Gwyn, he makes it clear that “The early career of Nell Gwyn tells us much about the relationship between looks and social mobility” (100). To sum up, the power of beauty is so great that it can help exalt a person’s quality and as well as status, Roxana and Nell Gwyn being examples.

When it comes to Roxana’s next affair with the Dutch merchant, she does not exert the power of her beauty so noticeably or purposefully as she does in her previous affairs, because she has become markedly powerful and independent at that time. However, the beauty effect still functions to do her good. This time, her beauty serves her more as “protective” power than as seductive power. This is manifested by the incident that happens when she just first meets the Dutch merchant. To help Roxana dispose of her jewels, the honest merchant recommends her to a Jew, whom he knows to perfectly understand jewels. However, to his surprise, not only do Roxana and the Jew not make a deal, but also the Jew is accusing Roxana of robbery and murder because he recognizes the jewels as the reported stolen jewels of the murdered jeweler. Yet the Dutch merchant, instead of believing his Jew friend’s accusation, gives credence to Roxana’s story and explanation. Moreover, he manages to fool the Jew and helps Roxana to make a narrow escape to Holland from being put to prison. On the one hand, Roxana’s beauty just operates latently to make the Dutch merchant be careful for her and protect her so as to keep her beauty from harm; on the other hand, her beauty is like a guarantee of her inner virtue and it helps clear her of any disgraceful charge.

The honest Dutch merchant, like other men, falls in love with beautiful Roxana, but differing from them, proposes to marry her lawfully, since his wife is dead. Nevertheless, Roxana, though having feelings for him too, is now too full of vanity of her beauty and wealth to consent. And she refuses him on the pretence of maintaining her liberty against matrimony, confessing: “it was upon the Account of my Money that I refus’d him” (Roxana 147). Having tasted the sweetness of being beautiful and becoming rich, she is by far more interested in seeing to what extent can her beauty exalt her than in marrying to the Dutch merchant. Consequently the merchant disappointedly leaves Holland and goes back to Paris, while Roxana leaves for London, with the understanding and ambition that:

I was rich, beautiful, and agreeable, and not yet old; I had known something of the influence I had had upon the Fancies of Men, even of the highest Rank; [. . .] I knew I cou’d make a Figure at London, [. . .] and having already been ador’d by Princes, I thought of nothing less than of being Mistress to the King himself. (Roxana 161)

Settling down in London and known to the public as a beautiful and wealthy woman, Roxana is courted by a multitude of men. Yet now what she aims at is not economic support as before, but fame and title, which are related to the Royal Highness, to gratify her vanity. To achieve such a goal, she cannot just wait passively for him to come to her. Rather, she arranges parties at her apartment on purpose to present her beauty and attract the royal attention that she desires. And thus she sets up a stage for herself to perform again, but publicly this time. When she is dressed in the habit of a “Turkish Princess,” and performs in front of the guests, she dances like an oriental queen so much that one of the gentlemen cries out “Roxana! Roxana!” This is how she has the name “Roxana” fixed on her afterwards. And Roxana’s beauty and grace with which she dances are so fascinating that, “one Gentleman had the Folly to expose himself, as to say, and I think swore too, that he had seen it danc’d at Constantinople; which was ridiculous enough,” for according to her, the dance is invented by a famous master at Paris and she learns it there to please her second benefactor, the Prince. Although she does not successfully, as she intends, make the King take her as a mistress, her remarkable beauty never disappoints her in terms of attracting a man. She is then taken on by a Lord for as long as eight years in London. And when she gets sick of his Lordship, she is powerful enough to leave him, hiding herself in a suburban lodging with a Quaker.

Following her story here, we find her still fortunate, for not only does the Dutch merchant whose proposal she refused (something she always kept feeling a bit sorry for) come to find her out after their parting for so long, but also does she find him still in love with her. What is more, he offers to buy her titles, which are what she has been longing for. Therefore, as she is growing older and her beauty diminishing, joined with the fact that the Prince is too weak to take her again, Roxana consents to marry the Dutch merchant. And they do live happily for a while and she particularly enjoys and takes pride in the titles that her husband buys her. However, after getting married and moving to Holland, their happy life does not last long, for the shadow of Roxana’s previous indecent life haunts her, and given a chance, it would give her a stroke.

To sum up, if we view it from the economic point of view, Roxana is indeed rising incredibly high, by the use of her beauty. As Dijkstra suggests, Defoe, by the story of Roxana, makes effort to “educate the feminine part of his audience in the proper management of their central financial resource, their physical beauty” (21). Indeed, observing the narratives, we see no other reasons but Roxana’s extraordinary beauty as the explanation of, at least initially, her attraction for those powerful men. However, leading a life considered by herself as corrupted and full of vanity, Roxana certainly suffers pangs of guilt that make her feel immoral and wicked. Hence, an inquiry into Roxana’s changing and troubling mentality is of importance because, although her final downfall seems a direct result of the murder of her daughter Susan, her self-condemning and guilty mind ever since her first yielding to the landlord is ultimately responsible for her eventual misery. Thus she ends the story of her own life struggle with “the Blast of Heaven seem’d to follow the Injury done the poor Girl, by us both; and I was brought so low again, that my Repentance seem’d to be only the Consequence of my Misery, as my Misery was of my Crime” (Roxana 330). By “Crime” she means not only the murder of her daughter, but chiefly also the wicked way that she achieves prosperity. In other words, probing into Roxana’s final predicament, we see that it has its roots in her trading her beauty/body for living, and in her increasing vanity toward the titles and money which her beauty can bring her. Such influence of her beauty as a backlash, as well as Roxana’s mental disturbance will be discussed in next chapter.

Notes

1. Moll, in order to survive, besides committing thievery, always wants to get married to get support from men, while Roxana, regarding marriage as against a woman’s liberty, mostly enjoys the power and money she gains herself from those powerful and rich men without thinking about marrying them.

2. As a matter of fact, when Amy tries to persuade Roxana into yielding to the landlord, she argues that “Your choice is fair and plain; here you may have a handsome, charming [my italics] Gentleman, be rich, live pleasantly, and in Plenty” (Roxana 40). Here on the one hand, the argument is Amy’s, rather than Roxana’s. On the other hand, Amy is emphasizing what the landlord is able to provide for Roxana, and his good appearance is just viewed as an “additional value.”

3. Here my argument is not that while good looks are advantageous to a woman, they are disadvantageous to a man. My point is that I regard Roxana’s beauty as her best virtue, which can attract powerful men to shelter and provide for her. And these powerful men’s choosing a wife according to her physical beauty could not cause them harm, let alone destruction, because under that social circumstance, a married woman does not control the family property or capital, or rather, they are all in the hands of the husband. However, conversely, if a woman considers taking a man as her husband on the basis of his good appearance, it is absolutely a risky decision, because once they get married, she is under the threat of being helplessly ruined by her incompetent spouse, who is in charge of the family and business and whose good looks does not necessarily promise his good ability.

4. The Complete English Tradesman, Vol. I (1725); A Supplement to the Complete English Tradesman (1727 [for 1726]); The Compleat English Tradesman, Vol. II (1727). Edited by John McVeagh, The Complete English Tradesman (1725 & 1727) is a thorough and detailed account of the methods, the rules of conduct, the miseries, dangers and grandeur of the profession of merchant, both at the apprentice stage and when in a large way of business. It includes a remarkable tribute to the value to society of the international merchant, and stands as a summation of Defoe’s ideas about the trading life.

(http://www.pickeringchatto.com/defoereligious.htm)

5. In etymology, “French leave” derives from an 18th century French custom of leaving a reception without taking leave of the host or hostess and therefore means an informal, hasty, or secret departure. In literature, the allusion is to the French soldiers, who in their invasions take what they require, and never wait to ask permission of the owners or pay any price for what they take. (http://www.websters-online-dictionary.org/definition/english/fr/french+leave.html). Regarding what happens to Roxana’s brewer husband after his taking French leave, we may notice sometime interesting and coincidental for he is later found out to have escaped to France and serves as a guard, in the “Gensd’ arms.” (Roxana 86)

6. The Prince pays this compliment to Roxana, and his royal highness has brought Roxana’s career as a mistress to a climax.

7. The uncompromising pursuit by one of Roxana’s deserted children, Susan, and the implied threat to Roxana’s undisclosed identity, give rise to Susan’s murder, committed by Roxana’s faithful maid, who is, to Roxana, as close as a family member and who disappears too. This incident definitely shatters Roxana.

8. Crito is written by Joseph Spence [Sir Harry Beaumont, pseud.]. Here it is included in Aesthetics: Sources in the Eighteenth Century Vol. 5, edited and introduced by John Valdimir Price.

9. The full title being Roxana, the Fortunate Mistress, or, a History of the Life and Vast Variety of Fortunes of Mademoiselle de Beleau, afterwards called the Countess de Wintselsheim in Germany, Being the Person Known by the Name of the Lady Roxana in the time of Charles II.

Works Cited

Bloom, Harold, ed. Daniel Defoe. New York: ***** House, 1987.

Conway, Alison. “Defoe’s Protestant Whore.” Eighteenth-Century Studies

35. 2 (2002): 215-233.

Defoe, Daniel. Roxana, or the Fortunate Mistress. New York: Oxford UP, 1996.

Dijkstra, Bram. Defoe and Economics. London: Macmillan, 1987.

Jones, Robert. Gender and the Formation of Taste in Eighteenth-Century Britain:

The Analysis of Beauty. Cambridge: U of Cambridge P, 1998.

Marwick, Arthur. Beaury in History: Society, Politics and Personal Appearance

c. 1500 to the Present. Gloucester: Thames and Hudson, 1988.

Price, John Valdimir, ed. and introd. Aesthetics: Sources in the Eighteenth Century

Vol. 5. Bristol: Thoemmes, 1998.

Scheuermann, Mona. Her Bread to Earn: Woman, Money, and Society from Defoe

to Austen. Lexington: UP of Kentucky, 1993.

Stone, Lawrence. Road to Divorce: England 1530-1987. New York: Oxford UP,

1990.