Queen Ahiwe
ENG 2327-5003
Prof Sidle Fall 2014
LITERARY ANALYSIS A: ELIZA WHARTON-THE COQUETTE
Hannah Webster Foster wrote the novel, The Coquette using the epistolary genre. In this story, Eliza Wharton had lost her fiancée who, by the way, was chosen for her by her parents, to the cold hands of death after a protracted illness. Currently she has two young men who desire to have a relationship with her. Boyer, one of the suitors, was a polite and respectable but boring clergyman, who believes that a woman should desire to be married and her true happiness should come from having a home and children to take care of. Eliza’s friends and her mother felt Boyer would be a better partner for her, and they have this to say about him “Your friends,
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Sanford, “a pretentious rake” (Foster 818), was a bad influence; Boyer was boring and pompous, but polite and respectable. Obviously, either of the two choices could lead to her downfall. So, it was a choice between two evils, but Boyer from all indications appeared to be a better choice. However, “Brought up to understand the behavior expected of a proper young woman of her station, Eliza is not an immoral person” (Foster 818). So, Eliza had a strong sense of what is wrong and what is right based on her upbringing; but despite this, she had some difficulties keeping to her morals, and still ended up making a poor choice of a partner. In my opinion, she did not make a very good choice, but what happened to her in the end is not entirely her fault, but a combination of her poor choices, and the fate she met. She knew the kind of person Sanford was, and her friends did warn her that “Many have been the victims of his treachery” (Foster 864). In her letter to Eliza, Lucy Freeman says “Methinks I can gather from your letters, a predilection for this Major Sanford. But he is a rake, my dear friend; and can a lady of your delicacy and refinement think of forming a connection with a man of that character? I hope not… you will not find a more excellent partner than Mr. Boyer. Whatever you reasonably expect in a lover, a …show more content…
You could see the helpless and powerless state of women even as far back as the 18th century. The story also exposes the fundamental injustices meted out to women by confining them to a limited domestic sphere. The society dictates the identity and role of the woman; “every young woman is expected to marry a suitable spouse” (Foster 818), take care of her husband and children, while having no voice or rights of her own. Any relationships outside the spheres of marriage is being frowned at. But the man can do as he pleases, even if he is married. While Eliza had to move away from her family and friends because she was pregnant and could not stand the shame and had “become a reproach and disgrace to friends” (Foster 906), Sanford is allowed to continue living his life probably with another vulnerable young woman in the society. While Sanford gets away with his womanizing acts, Eliza is the one who is branded as loose, and termed a coquette; she was the one who lost her life, trying to conceal a pregnancy that was conceived by two people. An unidentified source has this to write about her: “But let no one reproach her memory. Her life has paid the forfeit of her folly. Let that suffice” (Foster
In her final letter to her mother, Eliza admits her wrong doings. She tells her mother she ignored all the things she was told. All their advice fell on her deaf ears. She explains that she had fallen victim to her own indiscretion. She had become the latest conquest of “a designing libertine,” (Foster 894). She knew about Sanford’s reputation, she knew his intentions, and she knew that he was married, yet she still started a relationship with him. And her blatant disregard for facts and common sense caused her unwed pregnancy and premature demise. Eliza Wharton had nobody to blame for her situation but herself. She ignored warnings, advice, common sense, and other options available to her. She chose her ill fated path and had to suffer the consequences.
Eliza's assaults against True Womanhood are violations of the virtues submissiveness and purity. When Eliza refuses to ignore the gallantry of Major Sanford in favor of the proposals of Reverend Boyer despite the warnings of her friends and mother, she disregards submissiveness in favor of her own fanc...
The Coquette; or, The History of Eliza Wharton narrates the tribulations of an unmarried woman in post-revolutionary America. The author Hannah Webster Foster uses the story of Miss Wharton as an allegory of female moral decay. The highly patriarchal demands that women be submissive, domestic, and married. However, the protagonist Eliza Wharton has conflicting ideas of her expectations within the society. She is highly intelligent and yearns for self-determination. Though the novel is about seduction, Foster significantly altered the basic structure of novels at the time by relating it from the female perspective. The result is a novel that explores several significant themes in post-revolutionary America among them, the existence, and the need for female education.
Even before this event, the struggles of women in society were surfacing in the media. Eliza Farnham, a married woman in Illinois during the late 1830s, expressed the differing views between men and women on the proper relations between a husband and wife. While Farnham viewed a wife as being “a pleasant face to meet you when you go home from the field, or a soft voice to speak kind words when you are sick, or a gentle friend to converse with you in your leisure hours”, a recently married farmer contended that a wife was useful “to do [a man’s] cookin and such like, ‘kase it’s easier for them than it is for [men]” (Farnham, 243).
The “Feminine Mystique” is a highly influential book in the early second wave feminism movement. It is said that it helped shaped the demands of the second wave by insisting for the right to work outside the home, and to be paid equally; the right for reproductive freedom; the demand that women should not be expected to have children and be mothers if they do not want to. Betty Friedan addresses “the problem that has no name” which is the women who are highly educated, suburban housewives that are bored and want something “more” in their life. This is the point where women knew we needed a second wave. Women’s role had gone backwards and they were beginning to realize that they were all experiencing the same “problem that has no name”. “The
Gender roles were important in the eighteenth century because firmly established roles for each gender helped build and maintain a strong family unit. A family with a strong structure was vital because the family was the basis for all other institutions. Everything from government to church worked through the strong family unit. Women in the eighteenth century were designated to maintain household order and be subservient to the man. Eliza Wharton does not lose her innocence throughout the novel, Foster starts the novel with Eliza already enticed by the idea of freedom. Eliza refuses to cooperate with the domestic and republican ideology that is enforced by the women around her. Eliza challenges those who are happily the voice of domesticity. Eliza has no intention of participating in typical republican motherhood and matrimonial bonds. Eliza’s refusal to accept the normal gender roles of the eighteenth century is a menace to the patriarchy. One of Eliza’s suitors Boyer, ends up getting his heart
Eliza Wharton has sinned. She has also seduced, deceived, loved, and been had. With The Coquette Hannah Webster Foster uses Eliza as an allegory, the archetype of a woman gone wrong. To a twentieth century reader Eliza's fate seems over-dramatized, pathetic, perhaps even silly. She loved a man but circumstance dissuaded their marriage and forced them to establish a guilt-laden, whirlwind of a tryst that destroyed both of their lives. A twentieth century reader may have championed Sanford's divorce, she may have championed the affair, she may have championed Eliza's acceptance of Boyer's proposal. She may have thrown the book angrily at the floor, disgraced by the picture of ineffectual, trapped, female characters.
In the 1800’s, women lived under men’s rules and ideologies and were forced to conform to the social “norms” of the time. To women, these rules seemed normal as they were used to them. In the story, Jane is put in a nursery because she is said to be sick and
In the analysis of the issue in question, I have considered Mary Wollstonecraft’s Text, Vindication of the Rights of Woman. As an equivocal for liberties for humanity, Wollstonecraft was a feminist who championed for women rights of her time. Having witnessed devastating results or men’s improvidence, Wollstonecraft embraced an independent life, educated herself, and ultimately earned a living as a writer, teacher, and governess. In her book, “A Vindication of the Rights of Woman,” she created a scandal perhaps to her unconventional lifestyle. The book is a manifesto of women rights arguing passionately for educating women. Sensualist and tyrants appear right in their endeavor to hold women in darkness to serve as slaves and their plaything. Anyone with a keen interest in women rights movement will surely welcome her inexpensive edition, a landmark documen...
In Stowe’s book Uncle Tom’s Cabin we follow Eliza through a dramatic escape from her plantation after she learns about the impending sale of her only son. Determined to take him out of slavery or die trying, she runs away in the night with him holding on to her neck. Stowe focuses much attention on the power of maternal love. She felt strongly against slavery because it often broke the bonds of maternal love by ripping children away from the mothers. Families were continually being torn apart by the auction block; Stowe wanted the reader to be aware of the effects of this horrible institution. Logic tells us that no mother would ever willingly put her children or herself in danger. However, through Eliza’s character in Uncle Tom’s Cabin we see the desperation that many women had to experience to save their children.
...est stick since she lost her life and her reputation, the two most important things to her. However I would argue that the punishments were the same, Sanford lost the two most important things to him as well, Eliza and his money. Depending on one’s view point, it may be better to die than to live without the love of your life.
Society shows the stereotypical way of thinking in the Victorian era: women are subordinate to men. This can be seen through Mary Whitney. Mary Whitney tells Grace what her goals should be and how she should act: “It was a custom for young girls in this country to hire themselves out, in order to earn money for their dowries, and then they would marry, and if their husbands proposed they would soon be hiring their own servants in their turn and then they, ―would be mistress of a tidy farmhouse, and independent” (Atwood 182). Mary Whitney is explaining to Grace that a woman needs to get married in order for her to be successful. This was the gender construction of the time, and she is trying to get Grace to take on that role. This is very true to the a...
She makes the argument that all women in the south, including slaves experienced many forms of oppression because of the patriarchal society of the south during the time, because without the oppression of all women then farmers would lose full authority. “Patriarchy was the bedrock upon which the slave society was founded, and slavery exaggerated the pattern of subjugation that patriarchy had established.”(p. 6) She makes the notion that the plantation wives and female slaves shared similar experiences with unequal treatment. The book even theorizes that the plantation mistress were in more bondage than female slaves were because she had no other person to share her experiences with. Whereas, the slaves all had commonality among them and experienced there hardships together as a family rather than
Throughout the early 1800s, British women most often were relegated to a subordinate role in society by their institutionalized obligations, laws, and the more powerfully entrenched males. In that time, a young woman’s role was close to a life of servitude and slavery. Women were often controlled by the men in their lives, whether it was a father, brother or the eventual husband. Marriage during this time was often a gamble; one could either be in it for the right reasons, such as love, or for the wrong reasons, such as advancing social status. In 19th century Britain, laws were enacted to further suppress women and reflected the societal belief that women were supposed to do two things: marry and have children. In Pride and Prejudice, Austen portrayed a women’s struggle within a society that stresses the importance of marriage and strict behavioral customs. As evidenced by the Bennett daughters: Elizabeth and Jane, as well as Charlotte Collins, marriage for young women was a pursuit that dominated their lives.
I don’t matter, I suppose’” (Berst 99). Eliza’s actions can be felt as a Cinderella impulse coming from her (Berst 99). Eliza worked hard to get through the lessons with Higgins and had won that bet, so she deserves the credit for the hard work she put in. It seems that Eliza at this point is lonely and probably wanted someone in her life to tell her she was doing the right thing, she has accomplished things she wanted to do for herself.