The Masquerade of Female Roles and Role-Playing in “Fantomina: or, Love in a Maze”
The protagonist of Eliza Haywood’s “Fantomina: or, Love in a Maze” goes to unlimited heights to entice and hold the sexual interest of Beauplairsir by disguising herself as multiple women. The introduction to “Fantomina: or, Love in a Maze” in our Broadview anthology discusses Haywood’s vision of the story and its “central theme of disguise” and the allure of masquerade (632). The appeal of masquerade still lingers in present day society where role-playing is often cited as a means of maintaining a relationships and an exciting sex life. However, what is to be said about these relationships when they are held together by fantasies of having sex with someone other than your partner? Is the protagonist in “Fantomina” to be hailed for her assertive actions to pursue, by any means, a sexual relationship with the object of her affection? Or is she just victim to the whims of Beauplairsir’s sexual desires that she desperately tries to slot herself into?
Haywood’s protagonist adopts different disguises so she may pursue her sexual desires and attract Beauplairsir while retaining her reputation in a society that separates the virtuous woman from the woman who asserts her sexual desires. The protagonist faces the same issues as women in today’s society who struggle between reconciling their virtue with their sexuality in romantic relationships. Women who freely engage in sexual activity are stigmatized as undesirable for ‘serious’ relationships. Meanwhile, the virtuous relationship women is seen as less sexual and as needing help to spice up her sex live and hold the attention of her partner. These two female identities are put at odds with each other, but just as Haywood’s protagonist attempts to stay the virtuous woman while playing as a seductress, today’s modern woman is expected to play both roles. As it is eloquently stated by Ludacris in his song “Nasty Girl”, society wants women to be a “Lady in the streets but a freak in the bed” (Ludacris).
In an article in Fresh Vancouver Sarah Symonds, celebrity mistress turned relationship therapist, gives advice to wives on how to keep men happy and prevent them from having affairs. She tells women “if you don’t want [your husbands] to cheat, wives, get with the program and act more like your husband’s mistress” (Fresh Vancouver). Symonds says that wives are partly to blame for their husband’s affairs because they do not work to entice them sexually. This outlook creates a divide between the wife and the sexually attractive mistress while still expecting women to play both roles. Haywood’s protagonist discusses Fantomina’s resemblance to her true identity as the virtuous aristocrat, as she struggles between both roles: “her resemblance to this celebrated lady might keep his inclination alive something longer than otherwise they would have been” (636). The protagonist marries these two female roles to keep the attentions of her lover. Why is it necessary that we differentiate between the sexual woman and the woman of the relationship? Why does the wife need to ‘act’ like the mistress? Why can she not possess the same sexuality in her own role?
Role playing is often credited as a way to spice up long-term monogamous relationships and keep sexual desire strong. Haywood’s protagonist takes up many different roles to recapture the affections of Beauplairsir as he continuously becomes tired of her many personas. The protagonist relishes in what she sees as the perfect plan, she says “I have him always impatient longing, dying” and she even claims that if “all neglected wives and fond abandoned nymphs would take this method. Men would be caught in their own snare have not cause to scorn our easy, weeping, wailing sex!” (644). Initially the protagonist paints her role play as the perfect plan, while her beloved Beauplairsir is essentially having affairs with many women and being faithful to none. This leads to the idea that role-playing is ultimately a way for couples to experience sex with other people while remaining faithful in their monogamous relationships.
The author of an article titled “How to Make Married Sex Feel Like a One Night Stand” discusses how marital sex becomes boring after the novelty of marriage wears off and suggests role-playing in order to sexual excitement strong (Kissinger). A similar article from Men’s Health titled “Sex With Someone New Every Night” explains the psychology behind role-playing. The article quotes Scott Haltzman, professor of psychiatry at Brown University, who says “Role playing interweaves well with the natural tendency to dissociate from the daily demands of life. It helps your woman experience more liberation under the covers, because she can put herself mentally in a different, more exciting place” (Men’s Health). Haltzman’s explanation calls back to Haywood’s description of the masquerade and how it allowed women to express themselves more freely. Haltzman describes the necessity of role-play with a long-term sexual partner because “dopamine levels [in the brain] diminish as you’re exposed to something repeatedly. We humans are lucky, he says. We have imagination.” (Men’s Health) Role play compensates for human’s desire to seek sexual variety and maintain sexual interest, which is why Haywood’s protagonist utilizes her multiple costumes. She explains her choice: “Had he been faithful to me,’ said she to herself, ‘either as Fantomina, or Celia, or the widow Bloomer, the most violent passion, if it does not change its object, in time will wither. Possession naturally abates the vigour of desire, and I should have had at best but a cold, insipid, husband-like lover in my arms” (644). Haywood’s protagonist makes the both their sexual desires. He experiences the variety he is looking for and she maintains the passionate sexual experiences that she desires.
Works Cited
Kissinger, Kayla. “How to Make Married Sex Feel Like a One Night Stand.” Lovepanky. Web. 27 Jan. 2013.
“Sarah Symonds, Celebrity Mistress: On Sex, Love and Infidelity.” Freshvancouver.com. Web. 27 Jan. 2013.
“Sexual Role Play.” Men’s Health Magazine : Men’s Guide to Fitness, Health, Weight Loss, Nutrition, Sex, Style and Guy Wisdom. 4 June 2007. Web. 27 Jan. 2013. ∞
Who’s to judge – a desperate or strategic love game?
Reading Eliza Haywood’s Fantomina, I feel sorry for the protagonist, yet at the same time I cannot help but to think that she is the one to blame for her persecution. Burning with a curiosity of how it feels to gain attention from men, she disguises herself as a prostitute. She meets Beauplaisir and the two fall in love, but his passion goes as fast as it comes. Realizing how easily his heart changes and how fickle he is, she disguises herself further in three different identities in order to seduce him and in a way, “keeps” his love. However, Beauplaisir is never faithful to any of her disguised characters. She even ends up pregnant with his child, and ultimately is sent to a monastery in France by her mother.
It is evident that the heroine feels superior with her strategies. Succeeding in fooling Beauplaisir in her disguised identity of Celia, the country girl, the heroine celebrates her triumph: “But I have outwitted even the most Subtle of the deceiving Kind, and while he thinks to fool me, is himself the only beguiled Person.” She then happily goes on to the next disguise as a mourning widow. True, I do give her some credit for her “Success of her Stratagems”, but in modern day this kind of behaviour will no doubt be seen as plain desperation.
While the story is famously known for the heroine’s power and sexual desire, I am interested in the “love game” that is enacted between the two characters, which still is at play in our modern society. The love game between the two sexes has always been a heated discussion throughout centuries: the pull and push tactic, the coy smile, flirtatious strategies, appropriate courtship behaviour, hinted signals, etc. Haywood’s use of dramatic irony shows readers that Fantomina is too playing her own love game with Beauplaisir: she is the controlling one here, the one who knows about all of Beauplaisir’s affairs, while Beauplaisir thinks that he is in control of her and that she knows nothing of his conquests. While Fantomina is able to seduce Beauplaisir sexually again and again, her hopeless efforts in securing his heart result in failure. It is ironic that her manipulative role brings punishment upon herself instead of an advantage on her side. Beauplaisir’s so-called “love” for her is not really genuine affection – he might be attracted to her in numerous times, but from their story we know that it is only because of plain physical and sexual attraction. Haywood thus suggests that a man’s heart cannot be kept if love is not involved – and that reminds me of the Hollywood movie He’s Just Not That Into You (2009).
The movie seems to be a modernized version of the 18th Century story – not in the sense that the plot is similar, but the fact that men see women as their conquests and no matter how hard a woman tries to seem appealing to a man, if he is not interested, he just isn’t. The movie involves multiple characters’ love lives and how the women try to secure their relationships with the men they love. The most prominent story is about how one of the characters, Gigi, keeps misreading men’s meaningless actions or comments as romantic indications for her. She keeps making a fool out of herself by showing the men blatantly that she is interested, and eventually lapses into frustration and anxiety while waiting for them to call back (which, sadly, never happens).
In both the movie and Haywood’s story, women’s explicit coquetry is condemned and misery is brought upon themselves at the end. I find it very interesting that a story that is written in the 18th Century still echoes the dynamics between the two sexes so well in our modern day. Does a love game actually exist? Fontamina’s “desperate” strategy would have been greatly criticized by the role “dating advisor” of Alex in the movie. Both work explore the question of keeping someone’s love. Fontamina might have saved much of her time and efforts had she known that perhaps Beauplaisir is simply just… not that into her.
– Gwenda Koo
Fantomina: Amour Between Two Persons?
Apparently, the original full subtitle of Fantomina: or, Love in a Maze reads, “A Secret History of an Amour between Two Persons of Condition.” (Wikipedia)
Title page for the first publication of Fantomina in 1725
Through taking on the guise of four different women, the nameless heroine of Fantomina manages to situate herself in a rare power position in her “relationship” with Beauplaisir. Though the title declares this a story of “amour” between two people, readers can laugh at it retrospectively, for the amour is arguably between five different couples, consisting of the hapless Beauplaisir with each of our heroine and her four separate identities (Fantomina, Celia, Mrs. Bloomer and Incognita). It is difficult to claim that a real relationship between the heroine and Beauplaisir even exists, much less that it is one of love between two people. Beauplaisir vehemently denies knowing the heroine at all, and her sneaky one-sided courtship of him results in the birth of a child out of wedlock, without a wedding to sanctify their union.
However, the story was fascinating to read due to the heroine’s energetic and unrelenting pursuit of Beauplaisir, during a time when women of both high and low classes were viewed as commodities to be claimed by men. The initially innocent and country-bred heroine quickly and actively creates for herself a position of dominance and knowledge in the big, corrupt city, driven purely by her desire, which is chastised again at large by society. The young unmarried woman takes the place normally occupied by the older experienced man, allowing for a temporary balance between the gender roles via a series of imbalanced relationships.
The only times when “equal satisfaction” is enjoyed by both parties is when the heroine steps into the role of a non-existent person who cannot be held accountable for her actions (633), just as Beauplaisir acts without thought or regard to consequences for dallying with prostitutes and maids. However, they meet in this even space only when the heroine allows herself to be captivated by Beausplaisir and feigns resistances and reluctances. Though she may be lowering herself by pretending to be of lower class and power, she keeps herself above Beausplaisir in their dalliances by maintaining strict control in every encounter, leaving him in the dark regarding her real identity and going so far as to refusing to show her face to him even in bed as Lady Incognita. Each time Beausplaisir attempts to regain power and distance himself from each of her personas, the heroine immediately locks into action mode and sets up the next disguise, even preparing the settings for his eventual seduction while letting him think that he is doing the seducing each time.
The heroine promises to herself:
“The odious word forsaken will never wound my ears, nor will my wrongs excite either the mirth or pity of the talking world. It will not be even in the power of my undoer himself to triumph over me.” (636)
Her unabashed joy in the taste of this simple freedom usually reserved for men provides another glimpse into the restricted and stifling world of women in those days. Her quest for love is misguided, for Beauplaisir is far from faithful or worthy of such devotion (or obsession, rather), but her persistence and drive for self-satisfaction is something that most people can relate to and even root for. The heroine is, in fact, acutely aware of Beauplaisir’s intentions and does not whither from unrequited love. Despite the underhanded tactics she employs to get the better of Beauplaisir, the immense amount of narrative control given to the heroine by Haywood allows for a brief even footing between men and women, pointing to the uneven distribution of power in reality, beyond the pages of the story. It raises a simple but important question: what does a relationship between two people actually consist of?
Works Cited
Haywood, Eliza. “Fantomina: or, Love in a Maze.” The Broadview Anthology of British Literature: The Restoration and The Eighteenth Century. 2nd ed. Ed. Joseph Black et al. Broadview, 2012. 632-647.
Fantomina: Varying Viewpoints of the Representation of Female Power
Eliza Haywood portrays a very complex and interesting viewpoint on female power and sexuality. While I can see within, Fantomina, the main characters desire for male control and self-assertion, I also view many aspects of Haywood’s Fantomina to represent female obedience and suppression. I feel Fantomina exercise’s her ability to control men, however in some circumstances she loses this control. Perhaps due to the lack of education and a history of subservience and propriety, women simply did not know how to stand up to men and employ a sense of power.
Firstly, Haywood does not give “Fantomina” a name, which adds to her mysterious demeanor, and allows all readers the ability to associate with this character. However I feel this strips Fantomina of an identity. She is described as just “A young Lady of distinguished Birth, Beauty, Wit, and Spirit”. (633) This generic description makes her indiscernible from others, and without a sense of individualism. Haywood goes to such lengths to maintain the characters generic and mysterious persona that she has her say her name as, “lady such-a-one”. (633) Fantomina has begun to play her chosen persona- an interesting beginning to this story, as the masquerade has already begun before the actual party.
Haywood also writes this female character as enjoying her newfound ability for attracting and controlling men. However as soon as she attracts Beauplaisir, it’s as though she has encountered too much “power” and isn’t able to continue. Yes, she does refuse him the first time, however she describes a feeling of obligation to Beauplaisir, to “not render him unhappy the next.” (633) She does articulate a strong desire to see Beauplaisir again, I just feel there is a strong sense of manipulation by Beauplaisir, and the portrayal of female dominance is somewhat corrupted.
The next encounter with Beauplaisir leads to the loss of Fantomina’s honour. Fantomina seduces Beauplaisir and is acting on her female power and sexuality, however she soon loses her power. “She had gone too far to retreat. He was bold; he was resolute; she, fearful, confused, altogether, unprepared to resist in such encounters.” (634) This, to me, is confusing and frustrating. Haywood seems to be giving her female protagonist power and control, but only so much. As soon as the situation gets serious, the power is too much, and the woman succumbs to the desires of the man without the ability or no how to exercise the power of refusal, and leads to her being raped by Beauplaisir. Fantomina, following her rape, ends up falling in love with Beauplaisir, and accepts her loss of honour. “I hereafter shall, perhaps, be satisfied with my fate and forgive myself the folly that betrayed me to you.” (635) Fantomina seems to be blaming herself for her loss of honour, and has fully accepted her fate and the manipulation of Beauplaisir.
I also view Fantomina’s changes in personalities through her many guises to be a desperate attempt to maintain the affections of a manipulative player. This also references her lack of name; Fantomina is represented as a malleable character with no real personality, with the ability to change into whoever Beauplaisir wants her to be. Rather than moving on, and maintaining an individual identity, she would rather disguise herself as another person, all for a man.
Finally, when her mother reveals her identities, and she has her baby, she is confined to a Catholic nunnery. This is a representation of female control, as it is a male-controlled prison-like church that contains her.
I do see some of the representations of female authority and control, there are just a few things that have me question just how much power Haywood is giving to her female characters and thought it would be interesting to view this story another way.
Works cited:
Haywood, Eliza. Fantomina. 1725. The Broadview Anthology of British Literature: The Restoration and the Eighteenth Century. Ed. Joseph Black et al. 2nd ed. Peterborough: Broadview P, 2012. Print.
Women Dressing Down
When reading Eliza Haywood’s Fantomina, I consciously tried to draw parallels between the progression of the plot and stories that exist in modern pop culture. It was quite surprising to realize that I could not easily think of anything. What happened to all the stories in which a young woman dresses down as something that is different from her normal station in order to attain some kind of freedom, or power? Originally I figured this would be an easy task; plots should feature a female character dressing up as someone else. Then I realized that they almost always dress as men; look at Disney’s Mulan.
When spending some time combing over Google and brainstorming I came up with two films: Roman Holiday and Chasing Liberty. In Roman Holiday Audrey Hepburn is a princess that runs away to spend a day in Rome pretending to be a normal girl, and in Chasing Liberty Mandy Moore plays the part of a first daughter who tries to escape from constant supervision. The above stories are the closest I could find to the concept behind Fantomina. Unfortunately there is one fundamental difference: in Fantomina, the unnamed heroine manages to pull off her deception almost flawlessly, while in both of the movie versions the heroines only think that they’re pulling off their deception. In reality the male figures are well informed on the actual rank of the lady characters.
While reading Eliza Haywood’s story I really enjoyed the wit and creativity with which the protagonist spins a web of lies for Beauplaisir, all of which he happily falls into. I thought that it was pretty significant that the plot doesn’t end in marriage or her ruin; this illustrated a divergence from the norm that further portrays the power of the heroine. She did not marry, and thus did not need to comply with the norm in which she ends up being placed into the care of a man.
The fact that in the modern versions of the story, I could not think of one in which the heroine has any chance of pulling of the scheme of deception is problematic. They were denied the power that they were trying to gain from the very beginning. Instead of really living out the freedom that both Audrey Hepburn’s and Mandy Moore’s characters dreamed off, they existed in a fantasy world where they thought they were getting away with their charades, but in fact they were not. Their power as individuals was undermined from the get go, and this type of narrative arc says something about the gender power play that exists in the media. Probably there are some plot lines that are similar to Fantomina that exist in the media, and are probably fairly popular. It is still significant to note how difficult it is to find them. Because of this, their resonance is diminished by lack of exposure
Works Cited
Chasing Liberty. Dir. Andy Cadiff. Perf. Mandy Moore, Matthew Goode. 2004.
Haywood, Eliza. “. Fantomina: Or, Love in a Maze.” The Broadview Anthology of British Literature. 2nd ed. Vol. 3. Peterborough: Broadview, 2012. 632-47. Print.
Mulan. Dir. Tony Bancroft and Barry Cook. Walt Disney, 1998. Videocassette.
Roman Holiday. Dir. William Wyler. Perf. Gregory Peck, Audrey Hepbrun. 1953. DVD.
Gender Performativity in Eliza Haywood’s Fantomina
Eliza Haywood’s Fantomina is sometimes referred to as a proto-feminist text because of its themes of female empowerment. Not only is gender and femininity performative, but Haywood’s unnamed heroine assumes four disguises throughout the course of the narrative in order to seduce a charming gentleman named Beauplaisir and engage in pre-marital sex with him. Taking on the role of prostitute, maid, widow and lady, the heroine gains power and agency over her own sexuality, subverting the ‘persecuted maiden’ trope prevalent in the genre.
The heroine is bold. She has a keen understanding of the importance of performance and illusion in order to navigate a world dominated by the masculine. She knows exactly what she wants and then acts on it. However, in the end the heroine discovers she is pregnant, has the baby, and spends the rest of her life in a French convent – essentially punishing her for her promiscuity by forcing her to spend the rest of her days in seclusion.
Of course the argument could be made that a convent allows a woman during this period certain specific freedoms, but I’m more interested in the way that the various guises the heroine assumes allow her to explore her sexuality and femininity. The heroine takes on the guise of a prostitute at the theatre “having at that time no other aim than the gratification of an instant curiosity.” (B. 632) But despite her curiosity, she isn’t quite ready for the, shall we say, consequences of her decision. “He was bold;–he was resolute: She fearful,–confus’d, altogether unprepar’d to resist in such Encounters, and rendered more so, by the extreme Liking she had to him” (B. 634). Despite their first awkward sexual encounter, the heroine is not just a passive participant. After half hearted resistance similar to Cloris in Aphra Behn’s “The Disappointment”, she consents and enthusiastically participates in their repeated sexual encounters.
Feminist post-structuralist philosopher Judith Butler asserts that all gender is not a biological determinant – we are not all ‘born this way’ – rather, gender is merely a performance based on internalized notions of what constitutes normal behaviours. Butler argues that each individual is essentially ‘acting’ out their gender according to deeply ingrained socially-constructed notions of what is normal.
The heroine’s goals seems to be to escape from the constraints of a socially constructed definition of femininity, in the end she is punished for her transgression of these norms, and quickly returned to the domestic sphere. Butler also talks at length about the anxiety and uncertainty around this fluid definition of gender, which brought to mind the Pearson article we read for last week, and the fears generated around women’s reading habits. A more nuanced discussion of gender performativity can be found here, or in her book “Gender Trouble.”
Gender is heavy with cultural meaning. Haywood’s heroine is moving through various performances of her gender, utilizing these different roles/personas in order to explore and subvert the notion that a woman’s virtue is determined through her chastity.
Works Cited
Haywood, Eliza. “Fantomina: or, Love in a Maze”. The Broadview Anthology of British Literature. Ed. Black, Joseph L. Peterborough, Ont: Broadview Press, 2007. Print.
Butler, Judith. Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity. New York: Routledge, 2006. Print.
Behn, Aphra. “The Disappointment”. The Broadview Anthology of British Literature. Pg 197-99. Broadview Press, Peterborugh, ON. Print.
Pearson, Jacqueline. “Women Reading, Reading Women.” Women and Literature in Britain, 1500-1700. Ed. Wilcox, Helen. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996. Print. Print.
Flipping Gender Roles?
It is easy to see Haywood’s protagonist in Fantomin: or, Love in a Maze to be a source of power and freedom for women. Rather, most critics read this story as a “fantasy for female freedom” (Levin 1). While, granted, Fantomina is active and assertive in fulfilling her own “curiosity” and “wild desires”, this story demonstrates that she can only achieve this in a world where men is portrayed as below women. The story’s feminism – or lack thereof- attempts to empower the female gender by demonstrating a hyperbolic control over the male, however it only demonstrates that the female identity has to be displaced in order to gain power. In addition, Haywood creates a negative portrayal of men in order to empower her female protagonist. Instead of empowering women by demonstrating their valuable and equal function in the patriarchy, Haywood, creates a new negative archetype for men. In so doing, she rather disempowers women by demonstrating that they really have no real control.
Haywood’s attempt at flipping the gender archetypes resulted in the creation of a negative image of men, rather than portraying women’s power in the real patriarchal world of her context. The story’s the protagonist questions how “men should have tastes so very depraved” (632), portraying men from inception as having no proper judgement. Throughout the body of the story, Beauplaisir’s character develops as an insensitive man who quickly grows tired of women. It is said of Celia that “he at last grew more weary of her than he had been Fantomina” (638) and of the widow that she “sunk into the same degree of tastelessness” (641). Haywood goes on to depict men as disloyal in their relationships with women. This is showed when Fantomina reflects on the “unaccountableness of men’s fancies who still prefer the last conquest only because it is the last” (641). The male antagonist is further given a negative image as blank minded or lacking judgement as he continues to be deceived in such “near intimacies” (640). In addition to creating a world where women can have power, Haywood is adding to the culture of putting down one gender in order to empower the other and this ultimately does not succeed in creating a strong female character.
“Ironically, the role playing is seen in Haywood’s protagonist as a source of freedom and power” (Devito, 2). Although the roles she takes on are powerless, as a prostitute, a maid, a widow, and without identity all together. These are all personas that would have been seen as lower in social status. However, the protagonist believes herself in control. There are many examples of this, the first being in her role as Fantomina, she chooses the role itself and a “place where she was mistress than any of his own choosing” (634). But, in the end he “gained victory” and took away her honour and she was left in “tears” (635). His only reflection being how she could “lament a consequence she could not by expect” (634). This passage demonstrates how the protagonist think herself to be in control, when she is not, and how she is actually confined to the roles that she chooses to play. She was expected not to lament on the consequences of her actions because that was the role of a “mistress”. Later Fantomina advices that “all women should take this method” and in this way “men would have no cause to scorn our easy, weeping, wailing sex” (644). There is no clearer example than this where the protagonist think she is in power but she is actually acting solely for men and is testifying to the archetypal traits of women. It could be understood that she is saying that women have no hope in search of love if they do not want to displace their real identity and that all women should be forced to take up these powerless roles to deceive themselves that they have power over the men.
Works Cited
Devito, Jeremy. “The Face Behind the Masquerade: Fantomina and Female Identity”. 2001.
Levin, Kate. “Accessing Fantomina in the Feminist Classroom”. March 2012.
Haywood, Eliza. Fantomina: or, Love in a Maze. In The Broadview Anthology of British Literature. Pages 632- 647. Broadview Press, Peterborugh: 20120
Sexy Stage Managers and Power Orgasms: The “Transports” and Ambiguities of Control in Eliza Haywood’s “Fantomina: or, Love in a Maze”
Eliza Haywood has clearly earned her place as an iconic figure of female artistry and creative agency—this tattoo is a wonderful symbol of how her writing has ‘inscribed’ the consciousnesses of later creators (Whitewitch)!
Eliza Haywood strikes me as a fascinating writer in her creativity and flexibility, both in terms of genre and in terms of ideology. Fantomina: or, Love in a Maze and A Present for a Servant-Maid simultaneously establish the relationships between power, sexual gratification, and agency and take up the “victim blaming” Veronica so aptly identifies in her post “Victim Blaming Across the Ages.” This contradiction expresses an ambiguous relationship with women’s empowerment where power and subjugation, control and submission, and pleasure and punishment slip and slide into one another. I want to dig a little deeper into this slipperiness through close readings of a few passages from Fantomina in which Haywood makes power the vehicle of Fantomina’s sexual pleasure.
By contrasting Fantomina’s first experience of sexual intercourse with her first orgasm, we can see how Haywood aligns her character’s sexual fulfillment with empowerment rather than the physical sex act. Drawing on theatrical vocabulary rooted in the heavy influence of Haywood’s stagework on her nondramatic fiction (Blouch 317), we might describe Fantomina as a woman excited by stage management—the ability to ‘call the cues’ (see note below) in her own romance (Blouch 316). Let us begin with the ‘deflowering’ scene:
In fine, she was undone, and he gained a victory so highly rapturous that, had he known over whom, scarce could he have triumphed more. Her tears, however, and the distraction she appeared in after the ruinous ecstasy was past . . . (635)
Haywood narrates Fantomina and Beauplaisir’s consummation and Fantomina’s loss of virginity through Beauplaisir’s perspective. The physical act of penetration is a “victory” of attainment for him. Most importantly, it is an act which establishes power by asserting control over the conquered: “had he known over whom, scarce could he have triumphed more [emphasis mine].” We access even Fantomina’s emotional reaction indirectly, making form and content work to convey how this experience has been overwhelming and displeasurable to her. Beauplaisir’s gratification through dominance temporarily takes away Fantomina’s agency as the manager of her drama. She is “distracted,” and when she loses her place in the script Beauplaisir ‘calls the cues.’
A later passage describes Fantomina in the “transport[s]” (637) of orgasm through re-establishing her management role rather than having sexual intercourse:
And, remembering the height of transport she enjoyed when the agreeable Beauplaisir kneeled at her feet, imploring her first favours, she longed to prove the same again. (637)
The omniscient narrator follows this description of pleasure with a closer analysis of Fantomina’s process of sexual gratification:
To hear him sigh, to see him languish, to feel the strenuous pressures of his eager arms, to be compelled, to be sweetly forced to what she wished with equal ardour was what she wanted and what she had formed a stratagem to obtain, in which she promised herself success. (637)
Fantomina’s “stratagem” is like a stage manager’s colour-coded binder: she orchestrates complicated, fully-realized dramas with rich sets and costumes (Blouch 316), controlling even the lighting design (Haywood, Fantomina 644) “so that she was in no apprehensions of any amorous violence but where she wished to find it” (637). The “heights” of orgasm are thus a performance high—a manager’s joy during and after a flawless ‘run’ of a show.
Fantomina’s sexual needs are not so different from Beauplaisir’s after all, even if she expresses hers in more theatrical terms. Both of them want to “triumph” (635) in the “violence” of love (637). Like Beauplaisir, Fantomina knows what she wants and “promis[es] herself success.” Also like Beauplaisir, she achieves her orgasmic “height of transport” in a moment when she is physically and psychologically powerful. The suggestion is that women’s sexual needs are the same as men’s. Power is experienced internally, involving the individual in her own sexual gratification so that her pleasure need not depend on social structures and other individuals. This comes in no small part from running the ‘show’ undetected (636). We might read Fantomina’s desire to “be sweetly forced to what she wished” as the desire of any good stage manager to have the audience immersed in the narrative unaware that the shadowy black-clad stage crew backstage is working ceaselessly to make the performance look effortless.
But if Fantomina’s role as a stage manager frees her from dependence on conventional romantic relationships, how are we to read the pregnancy which abruptly hauls Fantomina back into submission (Blouch 51; Schofield Quiet Rebellion 62)? Fantomina, phantom, both a masquerade figure (Black et al 649) and perhaps a shape-shifting representative “woman,” strategizes to hold “Beauplaisir”—to take good/handsome pleasure. Beauplaisir’s French name lends the end of the narrative subtle significance and directs our attention back to the complexity of experience with which we grappled above: in the search for a “good pleasure” and a good method to achieve this pleasure, Fantomina exercises an agency which seems to lead towards her ultimate subjugation. But the French convent may only be a superficially conventional solution masking further ambiguity.
The editors of The Broadview explain that “For eighteenth-century readers, such a reference would almost certainly have carried with it connotations of debauchery; sexual activities in French nunneries were a frequent topic in the erotic fiction of the period” (649). Haywood thus leaves her readers with a profoundly open-ended conclusion and no single moral to be taken from her tale of assertive female sexuality. The Broadview editors explain that “some readers may well have interpreted” Fantomina’s end as “just” punishment for her transgression of social norms (631). Critics such as Mary Anne Schofield also argue this view (Eliza Haywood 51). But moving to a French convent immerses Fantomina in her lover’s French name. This suggests that she has in fact achieved her deepest desire “to be sweetly forced to what she wished.” Haywood thus leaves readers with a set of conflicted and ambiguous readings within the “verisimilitude” (Todorov 80) of the text and in the text’s relationship with ‘reality.’
Understanding that the narrative is a fantasy far removed from the everyday reality of physical, emotional, social, and sexual violences against women (Black et al 631) may speak to contradictions inherent in eighteenth century female experience. Haywood’s “comprehensive treatment of the ‘woman’ question of the period” points towards the multiple levels of experiential and physical reality which emerge when internal desires, authentic experiences of both pleasure and disempowerment, and understandings of an identity independent of social/male control cannot be expressed in the public sphere (Schofield Eliza Haywood 3).
A Brief Note on Stage Managers for Classmates With Specializations Outside of Theatre:
Stage managers are the unsung heroes of the theatre. As their title suggests, they manage every detail of what goes on backstage during a production. Exact job descriptions vary from theatre to theatre, but, generally, stage managers are responsible for ensuring that set changes, props, lighting, sound, and any other special effects occur on time and in the right place on stage. During shows stage mangers ‘call the cues’ from “master cue sheets” on which they record all of the changes which need to happen during a show. Successful stage managers need detail orientation, superb organizational skills, and the ability to think and act quickly in unforeseen situations to fix problems before the audience realizes they exist (we can see the parallels here with Fantomina). And when something goes wrong on stage, the stage manager often gets blamed!
Annotated Works Cited
Black, Joseph et al. The Broadview Anthology of British Literature: The Restoration and the Eighteenth Century. 2nd ed. Peterborough: Broadview P, 2012. Print.
Blouch, Christine. “‘What Ann Lang Read:’ Eliza Haywood and Her Readers.” The Passionate Fictions of Eliza Haywood: Essays on Her Life and Work. Ed. Kirsten T. Saxton and Rebecca P. Bocchicchio. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2000. Print.
Excellent essay exploring Eliza Haywood’s impact on female readers and the few traces we have in primary documentation of Haywood’s books being collected in the libraries of wealthy women. Shares many insights about reading as a politically “dangerous” act with Jacqueline Pearson’s chapter “Women Reading, Reading Women” (Pearson 80).
Haywood, Eliza. Fantomina: or, Love in a Maze. 1725. The Broadview Anthology of British Literature: The Restoration and the Eighteenth Century. Ed. Joseph Black et al. 2nd ed. Peterborough: Broadview P, 2012. Print.
—. From A Present for a Servant-Maid. 1743. The Broadview Anthology of British Literature: The Restoration and the Eighteenth Century. Ed. Joseph Black et al. 2nd ed. Peterborough: Broadview P, 2012. Print.
Litt, Veronica. “Victim Blaming Across the Ages.” Blog Post. ENG307 Course Blog. 24 January 2013. Web. 26 January 2013.
Pearson, Jacqueline. “Women Reading, Reading Women.” Women and Literature in Britain, 1500-1700. Ed. Helen Wilcox. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, n.d. Cambridge UP Online. Pdf.
Saxton, Kirsten T. And Rebecca P. Boccichio, eds. Eliza Haywood: Essays on Her Life and Work. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2000. Print.
Excellent collection of essays on Haywood. Particularly good introduction orients readers to the history of Haywood scholarship and Haywood’s contributions to eighteenth century thought as a prodigious and genre-defying creative figure.
Schofield, Mary Anne. Eliza Haywood. Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1985. Print.
—. Quiet Rebellion: The Fictional Heroines of Eliza Fowler Haywood. Washington: University Press of America, 1982. Print.
Schofield’s two books on Haywood are passionate and provocative. Most interesting is her comment in Quiet Rebellion that Fantomina and another Haywood heroine, Syrena, are “grotesque distortions of the independent women” who “become aggressive demons” (62). I find this statement problematic because of its reliance on the emotionally evocative language of monstrosity to describe a woman seeking sexual pleasure.
Whitewitch, Nana. “Eliza Haywood Tattoo.” Nanawhitewitch’s Tumblr. 6 October 2010. Tumblr. Rpt. on “Eliza Haywood Tattoo.” By Patrick Spedding. Patrick Spedding: Research Notes and Informal Writing. 21 January 2011. Web. <http://patrickspedding.blogspot.ca/2011/01/eliza-haywood-tattoo.html>.
Todorov, Tzvetan. The Poetics of Prose. Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1977. Pdf.
The complexity of Love in Fantomina: or, Love in a Maze by E. Haywood.
Love as sentiment and love as a sexual response are two sides of the same coin. Both are intertwined in Eliza Haywood complex relationship between a Lady and a man called Beauplaisir. The unnaming of the Lady and the provocative name of the man, translated as Goodpleasure, project from the start the unequivocal reconnaissance of Love as it emerges from two different sides and is conveyed from two points of view. The Lady, beautiful and witted, wondering “that men should have tastes (in prostitutes) so depraved”, embarks on series of enactment of female roles which allow her to experience sentiments of Love. She is disguised as a prostitute, as Fantomina (“ghost-like” figure), as Celia (a maid and comparable to the Shakespearian equivalent to sisterly love), as Mrs. Bloomer ( a more mature widow character), as Incognita ( the one who is not to be known) and as herself (to the end unnamed).
Love expresses itself differently as the Lady changes roles and so does she. Love starts as being an idea, undefined, inexperienced, looked at from a distance (the Lady is in a “box”, in a theater where she observes a prostitute being courtised) and looked at with prejudice (depraved tastes of men) and curiosity.
Love then confronts virtue and the Lady “depends on the strength of her virtue to control herself”. Virtue supposedly controls the propension of selling oneself for sex and also the respect for societal conformity. The one important societal condition to the Lady is the respect of her family name. Thus, not divulging her identity all the time, prompts her to wear a mask and darken her bedroom when she is Incognita and to change clothes and manners when she becomes Celia and Mrs. Bloomer.
Love confronts reason. The Lady lies for Love, she buys people’s silence for Love, she reconfigures her whole life story for Love. In an almost pervert way, she dupes and micro-manages the very man she says she loves.
Love confronts control. She not only controls her feelings but also his. When, as Mrs. Bloomer, she realizes “the despair of women and the longing for unrealistic faith from men”, she plans another role even before her role as Mrs. Bloomer is done. As Incognita, the passion has gone and is replaced with her feeling like a genius for “playing tricks ” on Beauplaisir.
What the Lady fails to control is the very sexual act she reproaches Beauplaisir , that she longs for with him and that she looks upon as conquest. Beauplaisir, from the start, shows his true self, ready for sexual pleasures. She, on the contrary, lets her virtue be clouded by excuses of being sexually active only with one man, thus not really selling her body to men and lying to herself that her virtue is intact. He is free spirited, controlling and brute as he encounters her as the prostitute figure. He feels pity and complaisance with Fantomina but pleasure becomes “penance”, the attraction fades fast and his sexual arousal diminishes. He gets tired of Celia even faster than of Fantomina. Finally both become cold to one another when the Lady is Incognita.
It takes a mother’s Love and understanding of Love to get the Lady to be compliant with the image of a Lady. Beauplaisir learns her story but not her true identity. Love will not end in marriage; The Lady was never looking for a husband, she was “curious” about Love; Beauplaisir never asks her for marriage, the Lady remains unnamed to the end. Love, or more appropriately the sexual relation, ends in procreation outside wedlock but as a socially unacceptable condition, the Lady and her child are removed from society, silenced. Beauplaisir tries to take responsibility to raise the child, as a father not as a husband, but pushed aside quickly by both mother and daughter, he vanishes confused. Romantic sentiments of love disappear quickly as relationships change; “possession abates desire”; relations based on sex does not result in marriage or acceptable conditions in society. Love as sexual response mostly engenders the sale of virtue, “abandoned wives and neglected nymphs”.
Works Cited
Haywood, Eliza. Fantomina: or, Love in a Maze. Broadview. PDF.
“The blame is wholly hers”
Haywood writes a character that “takes an atypically active role in
orchestrating her own seduction, and her use of careful deception and
disguise complicates the usual pattern of innocence betrayed” (631).
While I agree that the traditional plot is indeed complicated, Haywood
ultimately highlights the kinds of double standards women contended
against as her heroine, for all of her agency, essentially ends up in
the same predicament as those female characters in an “innocence
betrayed” type plot, while her male counterpart escapes without having
to take any responsibility for his actions and without suffering any
consequences for the same type of behaviour.
One particularly hopeful scene is when Fantomina is acting as though
she is a town mistress and imagines “a world of satisfaction to
herself in engaging [Beauplaisir] in the character of such a one, and
in observing the surprise he would be in to find himself refused by a
woman who he supposed granted her favours without exception” (634).
The implication of this passage is that men think prostitutes will
satisfy their desires without exception, so to refuse Beauplaisir
gratification disguised as a prostitute would be highly amusing.
Evidently, Fantomina does side step his expected gratification but
eventually, whether disguised as Fantomina, Celia, Mrs. Bloomer, or
Incognita, Beauplaisir “[swears] to enjoy her” (638), and he does. If
her plan was to expose his inconstancy and if she really wanted to
take on a role different from those young women who “sat down mourning
in [the unfaithful man’s] absence” (641), why not deny him
gratification always? I think part of the answer is that she enjoys
him at times too, just not the consequences that follow. Additionally,
her multiple disguises highlight the double bind women find themselves
in. Men want women to have sex with them, but soon tire of them and
move on to the next one, while female celibacy is essentially the
guarantor of finding a husband and economic stability.
Furthermore, not only does he enjoy her, but when she ends up
pregnant he does not have to take on any responsibility for his
actions, which speaks to the double binds surrounding constancy. After
the heroine conveys all that happened in full, her mother says, “[I]t
was with a design to oblige you to repair the supposed injury you had
done this unfortunate girl by marrying her, but…[t]he blame is wholly
hers” (646). While Beauplaisir never knew the true identity of who he
was enjoying, he was still more than ready to have sex with all of the
women this young lady feigned to be, so how is it that the blame is
wholly hers? Such an ending highlights the double standard women were
subject to concerning constancy and promiscuity.
Finally, I acknowledge that Haywood gives her heroine a great amount
of agency but she still ends up pregnant, her male counterpart suffers
no consequences, and she is sent to a nunnery (which may or may not
indicate future sexual adventures). Is this character really so
different from other females because she has agency and is aware of
men’s inconstancy? Is it precisely her awareness of male promiscuity
and her agency that made such a work dangerous for women of Haywood’s
time to read?
Women Writers, 1660-1800 