Daniel Defoe's 1719 British travel novel, Robinson Crusoe, is commonly referred to by modern literary critics as the quintessential colonial novel, as it served as a guidebook for European travelers who wished dominate the foreign lands they discovered. Today, Defoe's eighteenth-century message regarding colonialism is lost in a sea of global interaction; the current instantaneous connectivity of people, ideas and goods affords little room for antiquated thought. A modern reader, who has seen the domino effect of colonialism throughout the globe since Defoe's era, perceives Crusoe as little more than another Euro-centric Puritan who lays claim to anything he discovers and has no qualms subjecting others unto his “divine” power and authority. However, when the novel is placed in its eighteenth-century context, Defoe becomes a critic of his own colonial-minded society. Keenly aware of the economic benefits of trade and expansion, he argues for the fair and just treatment of the foreign inhabitants which travelers and colonizers might encounter. Crusoe's island becomes a utopian society in which people of all religions can unite to better serve God and one another, eliciting the greatest profit possible.
In the Introduction of her book, The Global Eighteenth Century, Felicity A. Nussbaum defines the “global” as particular interactions amongst individuals during the eighteenth century, as well as “the movement of ideas across borders and over time” (2). Global interactions were made possible at this time by improved navigational techniques, the expansion of global trade, and the mixing of various races and cultures. Nussbaum explains that this global explosion “is inextricably associated with European colonialism and its attempt to spread concepts of civilization, progress and technology” (4). But the spread of such ideas is not universally beneficial to all cultures across the globe. Sometimes, such as in the case of African slavery or Native American genocide, foreign cultures inevitably clash with colonial intentions. Just as in America, “colonizing nations sought to create the illusion of uniformity by promoting fictions of a singular national identity” (Nussbaum 14). Crusoe supports this illusion early in the novel as he attempts to model his companion Friday in his own fashion. However, Friday is a willing participant in this transformation. Later in the novel, Crusoe accepts the diversity of his subjects, indicating that Defoe would rather, through colonialism, spread Christianity covertly, not forcefully.
Nussbaum also claims that “many critics today argue that eighteenth-century travel narratives often served to justify European imperialism,” and that is certainly the popular understanding of Robinson Crusoe. However, a true justification of European imperialism would include the unrestrained promotion of capitalism, Eurocentrism, and Puritanism. While Defoe certainly argues for an expanse in trade and commerce, in order to benefit England, he does not desire to eliminate foreign societies, cultures or religions. After all, the colonized people would be the potential consumers of English goods. Instead, he recommends the acceptance of Others in order to assimilate them to a new economic, religious, and social climate. Brett C. McInelly, the author of “Expanding Empires, Expanding Selves: Colonialism, the Novel, and Robinson Crusoe,” identifies the disparity between actual European colonial endeavors and Crusoe's colonization of the island: “Robinson Crusoe stands as an allegory or figure of colonialism, not an exhibit of it” (3). Author Wolfram Schmidgen, of “Robinson Crusoe, Enumeration, and the Mercantile Fetish,” also agrees that “Defoe is mainly interested in undermining … feudal modes of community” (19). After all, Crusoe's time on the island does nothing to bring him material prosperity. Instead, Defoe recommends colonialism as a means to increase trade and commerce, but only after benevolent “individual mental states and political attitudes” are established (McInelly 14). His desire to change the tide of colonialism is indicated as he considers attacking the group of cannibals: “This would justify the conduct of the Spaniards in all their barbarities practis'd in America” (167). Robinson Crusoe, then, serves, not as a justification of European imperialism, but as a critique of it. He does not wish his colony to be founded upon the same brutal grounds that Europeans wrought against the Native Americans.
In his article “Enclosures, Colonization, and the Robinson Crusoe Syndrome: A Genealogy of Land in a Global Context,” Robert P. Marzec identifies Crusoe's domination of the land as a means of establishing his own identity, claiming that “Defoe's interest in cultivation concerns more than the domination of land; it is part and parcel of British and Western identity formation” (143). Indeed, the novel's beginning illustrates the vastness of the globe and the limitations of the self. Crusoe is nearly killed by a storm at sea, enslaved by Moorish pirates, and shipwrecked on a deserted island. Once he is alone on the island, he has adequate time for self-reflection and examination. Eventually, he becomes, quite literally, a self-made man, transforming himself from a helpless individual to “king, or emperor over [his] whole country” (126). McInelly explains the paradox of Crusoe's self-development: “… rather than being overwhelmed by the vastness of his environment and dwindling under feelings of insignificance, Crusoe's self-image enlarges the father he travels from England” (4-5). This self-assured mindset was necessary for the implementation of colonialism.
On the island, Crusoe repeatedly faces physical (and imagined) danger. Instead of shrinking away in terror, he asserts his dominance over each situation, each time further recognizing his self-importance. He is capable of surviving the exotic terrain and elements, and eventually makes his own laws and gives names to places and things on the island. He realizes, in his solitude, that he is the only authority there to do such things: “I had no competitor, none to dispute sovereignty or command with me” (126-127). As he familiarizes himself with the features of the island, labeling places and things for his own personal utilization, he also asserts his dominance over them, and in turn, the entire island. Eventually, he wields this power of authority over Friday, and later, the British mutineers. McInelly wraps up the colonial mindset succinctly: “… master yourself and you master your destiny; master your destiny and you master others; master these and you master the economic contingencies of life” (6).
By naming Friday, Crusoe claims possession of him the same way he does with physical objects on the island: “I made him know his name should be Friday, which was the day I sav'd his life … I likewise taught him to say Master, and then let him know, that was to be my name” (200). By giving him a name, rather than trying to learn his real one, Crusoe asserts that Friday's previous life is of no consequence. Like Crusoe's parrot Poll, Friday becomes little more than a pet, simply an extension of his master. Crusoe, of course, is pleased by Friday's willingness to be dominated, as he shows “all the Signs … of Subjection, Servitude, and Submission” (200). Friday's unquestioning acceptance of Crusoe's domination reinforces European assumptions of the superiority of their religion, culture, and social ideology. His submission identifies Crusoe as a “benevolent colonizer;” this passivity is no doubt Defoe's attempt to satirize actual accounts of colonial domination, for no respectable people would quietly allow their culture to be decimated for another's material benefit (McInelly 18).
Puritanism and capitalism came to be two of the greatest themes of colonialism in the eighteenth century; “Protestant Britons came to see themselves as God's chosen people” and therefore entitled to their domination of distant lands and “savage” peoples (McInelly 7). Puritans thought that, through colonial efforts, they could disseminate Christianity, thereby saving “savages” from themselves. This paradigm is exhibited in the Crusoe-Friday relationship. During the eighteenth century, Puritans (more specifically, Protestants) were also heavily engaged in a criticism of Catholicism, as evidenced through the Inquisition. This prejudice makes its way into Robinson Crusoe, as well: “I had rather be deliver'd up to the savages, and be devour'd alive, than fall into the merciless claws of priests, and be carry'd into the Inquisition” (237). However, in the sequel to Robinson Crusoe, The Farther Adventures, Crusoe admits his appreciation for one Catholic priest's relatively liberal religious convictions. Because the two men agree on the faith of Christ, the priest becomes a suitable religious overseer of the island, and Crusoe leaves him to convert the remaining pagan subjects (McInelly 10).
While Defoe is openly critical of Catholicism, he does not marginalize anyone for their personal convictions. Instead, he looks at each individual to determine their moral worth. The British mutineers proved to be more barbaric than the Spanish castaways, after all. Defoe's ideal colony is much like Crusoe's island at the end of the novel: “It was remarkable too, we had but three different religions. My man Friday was a Protestant, his father was a Pagan and a cannibal, and the Spaniard was a Papist: However, I allow'd liberty of conscience throughout my dominions” (234). Crusoe the Protestant is tolerant of other nationalities and cultures, “committed to essential practices rather than doctrinal controversy,” and self-reflective (McInelly 7). Defoe recommends that colonizers establish this same mentality when encountering inhabitants of potential colonies.
Defoe's Puritanism is reflected in Crusoe's internal development as well. Constantly seeking Providential guidance, he claims that God is responsible for his isolation. He struggles with the divine throughout much of the beginning of the novel. For example, he first identifies the sprouting corn as a miracle sent by God, but later attributes it to mere good luck. According to McInelly, “… before Crusoe can improve his standing in society, he must first develop the capacity to 'spiritualize' his experience on the island, that is, to acknowledge a divine presence operating in his life” (14-15). Once he repents and accepts divine guidance, he becomes the sole authority of the island. Reflecting upon an older system in which divine right was handed down from God to blessed kings, Crusoe interprets his discovery of Friday as a heavenly gift. A self-referenced “king, or emperor,” Crusoe easily makes Friday his property because God has handed him to him, just as God gave him the island to rule. Defoe suggests that wealth and power come only from following God's guiding hand, and that any man can become king of his domain by accepting the heavenly authority. By the novel's end, he feels as though he has divinely earned the right to be governor of the colony, but has also grown to accept the other religions that grace his island.
Defoe's criticism of his own culture's pursuit of colonialism is evident in Robinson Crusoe. His island is a wholly fictionalized place where people of varying cultures and religions can live in peace and harmony. The novel, then, becomes a blueprint for fellow colonizers' interactions with Others. At the end of story, Crusoe leaves the island to the Spanish, indicating Defoe's hope for more peaceful colonizations in the future. Robinson Crusoe is a recommendation that “the cultivation of the land” be coupled with “the benign cultivation of people” (Marzec 150). Defoe insists that native people should be encouraged, not pressured, to accept Christianity. Peaceable relations with exotic cultures would pave the way for trade and commerce, bringing tremendous wealth to England through her benevolent treatment of potential consumer societies.
Works Cited
Defoe, Daniel. Robinson Crusoe. New York: Barnes and Noble, 2003. Print.
Marzec, Robert P. “Enclosures, Colonization, and the Robinson Crusoe Syndrome: A Genealogy of Land in a Global Context.” Boundary 2 29.2 (2002): 130-156. Print.
McInelly, Brett C. “Expanding Empires, Expanding Selves: Colonialism, the Novel, and Robinson Crusoe.” Studies in the Novel 35.1 (2003): 1-21. Print.
Nussbaum, Felicity A. "Introduction." The Global Eighteenth Century. Ed. Felicity A. Nussbaum. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2005. 1-18. Print.
Schmidgen, Wolfram. “Robinson Crusoe, Enumeration, and the Mercantile Fetish.” Eighteenth-Century Studies 35.1 (2001): 19-39. Print.
Friday, March 19, 2010
Upward Mobility and the Prostitution of Woman's Virtue in Defoe's Roxana
Daniel Defoe's eighteenth-century novel Roxana, The Fortunate Mistress is a conflicting account of one woman's struggle for upward mobility, driven by capital and lacking morality. Felicity A. Nussbaum identifies this century as a time when an “unprecedented expansion of global trade” lead to “increased mobility of commodities and ideas” (6). The era embodied the very notion of mobility: improved infrastructure allowed people to travel great distances within their own continent; maritime trade routes gave people access to distant lands; goods were being transferred from one end of the globe to the other; and ideas, like expanding the Christian religion, or, in the case of Roxana, women's bartering of sex for capital, began spreading from their originations far and wide. Roxana herself is a woman on the move, climbing the ladder of wealth and fame. Throughout her journey, she is both physically mobile and has command over the mobility of her capital: “Money … would make a woman go any-where,” she says (136).
Roxana is also a novel of binary oppositions: necessity vs. avarice, freedom vs. confinement, poverty vs. wealth, innocence vs. guilt, care vs. neglect, privacy vs. publicity, etc. These oppositions emerge from Roxana's simultaneous justification and guilt of her questionable actions. Defoe's purpose, then, is to present both an argument for and a caution against woman's move into the marketplace. Nussbaum refers to both Adam Smith's Theory of Moral Sentiments and The Wealth of the Nations when describing global interactions in the eighteenth century (17, 9). “...technologies of sympathy might have arisen at the same time as global commerce,” she says, creating a climate in which “moral sentiment” was just as popular as “commercial imperialism” (17). Defoe's Roxana is a driven business woman who is perfectly aware of her heinous actions. She spends half of the narrative justifying her decisions and the other half condemning or lamenting them. However, Defoe evokes sympathy from readers by putting Roxana in situations that might cause them to make the same decisions. Roxana pleads necessity early in the novel, when she and her children face starvation. However, as the novel progresses, her actions are increasingly motivated by the indulgence in profit. Roxana's journey on the ladder of success mirrors her moral fluctuations. Many of Roxana's avenues to fortune also deliver her to great despair. Defoe makes a strong case for the inclusion of women in the global market, but also denounces the prostitution of women's virtue. By presenting such conflicting arguments, Defoe suggests that morality often challenges maneuvers in the free market, and that the indulgence in profit can be a danger to domesticity.
The first of Roxana's many maneuvers is the abandonment of her five children. The moral implications are inherent; the father has already deserted the children, and Roxana was is they have in the world. Roxana leaves the children with a relative because she would rather them be taken care of than for her to watch them all starve to death. Her actions seem negligent, but because she leaves them out of necessity, they are understandable. However, after Roxana begins her career as a mistress, she continues to have children with her benefactors, without any real affection for any of the offspring. The question of her motherly responsibility emerges again when Roxana refuses to marry the Dutch merchant despite being pregnant with his child. By this point, her decisions have nothing to do with necessity. Roxana deserts her children so that she may be mobile, a move that will eventually prevent her from going anywhere at all. When she encounters her daughter Susan on the boat to Holland, she finds herself immobilized: “ … there was no retreat …” (278). Facing judgment for her sins, she finds her liberty extremely limited.
Another way in which Roxana utilizes mobility is by moving from man to man, accumulating an abundance of wealth along the way. Being a mistress allows her to invest in a variety of men as opposed to merging her resources with a specific man through marriage: “I thought a Woman was a free Agent, as well as a Man, and was born free, and cou'd she manage herself suitably, might enjoy that Liberty to as much Purpose as the Men do” (147). Marriage would force Roxana to sacrifice her greatest business asset – her sexual liberty – causing her to “give herself entirely away from herself” (147). However, Roxana's choice to stay single doesn't always serve her best interests. Her denial of marriage to the Dutch merchant could symbolize the end of her mobility. As Nussbaum reminds us, “The Dutch were the great geographers and natural historians of the early modern period” (12). Defoe indicates that her refusal of the merchant will be the beginning of her immobility, and that marriage might be a safer harbor for Roxana than she realizes. Indeed, she later repents her decision, realizing she might have been better off marrying the merchant in the first place.
Instead of allowing a man to provide security for Roxana, she utilizes disguise to protect herself and her investments. Roxana's costume changes are intended to either expose or conceal her, but her attempts are in vain. Making a spectacle of herself , she entertains her guests dressed in the “Turkish Habit” she bought in Paris (180). Her goal at this juncture is to become as popular as she desires, but this indulgence in fame is short-lived. Once she begins the affair with the King of England, all of her publicity comes to an end. At this point, Roxana actually refers to herself in the third person, indicating she has indeed “give[n] herself entirely away from herself”: “for three Years and about a Month, Roxana liv’d retir’d, having been oblig’d to make an Excursion, in a Manner, and with a Person, which Duty, and private Vows, obliges her not to reveal, at least, not yet” (147, 181). Towards the end of the novel, Roxana takes on the anonymous, lackluster dress of a Quaker, but, still, she cannot hide from the gaze of her daughter.
Most obviously, Roxana consistently moves herself and her capital from one location to another. After becoming rather wealthy during her stay with the Prince, she says, “Now I was at Liberty to go to any Part of the World, and take care of my Money myself” (111). Traveling with money, however, was a dangerous endeavor, as indicated by the murder of the jeweler. Roxana recognizes this danger, soliciting the Dutch merchant to turn her assets into bills. Unfortunately for the mistress, the Jew presents an obstacle to Roxana's ability to “take care of [her] Money” and makes Paris an uncomfortable space (111). Susan makes England confining for Roxana, as well: “ … it gave me very great Uneasiness; for as she resolv’d to ramble in search after me, over the whole Country, I was safe no-where, no, not in Holland itself” (310). The wealthier she becomes, the more she is forced to travel. From Paris to London to Amsterdam, the consequences of her actions follow her and her capital, making every space particularly stifling. It is no coincidence that Roxana's journey follows the devastation of the South Sea Bubble. Defoe parallels Roxana's demise with the impact the crash had worldwide. Nussbaum explains that female figures were used as symbols for the four quadrants of the globe during the eighteenth century (2). Defoe's characterization of Roxana, then, reflects his anxieties about, not only the virtue of women, but also the virtue of England.
By the novel's end, Roxana's mobility has been severely limited; there is no place in the world where she will be safe from public exposure. Her reputation and history will follow her wherever she goes. Defoe's novel exhibits the dangers of new economic practices in the expanding geopolitical and economic world. He is concerned about potentially hazardous business ventures that could destabilize the free market, and, to a greater extent, the family institution. Roxana is a cautionary tale about the excess of capital and the prostitution of virtue leading to personal, national, or even global ruin.
Works Cited
Defoe, Daniel. Roxana. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003. Print.
Nussbaum, Felicity A. "Introduction." The Global Eighteenth Century. Ed. Felicity A. Nussbaum. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2005. 1-18. Print.
Roxana is also a novel of binary oppositions: necessity vs. avarice, freedom vs. confinement, poverty vs. wealth, innocence vs. guilt, care vs. neglect, privacy vs. publicity, etc. These oppositions emerge from Roxana's simultaneous justification and guilt of her questionable actions. Defoe's purpose, then, is to present both an argument for and a caution against woman's move into the marketplace. Nussbaum refers to both Adam Smith's Theory of Moral Sentiments and The Wealth of the Nations when describing global interactions in the eighteenth century (17, 9). “...technologies of sympathy might have arisen at the same time as global commerce,” she says, creating a climate in which “moral sentiment” was just as popular as “commercial imperialism” (17). Defoe's Roxana is a driven business woman who is perfectly aware of her heinous actions. She spends half of the narrative justifying her decisions and the other half condemning or lamenting them. However, Defoe evokes sympathy from readers by putting Roxana in situations that might cause them to make the same decisions. Roxana pleads necessity early in the novel, when she and her children face starvation. However, as the novel progresses, her actions are increasingly motivated by the indulgence in profit. Roxana's journey on the ladder of success mirrors her moral fluctuations. Many of Roxana's avenues to fortune also deliver her to great despair. Defoe makes a strong case for the inclusion of women in the global market, but also denounces the prostitution of women's virtue. By presenting such conflicting arguments, Defoe suggests that morality often challenges maneuvers in the free market, and that the indulgence in profit can be a danger to domesticity.
The first of Roxana's many maneuvers is the abandonment of her five children. The moral implications are inherent; the father has already deserted the children, and Roxana was is they have in the world. Roxana leaves the children with a relative because she would rather them be taken care of than for her to watch them all starve to death. Her actions seem negligent, but because she leaves them out of necessity, they are understandable. However, after Roxana begins her career as a mistress, she continues to have children with her benefactors, without any real affection for any of the offspring. The question of her motherly responsibility emerges again when Roxana refuses to marry the Dutch merchant despite being pregnant with his child. By this point, her decisions have nothing to do with necessity. Roxana deserts her children so that she may be mobile, a move that will eventually prevent her from going anywhere at all. When she encounters her daughter Susan on the boat to Holland, she finds herself immobilized: “ … there was no retreat …” (278). Facing judgment for her sins, she finds her liberty extremely limited.
Another way in which Roxana utilizes mobility is by moving from man to man, accumulating an abundance of wealth along the way. Being a mistress allows her to invest in a variety of men as opposed to merging her resources with a specific man through marriage: “I thought a Woman was a free Agent, as well as a Man, and was born free, and cou'd she manage herself suitably, might enjoy that Liberty to as much Purpose as the Men do” (147). Marriage would force Roxana to sacrifice her greatest business asset – her sexual liberty – causing her to “give herself entirely away from herself” (147). However, Roxana's choice to stay single doesn't always serve her best interests. Her denial of marriage to the Dutch merchant could symbolize the end of her mobility. As Nussbaum reminds us, “The Dutch were the great geographers and natural historians of the early modern period” (12). Defoe indicates that her refusal of the merchant will be the beginning of her immobility, and that marriage might be a safer harbor for Roxana than she realizes. Indeed, she later repents her decision, realizing she might have been better off marrying the merchant in the first place.
Instead of allowing a man to provide security for Roxana, she utilizes disguise to protect herself and her investments. Roxana's costume changes are intended to either expose or conceal her, but her attempts are in vain. Making a spectacle of herself , she entertains her guests dressed in the “Turkish Habit” she bought in Paris (180). Her goal at this juncture is to become as popular as she desires, but this indulgence in fame is short-lived. Once she begins the affair with the King of England, all of her publicity comes to an end. At this point, Roxana actually refers to herself in the third person, indicating she has indeed “give[n] herself entirely away from herself”: “for three Years and about a Month, Roxana liv’d retir’d, having been oblig’d to make an Excursion, in a Manner, and with a Person, which Duty, and private Vows, obliges her not to reveal, at least, not yet” (147, 181). Towards the end of the novel, Roxana takes on the anonymous, lackluster dress of a Quaker, but, still, she cannot hide from the gaze of her daughter.
Most obviously, Roxana consistently moves herself and her capital from one location to another. After becoming rather wealthy during her stay with the Prince, she says, “Now I was at Liberty to go to any Part of the World, and take care of my Money myself” (111). Traveling with money, however, was a dangerous endeavor, as indicated by the murder of the jeweler. Roxana recognizes this danger, soliciting the Dutch merchant to turn her assets into bills. Unfortunately for the mistress, the Jew presents an obstacle to Roxana's ability to “take care of [her] Money” and makes Paris an uncomfortable space (111). Susan makes England confining for Roxana, as well: “ … it gave me very great Uneasiness; for as she resolv’d to ramble in search after me, over the whole Country, I was safe no-where, no, not in Holland itself” (310). The wealthier she becomes, the more she is forced to travel. From Paris to London to Amsterdam, the consequences of her actions follow her and her capital, making every space particularly stifling. It is no coincidence that Roxana's journey follows the devastation of the South Sea Bubble. Defoe parallels Roxana's demise with the impact the crash had worldwide. Nussbaum explains that female figures were used as symbols for the four quadrants of the globe during the eighteenth century (2). Defoe's characterization of Roxana, then, reflects his anxieties about, not only the virtue of women, but also the virtue of England.
By the novel's end, Roxana's mobility has been severely limited; there is no place in the world where she will be safe from public exposure. Her reputation and history will follow her wherever she goes. Defoe's novel exhibits the dangers of new economic practices in the expanding geopolitical and economic world. He is concerned about potentially hazardous business ventures that could destabilize the free market, and, to a greater extent, the family institution. Roxana is a cautionary tale about the excess of capital and the prostitution of virtue leading to personal, national, or even global ruin.
Works Cited
Defoe, Daniel. Roxana. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003. Print.
Nussbaum, Felicity A. "Introduction." The Global Eighteenth Century. Ed. Felicity A. Nussbaum. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2005. 1-18. Print.
Debauchery in Eighteenth-Century British Literature
Part One: Historical Context
A quick glance at any eighteenth-century British literature anthology deems the era a particularly libidinous one. Gender relations are the focus of much of the time period's most popular works; male and female writers alike documented their sexual preferences and expectations and presented them in a forum much more public than ever before. In 1665, Londoners suffered the effects of a devastating plague, and in 1666, their city was decimated by the Great Fire. Consequently, following the spread of disease and aftermath of the fire, there was no pure drinking water to be found, therefore alcohol became the primary beverage of consumption. An increase in alcohol consumption, coupled with a lack of prophylactics, lead to an unprecedented population increase during the eighteenth century. Arthur J. Weitzman, author of the essay “Eighteenth-Century London: Urban Paradise or Fallen City,” claims that “after the plague and fire in the 1660s, the city doubled in population by 1800” (473).
However, the post-disastrous state of London was not the only contributing factor to an increase in sexual activity. According to Karen Harvey, author of “The Century of Sex? Gender, Bodies, and Sexuality in the Long Eighteenth Century,” historical examinations of sex and the body “focus on the period 1650-1850, with heavy emphasis on the eighteenth century … the century of change in the ways in which bodies were understood, sexuality constructed, and sexual activity carried out” (900). This “century of sex” was precipitated by the Enlightenment, which promoted scientific and historical thinking over the former belief in magic and spirituality. “British Society in the Eighteenth Century” writer Robert Allan Houston says that the “witch craze of the later sixteenth and seventeenth centuries had almost died out by 1700, partly as a result of a greater understanding of nature” (453). With this “greater understanding of nature” came a greater understanding of the human body, and in turn, of human sexuality. Harvey calls this new understanding “a prodigious hedonistic liberation of the libido” (899). New medical information and discoveries about sex and the body could also be disseminated widely now thanks to an increase in print media. Individuals were becoming increasingly enlightened about their own bodies, and subjective sexual desires became characteristics of the myriad of developing sexual identities.
Prior to the Enlightenment, men and women were believed to possess the same sexual organs; the female vagina was pictured as “an interior penis, the labia as foreskin, the uterus as scrotum, and the ovaries as testicles” (Harvey 901). Therefore, women were viewed as little more than defective men. New medical information during the Enlightenment debunked this Aristotelian theory, proving that there are distinct physical differences between male and female genitalia. Most importantly, it was discovered that the female orgasm is dispensable to conception. Prior to the Enlightenment, “women had been perceived as lascivious and lustful creatures,” but “by the middle of the the eighteenth century they were increasingly reimagined as belonging to another order of being: loving but without sexual needs” (Harvey 903). At this time, men became considered the more libidinous sex, and as this shift occurred, along with it came what author Faramerz Dabhoiwala calls a “growing acceptance … of libertine assumptions about male sexual conduct” (213). In other words, men discovered the natural implications behind their sexual desires, thereby justifying their libertinism and debauchery.
Randolph Trumbach's essay “Sex, Gender, and Sexual Identity in Modern Culture: Male Sodomy and Female Prostitution in Enlightenment London” is a precise examination of the sexual identities developed during the eighteenth century. He explains that during the Enlightenment, the contemporary “gender role for men presumed that most men desired women exclusively and that all masculine behavior flowed from such desire” (187). This was a reversal of former sexual mores in which the most masculine men had sexual relations with both women and adolescent males. The new two-sex theory indicated that men were created to have sexual relations with women only. This new sexual identity gave women undeniable power that they never previously possessed. Fearing women's demand for equality, men were now tasked with inventing a new sexual hierarchy to maintain their position as the dominant sex.
The debauchery that is prevalent in much eighteenth-century literature can be attributed to the contemporary reevaluation of sex and the development of the concept of gender. Having previously suppressed female sexuality through religious doctrine and medical assumptions, eighteenth-century men developed the concepts of masculinity and femininity in order to stress their sexual superiority. This redefinition justified the libidinous actions of eighteenth-century men while condemning unchaste women. According to Dabhoiwala, the development of gendered characteristics “was clearly to validate the sexual immorality of men … as 'natural' or 'uncontrollable,' whilst simultaneously increasing the social pressures on women to guard their chastity” (213). Femininity became synonymous with victimization just as masculinity became synonymous with sexual irresponsibility. Harvey claims that the shift is a result of “men's need to find a more secure basis and future for patriarchy … by replacing its ancient scriptural and medical basis with a new secular ideology of gender” (910). While the recognition of gender may have been a ploy to prioritize mens' sexual needs, the abundance of racy literature produced throughout the period exhibits the emergence of multiple sexual identities, “where before there was only one” (Harvey 908).
Part Two: New Sexual Identities
The development of the concept of gender did far more than simply justify the lewd behavior of men. It produced many different sexual identities which became the focus of much of the era's literature. While libertines like John Wilmot, the Second Earl of Rochester, wrote in defense of their lasciviousness, intelligent, honorable women like Mary Astell wrote of the hardships women face when subjected to marriage with a man. Other highly intelligible women like Aphra Behn refused to ignore their sexual desires, writing racy literature to inspire other women to listen to their bodies. Men who had, prior to the eighteenth century, engaged in sexual activity with young boys were now referred to as sodomites, and were ostracized for their desires. Similarly, there was no place in the new sexual hierarchy for lesbians or hermaphrodites, but Restoration literature does not marginalize these identities. Despite the male attempt to, through gendered characteristics, prove their sex dominant, they instead created a system where sexual desire is entirely subjective to the individual. The outcome is a variety of sexual characters such as the libertine, the virgin, the passive wife, the prostitute, the sodomite, the lesbian, and the hermaphrodite. The next part of my analysis will focus on the most highly sexualized of these characters: the libertine, the prostitute, the sodomite and the hermaphrodite. I refrain from discussing the sexual activity (or lack thereof) of the virgin, the passive wife, and the lesbian, because the sexuality of these characters was considered of so little importance. Women like Astell wrote about the frustration of being dominated sexually by men, but I am more interested in those characters who could not repress their sexual urges at a time when medical information validated their desires.
The Libertine
John Wilmot, the Second Earl of Rochester, was the very definition of a libertine. A favored rake of King Charles II, he wrote about his sexual exploits with unrestrained pride. In his poem, “Against Constancy,” he promotes the debauchery for which the eighteenth century is so well-known. “Tell me no more of constancy / The frivolous pretense,” he writes (1-2). Wilmot denounces the traditional view that men and women should be loyal to one another. He recommends that “duller fools” with a kinder heart should “be kind to one alone,” and that he, who “in love excel[s] / Long[s] to be often tried” (5-16). Wilmot suggests that men with sexual desire as strong as his should have the right to bed as many women as they choose. Indeed, he closes the poem with a promise: “As each kind night returns: / I'll change a mistress till I'm dead” (18-19).
Dabhoiwala suggests that the development of libertinism “created a powerful polar opposite to the Christian ideal: one in which sexual debauchery was actually to enhance male reputation” (205). Where men were previously permitted to have sex with adolescent boys in addition to their wives, the Enlightenment sex model indicated that men should be with women alone, therefore they had to give up their male companions to instead seek extramarital sex from women other than their wives. Trumbach elaborates: “It was, after all, quietly accepted by legal authority … that some men were likely to need a sexual outlet that for whatever reason was not available to them in marriage. The constables therefore ceased to arrest men found with prostitutes in bawdy houses or in the streets” (195). While public opinion generally denounced women for working as prostitutes, it never indicated that men should be punished for going to them. Many aristocrats at the time were thought to have taken a wife just to hide their sexual preference for boys. Therefore, often times, men would go to prostitutes simply to prove that they were not effeminate sodomites (Trumbach 202).
The Prostitute
The only women capable of expressing sexual passion during the eighteenth century were “prostitutes, seduced servants, remarrying widows, and adulterous wives” (Harvey 207). Prostitutes took advantage of the sexual vivacity of libertines, making a career out of their biggest asset – their sexual gifts. Daniel Defoe's 1724 novel Roxana, The Fortunate Mistress depicts a woman who, deserted by her husband and left to fend for herself and her five children, turns to prostitution for survival. She begins the career of a mistress, moving from one man to the next while she collects an abundance of wealth. While her actions are questionable, she fails to allow men to immobilize her: “I thought a Woman was a free Agent, as well as a Man, and was born free, and cou'd she manage herself suitably, might enjoy that Liberty to as much Purpose as the Men do” (Defoe 147). Defoe's novel depicts prostitution as a threat to domesticity and the free market, a domain previously dominated by men. Once women are awarded their own sexual identity, it becomes difficult to marginalize them, especially when they can use their sexual skills to harvest capital from sexually-motivated men.
As in Roxana, prostitution in the eighteenth century was simultaneously denounced and supported. “The act of whoredom,” according to Dabhoiwala, was a sin, but “all sins could be redeemed” (207). Many women turned to prostitution despite their religion, knowing that they were selling their virtue out of necessity, and that God would forgive them for their sins. Also, once a woman's chastity was ruined, so was her reputation. However, if “she could be placed in a different and improved environment … by the disciplines of work and religion she would be able to rejoin the domestic life” (Trumbach 196). Indeed, the prostitute contradicted all preconceived notions about the natural domesticity of women. However, she gave men an escape from the demands of marital intimacy, as well as a means to prove they were not sodomites. Reiterating the recommendation of Thomas Aquinas, many eighteenth-century physicians tolerated prostitution to avoid acts of sodomy (Trumbach 195).
The Sodomite
Men who enjoyed the company of other men did not disappear with the advent of the Enlightenment's sex model. Instead, men continued to privately engage in sex acts with other men. Often, these acts originated from a desire for camaraderie and companionship that women did not provide. Women's demands that a sexual debt be paid unto them left many impotent men frustrated with their marital relationships. Wilmot writes of this frustration in his poem, “The Disabled Debauchee.” The first half of the poem depicts a battle scene: man and woman, “Two rival fleets,” engage in sexual combat, climbing “to the top of an adjacent hill,” each determined to reach orgasm first (3-4). However, the subject of the poem cannot clear his mind long enough to please his woman: “absent yet,” he “enjoys the bloody day” (12). Wilmot's poem then shifts to his intentions for when his “days of impotence approach,” and he is “driven from the pleasing billows of debauch” (13-15). He testifies to relate his battle tales to whatever “youth (worth being drunk) prove[s] nice” (25). His goal is to seduce young men with his lewd and raucous stories: “With tales like these I will such heat inspire / As to important mischief shall incline” (41-42). Trumbach explains that, while sodomites were considered lesser men in eighteenth-century society, they were “tolerated for their amusing tongues” (188). Wilmot, a self-professed libertine and sodomite, became a favorite of the royal court precisely because he could relate such lascivious tales.
The Hermaphrodite
Aphra Behn challenged the masculine literature of the eighteenth century, offering bold feminine responses that demanded sexual equality for women. One such response is found in her poem, “To the Fair Clarinda, Who Made Love to Me, Imagined More than Woman.” This surprising poem documents one woman's relationship with a hermaphrodite, a female with an enlarged clitoris, resembling a penis. The work could be read as a satire on the sodomite's desire for young boys, as Behn paints the subject of this poem as a “lovely charming youth” whom she, “without blushes,” pursues (4-7). It can also be read simply as an account of yet another sexual character, one created “In pity to [the female] sex / That [they] might love, and yet be innocent” (12-13). Clarinda, the hermaphrodite in this poem, appears in the form of a woman, and thus understands the sexual desires of another female. She has a mock-penis, which offers stimulation, but no ejaculate, which prevents the risk of pregnancy, an indicator of the “crime” Behn speaks of (14).
Trumbach explains that the hermaphrodite was particularly threatening to the male-dominated sexual hierarchy: “Only two kinds of sexual acts endangered an individual's gender standing: sexual passivity in an adult male (but not in an adolescent) and sexual activity by a woman that included the use of an artificial penis or a supposedly enlarged clitoris. Such individuals, along with biological hermaphrodites, were likely to be viewed as dangerous, since they passed back and forth from active to passive rather than remaining in the passive female or active male conditions to which they had been assigned at birth” (192). Behn's portrayal of this sexual character indicates that the advent of gender is not enough to keep a woman in her place. Women, by taking charge of their sexuality, can find other ways to please themselves, even if that means engaging in sex with a third, more non-traditional gender.
Conclusion
The Enlightenment provided individuals with more sexual knowledge than they'd ever previously possessed. An increase in publishing and the dissemination of printed materials allowed this information to reach men and women alike, so that they might begin to explore their own sexual identities. Fearing a demand for sexual equality from women, eighteenth-century men attempted to set themselves higher on the sexual hierarchy by creating the notions of gender, insisting that the masculine was superior to the feminine. While this shift did help to subjugate many women, leaving them helpless to the debauchery of their male counterparts, it also created and affirmed multiple sexual identities. Men and women alike wrote about their sexual discoveries, either to justify their actions or to argue for sexual equality. Eighteenth-century literature reflects a contemporary sexual revolution that extends to the modern age.
Works Cited
Behn, Aphra. “To the Fair Clarinda, Who Made Love to Me, Imagined More than Woman.” The Longman Anthology of British Literature. 4th ed. Ed. David Damrosch & Kevin J. H. Dettmar. New York: Pearson Education, Inc., 2010. 2135.
Defoe, Daniel. Roxana. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003. Print.
Dabhoiwala, Faramerz. “The Construction of Honour, Reputation and Status in Late Seventeenth- and Early Eighteenth-Century England.” Transactions of the Royal Historical Society 6 (1996): 201-213. JSTOR. Web. 24 Feb. 2010.
Harvey, Karen. “The Century of Sex? Gender, Bodies, and Sexuality in the Long Eighteenth Century.” The Historical Journal 45.4 (2002): 899-916. JSTOR. Web. 24 Feb. 2010.
Houston, Robert Allan. “British Society in the Eighteenth Century.” The Journal of British Studies 25.4 (1986): 436-466. JSTOR. Web. 26 Feb. 2010.
Trumbach, Randolph. “Sex, Gender, and Sexual Identity in Modern Culture: Male Sodomy and Female Prostitution in Enlightenment London.” Journal of the History of Sexuality 2.2 Special Issue, Part 1: The State, Society, and the Regulation of Sexuality in Modern Europe (1991): 186-203. JSTOR. Web. 24 Feb. 2010.
Weitzman, Arthur J. “Eighteenth-Century London: Urban Paradise or Fallen City?” Journal of the History of Ideas 36.3 (1975): 469-480. JSTOR. Web. 26 Feb. 2010.
Wilmot, John. “Against Constancy.” The Longman Anthology of British Literature. 4th ed. Ed. David Damrosch & Kevin J. H. Dettmar. New York: Pearson Education, Inc., 2010. 2203-2204.
Wilmot, John. “The Disabled Debauchee.” The Longman Anthology of British Literature. 4th ed. Ed. David Damrosch & Kevin J. H. Dettmar. New York: Pearson Education, Inc., 2010. 2204-2205.
A quick glance at any eighteenth-century British literature anthology deems the era a particularly libidinous one. Gender relations are the focus of much of the time period's most popular works; male and female writers alike documented their sexual preferences and expectations and presented them in a forum much more public than ever before. In 1665, Londoners suffered the effects of a devastating plague, and in 1666, their city was decimated by the Great Fire. Consequently, following the spread of disease and aftermath of the fire, there was no pure drinking water to be found, therefore alcohol became the primary beverage of consumption. An increase in alcohol consumption, coupled with a lack of prophylactics, lead to an unprecedented population increase during the eighteenth century. Arthur J. Weitzman, author of the essay “Eighteenth-Century London: Urban Paradise or Fallen City,” claims that “after the plague and fire in the 1660s, the city doubled in population by 1800” (473).
However, the post-disastrous state of London was not the only contributing factor to an increase in sexual activity. According to Karen Harvey, author of “The Century of Sex? Gender, Bodies, and Sexuality in the Long Eighteenth Century,” historical examinations of sex and the body “focus on the period 1650-1850, with heavy emphasis on the eighteenth century … the century of change in the ways in which bodies were understood, sexuality constructed, and sexual activity carried out” (900). This “century of sex” was precipitated by the Enlightenment, which promoted scientific and historical thinking over the former belief in magic and spirituality. “British Society in the Eighteenth Century” writer Robert Allan Houston says that the “witch craze of the later sixteenth and seventeenth centuries had almost died out by 1700, partly as a result of a greater understanding of nature” (453). With this “greater understanding of nature” came a greater understanding of the human body, and in turn, of human sexuality. Harvey calls this new understanding “a prodigious hedonistic liberation of the libido” (899). New medical information and discoveries about sex and the body could also be disseminated widely now thanks to an increase in print media. Individuals were becoming increasingly enlightened about their own bodies, and subjective sexual desires became characteristics of the myriad of developing sexual identities.
Prior to the Enlightenment, men and women were believed to possess the same sexual organs; the female vagina was pictured as “an interior penis, the labia as foreskin, the uterus as scrotum, and the ovaries as testicles” (Harvey 901). Therefore, women were viewed as little more than defective men. New medical information during the Enlightenment debunked this Aristotelian theory, proving that there are distinct physical differences between male and female genitalia. Most importantly, it was discovered that the female orgasm is dispensable to conception. Prior to the Enlightenment, “women had been perceived as lascivious and lustful creatures,” but “by the middle of the the eighteenth century they were increasingly reimagined as belonging to another order of being: loving but without sexual needs” (Harvey 903). At this time, men became considered the more libidinous sex, and as this shift occurred, along with it came what author Faramerz Dabhoiwala calls a “growing acceptance … of libertine assumptions about male sexual conduct” (213). In other words, men discovered the natural implications behind their sexual desires, thereby justifying their libertinism and debauchery.
Randolph Trumbach's essay “Sex, Gender, and Sexual Identity in Modern Culture: Male Sodomy and Female Prostitution in Enlightenment London” is a precise examination of the sexual identities developed during the eighteenth century. He explains that during the Enlightenment, the contemporary “gender role for men presumed that most men desired women exclusively and that all masculine behavior flowed from such desire” (187). This was a reversal of former sexual mores in which the most masculine men had sexual relations with both women and adolescent males. The new two-sex theory indicated that men were created to have sexual relations with women only. This new sexual identity gave women undeniable power that they never previously possessed. Fearing women's demand for equality, men were now tasked with inventing a new sexual hierarchy to maintain their position as the dominant sex.
The debauchery that is prevalent in much eighteenth-century literature can be attributed to the contemporary reevaluation of sex and the development of the concept of gender. Having previously suppressed female sexuality through religious doctrine and medical assumptions, eighteenth-century men developed the concepts of masculinity and femininity in order to stress their sexual superiority. This redefinition justified the libidinous actions of eighteenth-century men while condemning unchaste women. According to Dabhoiwala, the development of gendered characteristics “was clearly to validate the sexual immorality of men … as 'natural' or 'uncontrollable,' whilst simultaneously increasing the social pressures on women to guard their chastity” (213). Femininity became synonymous with victimization just as masculinity became synonymous with sexual irresponsibility. Harvey claims that the shift is a result of “men's need to find a more secure basis and future for patriarchy … by replacing its ancient scriptural and medical basis with a new secular ideology of gender” (910). While the recognition of gender may have been a ploy to prioritize mens' sexual needs, the abundance of racy literature produced throughout the period exhibits the emergence of multiple sexual identities, “where before there was only one” (Harvey 908).
Part Two: New Sexual Identities
The development of the concept of gender did far more than simply justify the lewd behavior of men. It produced many different sexual identities which became the focus of much of the era's literature. While libertines like John Wilmot, the Second Earl of Rochester, wrote in defense of their lasciviousness, intelligent, honorable women like Mary Astell wrote of the hardships women face when subjected to marriage with a man. Other highly intelligible women like Aphra Behn refused to ignore their sexual desires, writing racy literature to inspire other women to listen to their bodies. Men who had, prior to the eighteenth century, engaged in sexual activity with young boys were now referred to as sodomites, and were ostracized for their desires. Similarly, there was no place in the new sexual hierarchy for lesbians or hermaphrodites, but Restoration literature does not marginalize these identities. Despite the male attempt to, through gendered characteristics, prove their sex dominant, they instead created a system where sexual desire is entirely subjective to the individual. The outcome is a variety of sexual characters such as the libertine, the virgin, the passive wife, the prostitute, the sodomite, the lesbian, and the hermaphrodite. The next part of my analysis will focus on the most highly sexualized of these characters: the libertine, the prostitute, the sodomite and the hermaphrodite. I refrain from discussing the sexual activity (or lack thereof) of the virgin, the passive wife, and the lesbian, because the sexuality of these characters was considered of so little importance. Women like Astell wrote about the frustration of being dominated sexually by men, but I am more interested in those characters who could not repress their sexual urges at a time when medical information validated their desires.
The Libertine
John Wilmot, the Second Earl of Rochester, was the very definition of a libertine. A favored rake of King Charles II, he wrote about his sexual exploits with unrestrained pride. In his poem, “Against Constancy,” he promotes the debauchery for which the eighteenth century is so well-known. “Tell me no more of constancy / The frivolous pretense,” he writes (1-2). Wilmot denounces the traditional view that men and women should be loyal to one another. He recommends that “duller fools” with a kinder heart should “be kind to one alone,” and that he, who “in love excel[s] / Long[s] to be often tried” (5-16). Wilmot suggests that men with sexual desire as strong as his should have the right to bed as many women as they choose. Indeed, he closes the poem with a promise: “As each kind night returns: / I'll change a mistress till I'm dead” (18-19).
Dabhoiwala suggests that the development of libertinism “created a powerful polar opposite to the Christian ideal: one in which sexual debauchery was actually to enhance male reputation” (205). Where men were previously permitted to have sex with adolescent boys in addition to their wives, the Enlightenment sex model indicated that men should be with women alone, therefore they had to give up their male companions to instead seek extramarital sex from women other than their wives. Trumbach elaborates: “It was, after all, quietly accepted by legal authority … that some men were likely to need a sexual outlet that for whatever reason was not available to them in marriage. The constables therefore ceased to arrest men found with prostitutes in bawdy houses or in the streets” (195). While public opinion generally denounced women for working as prostitutes, it never indicated that men should be punished for going to them. Many aristocrats at the time were thought to have taken a wife just to hide their sexual preference for boys. Therefore, often times, men would go to prostitutes simply to prove that they were not effeminate sodomites (Trumbach 202).
The Prostitute
The only women capable of expressing sexual passion during the eighteenth century were “prostitutes, seduced servants, remarrying widows, and adulterous wives” (Harvey 207). Prostitutes took advantage of the sexual vivacity of libertines, making a career out of their biggest asset – their sexual gifts. Daniel Defoe's 1724 novel Roxana, The Fortunate Mistress depicts a woman who, deserted by her husband and left to fend for herself and her five children, turns to prostitution for survival. She begins the career of a mistress, moving from one man to the next while she collects an abundance of wealth. While her actions are questionable, she fails to allow men to immobilize her: “I thought a Woman was a free Agent, as well as a Man, and was born free, and cou'd she manage herself suitably, might enjoy that Liberty to as much Purpose as the Men do” (Defoe 147). Defoe's novel depicts prostitution as a threat to domesticity and the free market, a domain previously dominated by men. Once women are awarded their own sexual identity, it becomes difficult to marginalize them, especially when they can use their sexual skills to harvest capital from sexually-motivated men.
As in Roxana, prostitution in the eighteenth century was simultaneously denounced and supported. “The act of whoredom,” according to Dabhoiwala, was a sin, but “all sins could be redeemed” (207). Many women turned to prostitution despite their religion, knowing that they were selling their virtue out of necessity, and that God would forgive them for their sins. Also, once a woman's chastity was ruined, so was her reputation. However, if “she could be placed in a different and improved environment … by the disciplines of work and religion she would be able to rejoin the domestic life” (Trumbach 196). Indeed, the prostitute contradicted all preconceived notions about the natural domesticity of women. However, she gave men an escape from the demands of marital intimacy, as well as a means to prove they were not sodomites. Reiterating the recommendation of Thomas Aquinas, many eighteenth-century physicians tolerated prostitution to avoid acts of sodomy (Trumbach 195).
The Sodomite
Men who enjoyed the company of other men did not disappear with the advent of the Enlightenment's sex model. Instead, men continued to privately engage in sex acts with other men. Often, these acts originated from a desire for camaraderie and companionship that women did not provide. Women's demands that a sexual debt be paid unto them left many impotent men frustrated with their marital relationships. Wilmot writes of this frustration in his poem, “The Disabled Debauchee.” The first half of the poem depicts a battle scene: man and woman, “Two rival fleets,” engage in sexual combat, climbing “to the top of an adjacent hill,” each determined to reach orgasm first (3-4). However, the subject of the poem cannot clear his mind long enough to please his woman: “absent yet,” he “enjoys the bloody day” (12). Wilmot's poem then shifts to his intentions for when his “days of impotence approach,” and he is “driven from the pleasing billows of debauch” (13-15). He testifies to relate his battle tales to whatever “youth (worth being drunk) prove[s] nice” (25). His goal is to seduce young men with his lewd and raucous stories: “With tales like these I will such heat inspire / As to important mischief shall incline” (41-42). Trumbach explains that, while sodomites were considered lesser men in eighteenth-century society, they were “tolerated for their amusing tongues” (188). Wilmot, a self-professed libertine and sodomite, became a favorite of the royal court precisely because he could relate such lascivious tales.
The Hermaphrodite
Aphra Behn challenged the masculine literature of the eighteenth century, offering bold feminine responses that demanded sexual equality for women. One such response is found in her poem, “To the Fair Clarinda, Who Made Love to Me, Imagined More than Woman.” This surprising poem documents one woman's relationship with a hermaphrodite, a female with an enlarged clitoris, resembling a penis. The work could be read as a satire on the sodomite's desire for young boys, as Behn paints the subject of this poem as a “lovely charming youth” whom she, “without blushes,” pursues (4-7). It can also be read simply as an account of yet another sexual character, one created “In pity to [the female] sex / That [they] might love, and yet be innocent” (12-13). Clarinda, the hermaphrodite in this poem, appears in the form of a woman, and thus understands the sexual desires of another female. She has a mock-penis, which offers stimulation, but no ejaculate, which prevents the risk of pregnancy, an indicator of the “crime” Behn speaks of (14).
Trumbach explains that the hermaphrodite was particularly threatening to the male-dominated sexual hierarchy: “Only two kinds of sexual acts endangered an individual's gender standing: sexual passivity in an adult male (but not in an adolescent) and sexual activity by a woman that included the use of an artificial penis or a supposedly enlarged clitoris. Such individuals, along with biological hermaphrodites, were likely to be viewed as dangerous, since they passed back and forth from active to passive rather than remaining in the passive female or active male conditions to which they had been assigned at birth” (192). Behn's portrayal of this sexual character indicates that the advent of gender is not enough to keep a woman in her place. Women, by taking charge of their sexuality, can find other ways to please themselves, even if that means engaging in sex with a third, more non-traditional gender.
Conclusion
The Enlightenment provided individuals with more sexual knowledge than they'd ever previously possessed. An increase in publishing and the dissemination of printed materials allowed this information to reach men and women alike, so that they might begin to explore their own sexual identities. Fearing a demand for sexual equality from women, eighteenth-century men attempted to set themselves higher on the sexual hierarchy by creating the notions of gender, insisting that the masculine was superior to the feminine. While this shift did help to subjugate many women, leaving them helpless to the debauchery of their male counterparts, it also created and affirmed multiple sexual identities. Men and women alike wrote about their sexual discoveries, either to justify their actions or to argue for sexual equality. Eighteenth-century literature reflects a contemporary sexual revolution that extends to the modern age.
Works Cited
Behn, Aphra. “To the Fair Clarinda, Who Made Love to Me, Imagined More than Woman.” The Longman Anthology of British Literature. 4th ed. Ed. David Damrosch & Kevin J. H. Dettmar. New York: Pearson Education, Inc., 2010. 2135.
Defoe, Daniel. Roxana. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003. Print.
Dabhoiwala, Faramerz. “The Construction of Honour, Reputation and Status in Late Seventeenth- and Early Eighteenth-Century England.” Transactions of the Royal Historical Society 6 (1996): 201-213. JSTOR. Web. 24 Feb. 2010.
Harvey, Karen. “The Century of Sex? Gender, Bodies, and Sexuality in the Long Eighteenth Century.” The Historical Journal 45.4 (2002): 899-916. JSTOR. Web. 24 Feb. 2010.
Houston, Robert Allan. “British Society in the Eighteenth Century.” The Journal of British Studies 25.4 (1986): 436-466. JSTOR. Web. 26 Feb. 2010.
Trumbach, Randolph. “Sex, Gender, and Sexual Identity in Modern Culture: Male Sodomy and Female Prostitution in Enlightenment London.” Journal of the History of Sexuality 2.2 Special Issue, Part 1: The State, Society, and the Regulation of Sexuality in Modern Europe (1991): 186-203. JSTOR. Web. 24 Feb. 2010.
Weitzman, Arthur J. “Eighteenth-Century London: Urban Paradise or Fallen City?” Journal of the History of Ideas 36.3 (1975): 469-480. JSTOR. Web. 26 Feb. 2010.
Wilmot, John. “Against Constancy.” The Longman Anthology of British Literature. 4th ed. Ed. David Damrosch & Kevin J. H. Dettmar. New York: Pearson Education, Inc., 2010. 2203-2204.
Wilmot, John. “The Disabled Debauchee.” The Longman Anthology of British Literature. 4th ed. Ed. David Damrosch & Kevin J. H. Dettmar. New York: Pearson Education, Inc., 2010. 2204-2205.
Perceptions of Beauty in Eighteenth-Century British Literature
Much eighteenth-century British literature depicts the cultural significance of “beauty” and woman's dedication to striving towards it. A beautiful woman is said to “look divine” or be “divinely beautiful”; these words indicate beauty's relationship to God. Contrastingly, we say that an unkempt woman is “ugly as sin” or “looks like hell”; this language equates ugly with evil. Thus, beauty and ugliness are not only physical but also moral opposites. For decades, women have pursued physical beauty as a means of conveying their own inner beauty. During the eighteenth century, when the filth of living conditions made it nearly unbearable to attain a pure, clean sort of beauty, women's attempts to make themselves up became the butt of many men's jokes. The more a woman attempted to make up her face, the greater the disparity between her true nature and true beauty became. Female Restoration writers suggest that men pressured women into striving towards beauty, and that a capitalistic society required them to decorate themselves to excess. Male writers poke fun at women's beautification efforts and, forgetting men are at fault for requiring women to be beautiful, label them vain and self-obsessed. This criticism of beauty is not necessarily misogynistic in nature, but rather a critique of all males who think that women's beauty is “divine” or heavenly. By placing women on such a glowing pedestal, they create their own confusion when they learn that women share the same physical defects (primarily bodily fluids – perspiration, mucus, excrement, etc.) as men.
In “The Turkish Embassy Letters,” Lady Mary Wortley Montagu describes her interaction with another culture's portrayal of beauty. She is comforted by the immodesty of the nude Turkish women in the bath, and says, “if 'twas the fashion to go naked, the face would be hardly observed” (2545). Montagu admits there is too much focus on the beauty of the face within her own society. She finds the foreign approach to beauty much more comforting, and desires to stay at the bath longer. It is her husband who commands she leave early. Before she goes, she shows them her “stays,” or corset: “ … they believed I was so locked up in that machine that it was not in my own power to open it, which contrivance they attributed to my husband” (2546). Even the Turkish women attributed the painful application of a corset to the white man's desire to mold his wife's natural form into a more aesthetically-pleasing one. In her letter “To Lady Mar,” Montagu claims that, indeed, Turkish women “have more liberty” than English women possess (2547).
Alexander Pope and Johnathan Swift both wrote about the charade of women's beauty, and their works are generally misconstrued as misogynistic in tone. Pope's “The Rape of the Lock” makes a fool of a woman who prides herself on her beauty and is utterly destroyed when a man steals a lock of her virgin curls. The entire event is satirized; Pope paints Belinda with heavenly language, placing her on the same pedestal men ascribe to other beautiful women. While he directly confronts the vanity of beautiful women, and through the words of Clarissa attempts to instead channel their good humor and sense, he more subtly insults men's appointment of women to such a divine pedestal. In the end, neither Belinda nor the Baron have the lock in their possession. Despite his attempts to steal a little piece of heaven for himself, he misplaces it, signifying the fact that man has created a creature that he now cannot control. Women have been expected to present themselves as divine objects whose purpose is only to reflect the social status of the men they accompany. As a result of man's expectations of feminine beauty, women have become self-obsessed to excess, and have, as a result, disenchanted the same men.
If Pope is obsessed with the art of feminine beauty, then Swift is repulsed by the folly of it. While Pope described Belinda in angelic terms, Swift represents the female body in a grotesque manner, as “gaudy tulips raised from dung” (2349). In both “A Beautiful Young Nymph Going to Bed” and “The Lady's Dressing Room,” Swift calls out the imperfection of female art, presenting a criticism of women that extends to the capitalistic society. Images of Corrina and Celia's dressing rooms starkly contrast that of Belinda's. Swift does not color women in angelic language like Pope, but reveals their, literally, dirty secrets. He chastises other men who cannot see through woman's charade: “I pity wretched Strephon, blind / To all the charms of womankind” (2349). Strephon is an imbecile who has failed to remember that women are cut from the same cloth as men. He is foolish to expect Celia to be any more divine a creature than he is.
Despite the misogynistic tone of Pope and Swift's works, they did not damage women and their relationship to beauty, but gave them a reason to voice their struggles with it. Upon deeper inspection, their writing not only challenged the vanity of women, but insulted men for their appointment of women to such a high stature. Indeed, works by these men spawned responses from female writers of the day, who, like Montagu, in her response to “The Lady's Dressing Room,” invited Pope to continue his critical writing: “I'm glad you'll write / You'll furnish paper when I shite” (2352).
Works Cited
Montagu, Lady Mary Wortley. “The Turkish Embassy Letters.” The Longman Anthology of British Literature. 4th ed. Ed. David Damrosch & Kevin J. H. Dettmar. New York: Pearson Education, Inc., 2010. 2544-2546.
Montagu, Lady Mary Wortley. “To Lady Mar.” The Longman Anthology of British Literature. 4th ed. Ed. David Damrosch & Kevin J. H. Dettmar. New York: Pearson Education, Inc., 2010. 2546-2548.
Pope, Alexander. “The Rape of the Lock.” The Longman Anthology of British Literature. 4th ed. Ed. David Damrosch & Kevin J. H. Dettmar. New York: Pearson Education, Inc., 2010. 2472-2491.
Swift, Johnathan. “The Lady's Dressing Room.” The Longman Anthology of British Literature. 4th ed. Ed. David Damrosch & Kevin J. H. Dettmar. New York: Pearson Education, Inc., 2010. 2346- 2349.
Swift, Johnathan. “A Beautiful Young Nymph Going to Bed.” 1734.
In “The Turkish Embassy Letters,” Lady Mary Wortley Montagu describes her interaction with another culture's portrayal of beauty. She is comforted by the immodesty of the nude Turkish women in the bath, and says, “if 'twas the fashion to go naked, the face would be hardly observed” (2545). Montagu admits there is too much focus on the beauty of the face within her own society. She finds the foreign approach to beauty much more comforting, and desires to stay at the bath longer. It is her husband who commands she leave early. Before she goes, she shows them her “stays,” or corset: “ … they believed I was so locked up in that machine that it was not in my own power to open it, which contrivance they attributed to my husband” (2546). Even the Turkish women attributed the painful application of a corset to the white man's desire to mold his wife's natural form into a more aesthetically-pleasing one. In her letter “To Lady Mar,” Montagu claims that, indeed, Turkish women “have more liberty” than English women possess (2547).
Alexander Pope and Johnathan Swift both wrote about the charade of women's beauty, and their works are generally misconstrued as misogynistic in tone. Pope's “The Rape of the Lock” makes a fool of a woman who prides herself on her beauty and is utterly destroyed when a man steals a lock of her virgin curls. The entire event is satirized; Pope paints Belinda with heavenly language, placing her on the same pedestal men ascribe to other beautiful women. While he directly confronts the vanity of beautiful women, and through the words of Clarissa attempts to instead channel their good humor and sense, he more subtly insults men's appointment of women to such a divine pedestal. In the end, neither Belinda nor the Baron have the lock in their possession. Despite his attempts to steal a little piece of heaven for himself, he misplaces it, signifying the fact that man has created a creature that he now cannot control. Women have been expected to present themselves as divine objects whose purpose is only to reflect the social status of the men they accompany. As a result of man's expectations of feminine beauty, women have become self-obsessed to excess, and have, as a result, disenchanted the same men.
If Pope is obsessed with the art of feminine beauty, then Swift is repulsed by the folly of it. While Pope described Belinda in angelic terms, Swift represents the female body in a grotesque manner, as “gaudy tulips raised from dung” (2349). In both “A Beautiful Young Nymph Going to Bed” and “The Lady's Dressing Room,” Swift calls out the imperfection of female art, presenting a criticism of women that extends to the capitalistic society. Images of Corrina and Celia's dressing rooms starkly contrast that of Belinda's. Swift does not color women in angelic language like Pope, but reveals their, literally, dirty secrets. He chastises other men who cannot see through woman's charade: “I pity wretched Strephon, blind / To all the charms of womankind” (2349). Strephon is an imbecile who has failed to remember that women are cut from the same cloth as men. He is foolish to expect Celia to be any more divine a creature than he is.
Despite the misogynistic tone of Pope and Swift's works, they did not damage women and their relationship to beauty, but gave them a reason to voice their struggles with it. Upon deeper inspection, their writing not only challenged the vanity of women, but insulted men for their appointment of women to such a high stature. Indeed, works by these men spawned responses from female writers of the day, who, like Montagu, in her response to “The Lady's Dressing Room,” invited Pope to continue his critical writing: “I'm glad you'll write / You'll furnish paper when I shite” (2352).
Works Cited
Montagu, Lady Mary Wortley. “The Turkish Embassy Letters.” The Longman Anthology of British Literature. 4th ed. Ed. David Damrosch & Kevin J. H. Dettmar. New York: Pearson Education, Inc., 2010. 2544-2546.
Montagu, Lady Mary Wortley. “To Lady Mar.” The Longman Anthology of British Literature. 4th ed. Ed. David Damrosch & Kevin J. H. Dettmar. New York: Pearson Education, Inc., 2010. 2546-2548.
Pope, Alexander. “The Rape of the Lock.” The Longman Anthology of British Literature. 4th ed. Ed. David Damrosch & Kevin J. H. Dettmar. New York: Pearson Education, Inc., 2010. 2472-2491.
Swift, Johnathan. “The Lady's Dressing Room.” The Longman Anthology of British Literature. 4th ed. Ed. David Damrosch & Kevin J. H. Dettmar. New York: Pearson Education, Inc., 2010. 2346- 2349.
Swift, Johnathan. “A Beautiful Young Nymph Going to Bed.” 1734.
The Marriage Debt in Wilmot's “The Imperfect Enjoyment” and Behn's “The Disappointment”
In the twelfth century, the Catholic Church, in its ever-developing theology of marriage, mandated that the union between a man and woman be viewed as a contract. Interpreting Paul's first letter to the Corinthians literally, the church placed itself squarely in the bed of married couples, mandating they pay unto each other a “marriage debt.” This order required men, as well as women, to submit to sexual relations if the other spouse so desired. While this seemed like a win-win situation for the already-dominant male in the relationship, it became a strangely empowering opportunity for women. Not only did they now have some form of equality with men, they had it by way of their sexual prowess. As men are notoriously affected by their sexual desires, women found not only equality, but dominion in the bedroom. In the seventeenth century, John Wilmot and Aphra Behn, through their poetry, gave opposing perspectives on the notion of mutual sexual gratification, although their writings weren't necessarily about married couples. The marriage debt created an attitude towards sex that is perpetuated in these authors' works.
Wilmot's “The Imperfect Enjoyment” is the masculine response to mutual pleasure, and blames women themselves for male impotence. He describes the intimate scene of a man and woman entangled in passionate embrace, “both equally inspired with eager fire (3).” For Wilmot, passion only becomes enhanced when he realizes the shame of his debauchery. It is ironic that, in line 14, he claims that his lover's hand “should convey [his] soul up to her heart,” but, ever-so immediately, in line 15, “In liquid raptures [he] dissolve all o'er.” The narrator's one loving thought, signifying the romantic bond between a man and woman, pushes him over the edge and to an early ejaculation. This is to be expected, he claims, as “her hand, her foot, her very look's a cunt” (18). He blames the woman for having too much sexual power, insinuating that she could do something more to prevent his premature release.
Invoking the true ideology of the marriage debt, the narrator's lover even asks, “Is there no more?” and cries, “All this to love and rapture's due / Must we not pay a debt to pleasure, too (21-23)?” The man recognizes his inability to please this woman, and his passion quickly changes from one form to another: “And rage at last confirms me impotent” (30). His words are no longer lovingly passionate, but soaked in outrage. Wilmot suggests that women are sexually deviant creatures who prevent men from ever attaining true love, for their sexual charms are too powerful. Wilmot certainly sees the marriage debt as an unfair juxtaposition. This is further addressed in “Against Constancy,” where he argues against monogamy, instead resorting to the company of other males who will not judge his shortcomings.
Aphra Behn responds to Wilmot's blame of women for impotence in her poem, “The Disappointment.” Behn sets up the scene similarly to Wilmot. She begins with two lovers, Cloris and Lysander, in the beginnings of sexual consummation. Playing on Wilmot's love of lewdness, she explains how Lysander's passion is further ignited when he recognizes the shame that burdens Cloris: “Her eyes sweet, and yet severe / Where love and shame confusedly strive / Fresh vigour to Lysander give (21-23).” When Lysander prematurely ejaculates, and Cloris realizes he is “unable to perform the sacrifice,” she becomes confused, blushes, and runs away (70). Not only has this woman suffered the shame of allowing her virginity to be taken, she does so with lack of her own sexual gratification. However, Behn doesn't regard men with the same hostility that Wilmot uses to refer to women in this situation. Despite her lack of pleasure, she fails to condemn Lysander for his impotence. She says that “none can guess Lysander's soul,” but knows that his “silent griefs swell up to storms” (133, 135). Instead, Behn is sarcastic in her criticism of such men, simply stating, at the end, that the “shepherdess's charms … had damned him to the hell of impotence” (138, 140).
Behn's response to Wilmot doesn't punish men for their impotence – their impotence alone is punishment enough. Instead, she explains the impact of sexual relations on a woman of her era, and creates sympathy for those women who are left unsatisfied by their inadequate partners. Her ability to speak out on behalf of women is in part due to the creation of the marriage debt. This new philosophy gave women the right to equal sexual pleasure, first, within marriage, and later, in both open and closed sexual relationships.
Works Cited
Behn, Aphra. “The Disappointment.” The Longman Anthology of British Literature. 4th ed. Ed. David Damrosch & Kevin J. H. Dettmar. New York: Pearson Education, Inc., 2010. 2126-2129.
Wilmot, John. “The Imperfect Enjoyment.” The Longman Anthology of British Literature. 4th ed. Ed. David Damrosch & Kevin J. H. Dettmar. New York: Pearson Education, Inc., 2010. 2205-2207.
Wilmot's “The Imperfect Enjoyment” is the masculine response to mutual pleasure, and blames women themselves for male impotence. He describes the intimate scene of a man and woman entangled in passionate embrace, “both equally inspired with eager fire (3).” For Wilmot, passion only becomes enhanced when he realizes the shame of his debauchery. It is ironic that, in line 14, he claims that his lover's hand “should convey [his] soul up to her heart,” but, ever-so immediately, in line 15, “In liquid raptures [he] dissolve all o'er.” The narrator's one loving thought, signifying the romantic bond between a man and woman, pushes him over the edge and to an early ejaculation. This is to be expected, he claims, as “her hand, her foot, her very look's a cunt” (18). He blames the woman for having too much sexual power, insinuating that she could do something more to prevent his premature release.
Invoking the true ideology of the marriage debt, the narrator's lover even asks, “Is there no more?” and cries, “All this to love and rapture's due / Must we not pay a debt to pleasure, too (21-23)?” The man recognizes his inability to please this woman, and his passion quickly changes from one form to another: “And rage at last confirms me impotent” (30). His words are no longer lovingly passionate, but soaked in outrage. Wilmot suggests that women are sexually deviant creatures who prevent men from ever attaining true love, for their sexual charms are too powerful. Wilmot certainly sees the marriage debt as an unfair juxtaposition. This is further addressed in “Against Constancy,” where he argues against monogamy, instead resorting to the company of other males who will not judge his shortcomings.
Aphra Behn responds to Wilmot's blame of women for impotence in her poem, “The Disappointment.” Behn sets up the scene similarly to Wilmot. She begins with two lovers, Cloris and Lysander, in the beginnings of sexual consummation. Playing on Wilmot's love of lewdness, she explains how Lysander's passion is further ignited when he recognizes the shame that burdens Cloris: “Her eyes sweet, and yet severe / Where love and shame confusedly strive / Fresh vigour to Lysander give (21-23).” When Lysander prematurely ejaculates, and Cloris realizes he is “unable to perform the sacrifice,” she becomes confused, blushes, and runs away (70). Not only has this woman suffered the shame of allowing her virginity to be taken, she does so with lack of her own sexual gratification. However, Behn doesn't regard men with the same hostility that Wilmot uses to refer to women in this situation. Despite her lack of pleasure, she fails to condemn Lysander for his impotence. She says that “none can guess Lysander's soul,” but knows that his “silent griefs swell up to storms” (133, 135). Instead, Behn is sarcastic in her criticism of such men, simply stating, at the end, that the “shepherdess's charms … had damned him to the hell of impotence” (138, 140).
Behn's response to Wilmot doesn't punish men for their impotence – their impotence alone is punishment enough. Instead, she explains the impact of sexual relations on a woman of her era, and creates sympathy for those women who are left unsatisfied by their inadequate partners. Her ability to speak out on behalf of women is in part due to the creation of the marriage debt. This new philosophy gave women the right to equal sexual pleasure, first, within marriage, and later, in both open and closed sexual relationships.
Works Cited
Behn, Aphra. “The Disappointment.” The Longman Anthology of British Literature. 4th ed. Ed. David Damrosch & Kevin J. H. Dettmar. New York: Pearson Education, Inc., 2010. 2126-2129.
Wilmot, John. “The Imperfect Enjoyment.” The Longman Anthology of British Literature. 4th ed. Ed. David Damrosch & Kevin J. H. Dettmar. New York: Pearson Education, Inc., 2010. 2205-2207.
John Locke's Unrealistic Belief in God
In An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, philosopher John Locke attempts to set forth a new mode of thinking by logical rationalization. He accomplishes this by associating thought with the natural world to help his readers understand from where their ideas, thoughts and preconceived notions originate. While Locke is successful at relating thought to the natural world by defining our perceptions through sensation, he fails to offer justification for his belief in a supreme deity, which he admits evades the possibility of being perceived. Locke's claim for God's existence is most troubling when the logic for his other arguments unfolds so clearly. He first argues that the mind is only capable of comprehending what it has already encountered, yet later claims that it is capable of understanding and believing in a supernatural God for which it has no recollection:
In other words, Locke's prime argument for the existence of God is that the leviathan that lies within the human mind – questions we ask ourselves about infinity and the unknown – is proof that there is a supreme deity in command.
Logically, Locke's argument is not sound. He contradicts his base arguments for reason by allowing his readers one instance in which they are not expected to use it. An empirical thinker, Locke used logic to contradict thousands of years of religious doctrine. An Essay Concerning Human Understanding was pivotal to teaching his readers how to think for themselves, but also very controversial and difficult to grasp initially. My hypothesis for his conflicting arguments is that to encourage people to read his writings, Locke found it necessary to connect with them through God. Otherwise, his teachings might have been considered too blasphemous for the masses. For this essay and to test my hypothesis, I turned to research regarding Locke and his belief in God. I discovered that my theory was correct, and that Locke included a supreme being in his argument for a variety of social reasons.
The authors of the article “Locke's Idea of God: Rational Truth or Political Myth?” claim that Locke did not wish his readers to take his argument for God seriously, and that there is a hidden message within his text. “For there is good evidence that Locke thought the idea of a punishing deity had psychological value as a political myth,” they write (Bluhm 416). Locke, who was classically educated in the writings of Aristotle and Cicero, follows the latter's assertion that “we must persuade our citizens that the gods are the lords and rulers of all things, and that what is done, is done by their will and authority” (Bluhm 432).
Locke thought it important for social elites to foster in the public a belief in God as a means to controlling morality. He knew that the elite who understood the secret message would interpret it rather as a set of precepts of reasonable behavior conductive to personal security and well-being. The average reader, on the other hand, would find in God legitimacy for Locke's other arguments pertaining to social order. Locke's maturing students would eventually come to understand “God” as merely a symbol for the rational order of the universe. Locke confirms this theory in a letter to Edward Stillingfleet, where he remarks that he disguised the weakness of his argument for God's existence in the Essay so that “...by it some men might be confirmed in the belief of a God, which is enough to preserve in them true sentiments of religion and morality” (429).
Like so many other historical governing bodies and political influences, Locke used the power of fear as a means of social control. He knew that using religion as a backdrop for the natural world was the only way to attract people to it. By including God in his argument for reason, he was able to interest God-fearing Christians in a logical approach to the world around them. It isn't until David Hume comes along that Locke's reliance on God is challenged, and the conceivable is at last divided from the inconceivable.
Works Cited
Bluhm, William T., Wintfeld, Neil & Teger, Stuart H. “Locke's Idea of God: Rational Truth or Political Myth?” The Journal of Politics 42 (1980): 414-438. Academic Search Complete. EBSCO. Ohio University Lib., OH. 19 January 2010.
Locke, John. “An Essay Concerning Human Understanding.” The Longman Anthology of British Literature. Ed. David Damrosch & Kevin J. H. Dettmar. 4th ed. New York: Pearson Education Inc., 2010. 2618-2622.
If we examine the idea we have of the incomprehensible Supreme Being, we shall find that we come by it the same way; and that the complex ideas we have both of God, and separate spirits, are made of the simple ideas we receive from reflection: v.g. having, from what we experiment in ourselves, got the ideas of existence and duration; of knowledge and power; of pleasure and happiness; and of several other qualities and powers, which it is better to have than to be without; when we would frame an idea the most suitable we can to the Supreme Being, we enlarge every one of these with our idea of infinity; and so putting them together, make our complex idea of God. For that the mind has such a power of enlarging some of its ideas, received from sensation and reflection, has been already showed (2620).
In other words, Locke's prime argument for the existence of God is that the leviathan that lies within the human mind – questions we ask ourselves about infinity and the unknown – is proof that there is a supreme deity in command.
Logically, Locke's argument is not sound. He contradicts his base arguments for reason by allowing his readers one instance in which they are not expected to use it. An empirical thinker, Locke used logic to contradict thousands of years of religious doctrine. An Essay Concerning Human Understanding was pivotal to teaching his readers how to think for themselves, but also very controversial and difficult to grasp initially. My hypothesis for his conflicting arguments is that to encourage people to read his writings, Locke found it necessary to connect with them through God. Otherwise, his teachings might have been considered too blasphemous for the masses. For this essay and to test my hypothesis, I turned to research regarding Locke and his belief in God. I discovered that my theory was correct, and that Locke included a supreme being in his argument for a variety of social reasons.
The authors of the article “Locke's Idea of God: Rational Truth or Political Myth?” claim that Locke did not wish his readers to take his argument for God seriously, and that there is a hidden message within his text. “For there is good evidence that Locke thought the idea of a punishing deity had psychological value as a political myth,” they write (Bluhm 416). Locke, who was classically educated in the writings of Aristotle and Cicero, follows the latter's assertion that “we must persuade our citizens that the gods are the lords and rulers of all things, and that what is done, is done by their will and authority” (Bluhm 432).
Locke thought it important for social elites to foster in the public a belief in God as a means to controlling morality. He knew that the elite who understood the secret message would interpret it rather as a set of precepts of reasonable behavior conductive to personal security and well-being. The average reader, on the other hand, would find in God legitimacy for Locke's other arguments pertaining to social order. Locke's maturing students would eventually come to understand “God” as merely a symbol for the rational order of the universe. Locke confirms this theory in a letter to Edward Stillingfleet, where he remarks that he disguised the weakness of his argument for God's existence in the Essay so that “...by it some men might be confirmed in the belief of a God, which is enough to preserve in them true sentiments of religion and morality” (429).
Like so many other historical governing bodies and political influences, Locke used the power of fear as a means of social control. He knew that using religion as a backdrop for the natural world was the only way to attract people to it. By including God in his argument for reason, he was able to interest God-fearing Christians in a logical approach to the world around them. It isn't until David Hume comes along that Locke's reliance on God is challenged, and the conceivable is at last divided from the inconceivable.
Works Cited
Bluhm, William T., Wintfeld, Neil & Teger, Stuart H. “Locke's Idea of God: Rational Truth or Political Myth?” The Journal of Politics 42 (1980): 414-438. Academic Search Complete. EBSCO. Ohio University Lib., OH. 19 January 2010.
Locke, John. “An Essay Concerning Human Understanding.” The Longman Anthology of British Literature. Ed. David Damrosch & Kevin J. H. Dettmar. 4th ed. New York: Pearson Education Inc., 2010. 2618-2622.
The Sex/Death Connection in Ernest Hemingway's For Whom the Bell Tolls and Herman Melville's Moby-Dick
Despite the growing adherence to the production of literary criticism that disregards the author, many modern writers are still curious about the personal lives of both Ernest Hemingway and Herman Melville. The portrayal of gender relations in each man's work is of particular interest, therefore critics turn to the authors' sex lives to interpret a deeper meaning in their novels. For example, Carl Eby goes so far as to identify Hemingway as a hair fetishist, based on recently-discovered knowledge that Hemingway's mother dressed him and his identical sister exactly the same, from their outfits to their haircuts, sometimes as boys and sometimes as girls. Caleb Crain writes about Melville's unrequited love for Nathaniel Hawthorne, suggesting that the cannibalism in Melville's novels reflects homoeroticism as well as his loneliness. Both of these writers, as well as many others, report in their analyses that, regardless of biographical information, sex and death are both prominent and interconnected themes in the authors' works. The very inclusion of these themes in accordance with one another is what draws so many critics to Hemingway and Melville's sexual histories.
At the beginning of the twentieth century, Sigmund Freud told the world that, above all else, human beings are internally driven to reproduce and to avoid death. In the early 1980s, French philosopher Michael Foucault expounded upon this notion, determining that the act of reproduction which yields life – sex – is actually inextricably linked to death. In the natural world, salmon battle upstream just to reproduce and die. Female praying mantises bite the heads off of their partners while mating. The sex/death relationship, then, is a natural phenomenon. Hemingway and Melville, too, insist that the two are intertwined. In both Hemingway's For Whom the Bell Tolls and Melville's Moby-Dick, sex and death are juxtaposed against one another. If the act of having sex yields life, and the act of killing yields death, then it follows that in For Whom the Bell Tolls, Robert Jordan cannot bring himself to kill another individual because he is actively engaged in sexual relations. In Moby-Dick, the whalers are capable of killing ruthlessly because they are out at sea with no women, and consequently, not having sex. Today, 70 years after Hemingway and 160 years after Melville, the themes of sex and death are a common couple, not only in the novel, but also in television, film, music, art and more.
Sexual imagery is rife throughout For Whom the Bell Tolls. Hemingway repeatedly alludes to a “thickness” in Robert Jordan's throat that develops when he sees or thinks of Maria (22, 23, 24, 25, 32, 67, 91). He says that it “gives him pleasure” to say that he cares for her (91). Maria becomes an object of Robert Jordan's natural, sexual affections, as Hemingway colors her with earthly and animalistic characteristics. When Robert Jordan first sees Maria, he compares her to a “colt” (25). Later, he gives her the nickname “little rabbit,” a word choice Eby calls a deliberate, if obscene, maneuver on Hemingway's part (Hemingway 69). Eby writes, “In Spanish, rabbit is conejo, also the common Spanish slang term for cono, or cunt, a fact that Robert Jordan, as a college instructor of Spanish, should certainly have known” (206). Maria is also described with earthy tones; she is “brown,” “golden,” and “tawny” (Hemingway 22, 43, 92). She is often standing near the mouth of the cave (obviously a yonic comparison), her body is described with geographic descriptions, and her sexual power makes “the earth move” (159). Because Robert Jordan knows he is likely embarking on his last days of life, pursuing Maria for sex is a natural survival technique.
The act of sex and the act of killing are almost mirror images throughout For Whom the Bell Tolls. A good place to begin is with Maria's declaration that she dies each time she and Robert Jordan make love. The “death” that Maria speaks of has come to be referred to as la petit mort, or “the little death,” and is a metaphor for orgasm. It refers to the moment when one approaches sexual climax and the mind seemingly ceases to exist. Even though Robert Jordan does not face his own death until the novel's end, he prepares for the big event by experiencing a series of “little deaths” while engaged in sexual relations with Maria.
One of the most prominent scenes where death and sex meet in For Whom the Bell Tolls takes place when Andres discusses his baiting of the bull. The violent images of the bull's death reflect the lovemaking that is simultaneously taking place between Robert Jordan and Maria:
The very next chapter opens with Robert Jordan waking up next to Maria. Hemingway intended for Andres' killing of the bull to represent the sexual activity of the main characters, further strengthening the bond between sex and death.
The theory that Robert Jordan is incapable of to blowing the bridge or killing another human being because he is actively engaged in having sex is verified by Pilar's story of Pablo's massacre of the Fascists. After Pablo had watched the “poling and striking and pushing and heaving” and murdering of men, he informed Pilar that they would have no sexual relations that night, an indication that his sexual urges had been fulfilled by killing (125). Conversely, Robert Jordan's sexual urges are satisfied, therefore he has no desire to kill. Originally, he claims to believe “only in his work,” but after he meets Maria, he can think of her only (33). When he begins to think negatively of his task to blow the bridge, he tells himself to change the subject, and, consequently, begins to think about Maria (43). Once he begins having sexual relations with her, he realizes that he is now responsible for Maria (and perhaps a child should she become pregnant). He is conflicted about his primary duty to his country and his new-found duty to protect Maria: “I cannot have a woman doing what I do. But thou art my woman now” (73). The gypsy, who tries to convince Robert Jordan to kill Pablo to better increase their success of blowing the bridge, chastises Robert Jordan for his debauched behavior:
As Robert Jordan realizes the responsibility he is creating for himself, he becomes farther detached from his mission to blow the bridge at all costs, and to kill another human being for the sake of his own country.
Even Robert Jordan recognizes the violent energy that is expelled through his sexual activity. Maria rejects his lovemaking advances after having submitted to them twice previously. She claims their previous sexual encounters, coupled with pain from the damage done to her when she was raped, have made her too sore to engage in sexual activity so soon. Robert Jordan decides that he will “keep any oversupply of that for tomorrow,” when he is to blow the bridge (342). He knows that refraining from sexual activity tonight will increase his ability to kill tomorrow.
Despite the fact that there are no female characters in Moby-Dick, sex and death are still capable of being prominent themes. Robyn Wiegman, the author of “Melville's Geography of Gender” writes that “while women are excluded from participation in the male bond, their exclusion becomes the vehicle for the masculine to incorporate the feminine as a marker of the democratic and transformatory potential of relations among men” (749). Her article discusses the presence of feminine characteristics within Melville's masculine construction of the Pequod and its men. While it can be determined that the whalers are capable of killing because they are not actively having sex with women, sexuality is expressed homoerotically throughout Moby-Dick. Weigman identifies the homoerotic nature of Melville's text: “Melville's phallic punning and masturbatory imagery, particularly in Moby-Dick, are exploration[s] of the social potential of male homosexuality to break down the forces of aggression identified with the patriarchal structure” (Wiegman 748). His presentation of homoeroticism also compliments the pervasive death theme of the novel. Like Hemingway, Melville also insists that sex and death are related.
Crain's article, mentioned at the beginning of this essay, focuses on cannibalism and homosexuality in Moby-Dick. He claims that one man eating another's flesh is in itself a homoerotic act. Queequeg, of course, becomes an object of Crain's interest. Indeed, Ishamael and Queequeg have the most sexually questionable relationship in the novel. Shortly after meeting and sharing a room (and bed) together, Ishamel wakes to find “Queequeg's arm thrown over [him] in the most loving and affectionate manner” (Melville 33). He becomes fond of cuddling up to the cannibal:
Although there are no women in Moby-Dick, the sex/death connection is established early on in the novel by Queequeg, the “queer” cannibal.
Crain also claims that “maritime life … provokes the question of homosexuality and power. Sailors surrender their affection and control to their captain. Their bodies are his to use” (40). While Captain Ahab does not attempt to engage in sexual relations with any of his crew, he does attempt to make more masculine men out of those who present homosexual characteristics. For example, Ishmael becomes confused when he wakes up at the helm of the ship to find himself turned around:
Crain explains that in the nineteenth century, the word “inverted” referred to the modern-day equivalent of the word “homosexual,” used to describe one who takes on characteristics of the opposite sex (40). Crain argues that the word was used deliberately, to indicate homosexuality, because later, Ahab tries to “prove to his men that he has the power to make 'inverted' compasses point true again” (Crain 40). Ahab gives “inverted” men the opportunity to reclaim their masculinity, by utilizing their sexuality through the ruthless killing of sperm whales.
The very act of harpooning is reflective of motions associated with masturbation and sexual penetration. No clearer reference is made to the act of killing as sexual activity in the novel than when Stubb kills his first whale on the Pequod. Stubb “slowly churns his long sharp lance into the fish” while the whale expires in a orgasm-like death flurry. Humorously, both Stubb and the whale are described as smoking pipes – Stubb's is tobacco, and the whale's is its “vapoury jet.” When the whale finally dies, Stubbs proudly proclaims, “Both pipes smoked out!” (Melville 236) Here, Stubbs' killing of the whale is depicted as a sexual activity, the whale his partner. Melville adds humor to the scene by allowing the couple to complete their sex/death ritual with a smoke.
Perhaps the most homoerotic scene in Moby-Dick occurs when Tashtego falls into the Great Heidelburgh Tun, a cistern holding the “precious” spermacetti for which the sperm whale was hunted. When Tashtego prepares to harvest the spermacetti, he mounts the tun with “erect posture,” “like a treasure-hunter” seeking the spermacetti, which was “all bubbling like a dairy-maid's pail of new milk.” As Tashtego comes closer to harvesting all of the spermacetti, he “has to ram his long pole harder and harder, deeper and deeper into the Tun.” When he accidentally slips and falls into the vat, Ishmael calls it a “queer accident,” and later, a “queer adventure” (279). Certainly Melville used the word to indicate both the strangeness and the homoerotic nature of the incident. The death of Tashtego is also suggested during this event: “... had Tashtego perished in that head, it had been a very precious perishing; smothered in the very whitest and daintiest of fragrant spermacetti” (Melville 280). Once again, Melville links sex to death as further indication of their inextricability.
Sex and death are important themes in For Whom the Bell Tolls and Moby-Dick. Both Hemingway and Melville infer that the two are unavoidable consequences of life. Hemingway proves that Robert Jordan's sexual and violent tendencies are completely natural by tying his desires to Maria, who is symbolic of the earth and its animals. Melville exhibits that, even in the absence of women, men must express their sexual urges in one form or another. For the whalers, their sexual desires are expressed homoerotically and by the relentless killing of whales. The act of having sex yields life, and the act of killing yields death, but the characters in these novels cannot engage in one without sacrificing the other. Both authors indicate that sex and death are natural, and more importantly, that they are undeniably tied to one another.
Works Cited
Crain, Caleb. “Lovers of Human Flesh: Homosexuality and Cannibalism in Melville's Novels.” American Literature 66.1 (1994): 25-53. Print.
Eby, Carl. “Rabbit Stew and Blowing Dorothy's Bridges: Love, Aggression, and Fetishism in For Whom the Bell Tolls.” Twentieth Century Literature 44.2 (1998): 204-219. Print.
Hemingway, Ernest. For Whom the Bell Tolls. New York: Scribner, 1940. Print.
Melville, Herman. Moby-Dick. New York: Dover, 2003. Print.
Wiegman, Robyn. “Melville's Geography of Gender.” American Literary History 1.4 (1989): 735-753. Print.
At the beginning of the twentieth century, Sigmund Freud told the world that, above all else, human beings are internally driven to reproduce and to avoid death. In the early 1980s, French philosopher Michael Foucault expounded upon this notion, determining that the act of reproduction which yields life – sex – is actually inextricably linked to death. In the natural world, salmon battle upstream just to reproduce and die. Female praying mantises bite the heads off of their partners while mating. The sex/death relationship, then, is a natural phenomenon. Hemingway and Melville, too, insist that the two are intertwined. In both Hemingway's For Whom the Bell Tolls and Melville's Moby-Dick, sex and death are juxtaposed against one another. If the act of having sex yields life, and the act of killing yields death, then it follows that in For Whom the Bell Tolls, Robert Jordan cannot bring himself to kill another individual because he is actively engaged in sexual relations. In Moby-Dick, the whalers are capable of killing ruthlessly because they are out at sea with no women, and consequently, not having sex. Today, 70 years after Hemingway and 160 years after Melville, the themes of sex and death are a common couple, not only in the novel, but also in television, film, music, art and more.
Sexual imagery is rife throughout For Whom the Bell Tolls. Hemingway repeatedly alludes to a “thickness” in Robert Jordan's throat that develops when he sees or thinks of Maria (22, 23, 24, 25, 32, 67, 91). He says that it “gives him pleasure” to say that he cares for her (91). Maria becomes an object of Robert Jordan's natural, sexual affections, as Hemingway colors her with earthly and animalistic characteristics. When Robert Jordan first sees Maria, he compares her to a “colt” (25). Later, he gives her the nickname “little rabbit,” a word choice Eby calls a deliberate, if obscene, maneuver on Hemingway's part (Hemingway 69). Eby writes, “In Spanish, rabbit is conejo, also the common Spanish slang term for cono, or cunt, a fact that Robert Jordan, as a college instructor of Spanish, should certainly have known” (206). Maria is also described with earthy tones; she is “brown,” “golden,” and “tawny” (Hemingway 22, 43, 92). She is often standing near the mouth of the cave (obviously a yonic comparison), her body is described with geographic descriptions, and her sexual power makes “the earth move” (159). Because Robert Jordan knows he is likely embarking on his last days of life, pursuing Maria for sex is a natural survival technique.
The act of sex and the act of killing are almost mirror images throughout For Whom the Bell Tolls. A good place to begin is with Maria's declaration that she dies each time she and Robert Jordan make love. The “death” that Maria speaks of has come to be referred to as la petit mort, or “the little death,” and is a metaphor for orgasm. It refers to the moment when one approaches sexual climax and the mind seemingly ceases to exist. Even though Robert Jordan does not face his own death until the novel's end, he prepares for the big event by experiencing a series of “little deaths” while engaged in sexual relations with Maria.
One of the most prominent scenes where death and sex meet in For Whom the Bell Tolls takes place when Andres discusses his baiting of the bull. The violent images of the bull's death reflect the lovemaking that is simultaneously taking place between Robert Jordan and Maria:
He had held the bull's tail … pulling and twisting … the bull rocked and bucked under him … his fingers locked and his body tossed and wrenched … the ear clenched tight in his teeth … drove his knife again and again and again into the swelling, tossing bulge of the neck that was now spouting hot on his fist as he let his weight hang … and banged and banged into the neck (365).
The very next chapter opens with Robert Jordan waking up next to Maria. Hemingway intended for Andres' killing of the bull to represent the sexual activity of the main characters, further strengthening the bond between sex and death.
The theory that Robert Jordan is incapable of to blowing the bridge or killing another human being because he is actively engaged in having sex is verified by Pilar's story of Pablo's massacre of the Fascists. After Pablo had watched the “poling and striking and pushing and heaving” and murdering of men, he informed Pilar that they would have no sexual relations that night, an indication that his sexual urges had been fulfilled by killing (125). Conversely, Robert Jordan's sexual urges are satisfied, therefore he has no desire to kill. Originally, he claims to believe “only in his work,” but after he meets Maria, he can think of her only (33). When he begins to think negatively of his task to blow the bridge, he tells himself to change the subject, and, consequently, begins to think about Maria (43). Once he begins having sexual relations with her, he realizes that he is now responsible for Maria (and perhaps a child should she become pregnant). He is conflicted about his primary duty to his country and his new-found duty to protect Maria: “I cannot have a woman doing what I do. But thou art my woman now” (73). The gypsy, who tries to convince Robert Jordan to kill Pablo to better increase their success of blowing the bridge, chastises Robert Jordan for his debauched behavior:
When thou needest to kill a man and instead did what you did? You were supposed to kill one, not make one! When we have just seen the sky full of airplanes of a quantity to kill us back to our grandfathers and forward to all unborn grandsons including all cats, goats and bedbugs (79).
As Robert Jordan realizes the responsibility he is creating for himself, he becomes farther detached from his mission to blow the bridge at all costs, and to kill another human being for the sake of his own country.
Even Robert Jordan recognizes the violent energy that is expelled through his sexual activity. Maria rejects his lovemaking advances after having submitted to them twice previously. She claims their previous sexual encounters, coupled with pain from the damage done to her when she was raped, have made her too sore to engage in sexual activity so soon. Robert Jordan decides that he will “keep any oversupply of that for tomorrow,” when he is to blow the bridge (342). He knows that refraining from sexual activity tonight will increase his ability to kill tomorrow.
Despite the fact that there are no female characters in Moby-Dick, sex and death are still capable of being prominent themes. Robyn Wiegman, the author of “Melville's Geography of Gender” writes that “while women are excluded from participation in the male bond, their exclusion becomes the vehicle for the masculine to incorporate the feminine as a marker of the democratic and transformatory potential of relations among men” (749). Her article discusses the presence of feminine characteristics within Melville's masculine construction of the Pequod and its men. While it can be determined that the whalers are capable of killing because they are not actively having sex with women, sexuality is expressed homoerotically throughout Moby-Dick. Weigman identifies the homoerotic nature of Melville's text: “Melville's phallic punning and masturbatory imagery, particularly in Moby-Dick, are exploration[s] of the social potential of male homosexuality to break down the forces of aggression identified with the patriarchal structure” (Wiegman 748). His presentation of homoeroticism also compliments the pervasive death theme of the novel. Like Hemingway, Melville also insists that sex and death are related.
Crain's article, mentioned at the beginning of this essay, focuses on cannibalism and homosexuality in Moby-Dick. He claims that one man eating another's flesh is in itself a homoerotic act. Queequeg, of course, becomes an object of Crain's interest. Indeed, Ishamael and Queequeg have the most sexually questionable relationship in the novel. Shortly after meeting and sharing a room (and bed) together, Ishamel wakes to find “Queequeg's arm thrown over [him] in the most loving and affectionate manner” (Melville 33). He becomes fond of cuddling up to the cannibal:
How it is I know not; but there is no place like a bed for confidential disclosures between friends. Man and wife, they say, there open the very bottom of their souls to each other; and some old couples often lie and chat over old times till nearly morning. Thus, then, in our hearts' honeymoon, lay I and Queequeg – a cosy, loving pair (54).
Although there are no women in Moby-Dick, the sex/death connection is established early on in the novel by Queequeg, the “queer” cannibal.
Crain also claims that “maritime life … provokes the question of homosexuality and power. Sailors surrender their affection and control to their captain. Their bodies are his to use” (40). While Captain Ahab does not attempt to engage in sexual relations with any of his crew, he does attempt to make more masculine men out of those who present homosexual characteristics. For example, Ishmael becomes confused when he wakes up at the helm of the ship to find himself turned around:
Uppermost was the impression, that whatever swift, rushing thing I soon on was not so much bound to any haven ahead as rushing from all havens astern. A stark, bewildering feeling, as of death, came over me. Convulsively my hands grasped the tiller, but with the crazy conceit that the tiller was, somehow, in some enchanted way, inverted (Melville 341).
Crain explains that in the nineteenth century, the word “inverted” referred to the modern-day equivalent of the word “homosexual,” used to describe one who takes on characteristics of the opposite sex (40). Crain argues that the word was used deliberately, to indicate homosexuality, because later, Ahab tries to “prove to his men that he has the power to make 'inverted' compasses point true again” (Crain 40). Ahab gives “inverted” men the opportunity to reclaim their masculinity, by utilizing their sexuality through the ruthless killing of sperm whales.
The very act of harpooning is reflective of motions associated with masturbation and sexual penetration. No clearer reference is made to the act of killing as sexual activity in the novel than when Stubb kills his first whale on the Pequod. Stubb “slowly churns his long sharp lance into the fish” while the whale expires in a orgasm-like death flurry. Humorously, both Stubb and the whale are described as smoking pipes – Stubb's is tobacco, and the whale's is its “vapoury jet.” When the whale finally dies, Stubbs proudly proclaims, “Both pipes smoked out!” (Melville 236) Here, Stubbs' killing of the whale is depicted as a sexual activity, the whale his partner. Melville adds humor to the scene by allowing the couple to complete their sex/death ritual with a smoke.
Perhaps the most homoerotic scene in Moby-Dick occurs when Tashtego falls into the Great Heidelburgh Tun, a cistern holding the “precious” spermacetti for which the sperm whale was hunted. When Tashtego prepares to harvest the spermacetti, he mounts the tun with “erect posture,” “like a treasure-hunter” seeking the spermacetti, which was “all bubbling like a dairy-maid's pail of new milk.” As Tashtego comes closer to harvesting all of the spermacetti, he “has to ram his long pole harder and harder, deeper and deeper into the Tun.” When he accidentally slips and falls into the vat, Ishmael calls it a “queer accident,” and later, a “queer adventure” (279). Certainly Melville used the word to indicate both the strangeness and the homoerotic nature of the incident. The death of Tashtego is also suggested during this event: “... had Tashtego perished in that head, it had been a very precious perishing; smothered in the very whitest and daintiest of fragrant spermacetti” (Melville 280). Once again, Melville links sex to death as further indication of their inextricability.
Sex and death are important themes in For Whom the Bell Tolls and Moby-Dick. Both Hemingway and Melville infer that the two are unavoidable consequences of life. Hemingway proves that Robert Jordan's sexual and violent tendencies are completely natural by tying his desires to Maria, who is symbolic of the earth and its animals. Melville exhibits that, even in the absence of women, men must express their sexual urges in one form or another. For the whalers, their sexual desires are expressed homoerotically and by the relentless killing of whales. The act of having sex yields life, and the act of killing yields death, but the characters in these novels cannot engage in one without sacrificing the other. Both authors indicate that sex and death are natural, and more importantly, that they are undeniably tied to one another.
Works Cited
Crain, Caleb. “Lovers of Human Flesh: Homosexuality and Cannibalism in Melville's Novels.” American Literature 66.1 (1994): 25-53. Print.
Eby, Carl. “Rabbit Stew and Blowing Dorothy's Bridges: Love, Aggression, and Fetishism in For Whom the Bell Tolls.” Twentieth Century Literature 44.2 (1998): 204-219. Print.
Hemingway, Ernest. For Whom the Bell Tolls. New York: Scribner, 1940. Print.
Melville, Herman. Moby-Dick. New York: Dover, 2003. Print.
Wiegman, Robyn. “Melville's Geography of Gender.” American Literary History 1.4 (1989): 735-753. Print.
Ahab, God of the Godless
Herman Melville's Captain Ahab is a man on a mission, a journey, a crusade. Named for the evil Israelite king who angers God with his worship of idols, Ahab, too, is an ominous figure, with a perverse kind of obsession with the white whale. He is described as a “grand, ungodly, god-like man,” an early indicator of his struggle with the divine (Melville 75). He is “god-like” because he creates his own perception of the world, but “ungodly” because he refuses to submit to forces beyond his control. Moby-Dick is an epic tale of the battle between free will and fatalism, and Ahab is both captain of the Pequod whaling ship and of an army of glory-seeking miscreants preparing for battle against the world's most malevolent agency. He has no qualms exploiting his fellow seamens' belief in fate in order to unite them for battle.
Having been at sea for forty years, Ahab is the ideal Romantic hero; while Charles Darwin has yet to publish his Origin of the Species, Ahab certainly sees the world at sea as a “Survival of the Fittest.” Alienated from the comforts of traditional religiosity, he is finely tuned to nature and its effects on the human mind. He has seen the laws of nature defy the laws of God, and he has come to define the all-knowing Creator as a malevolent force. It is no surprise that Ahab chooses to unleash his internal battle with the spiritual unknown on nature's leviathan, the elusive white whale that took his own leg out from under him. In both philosophy and at sea, Ahab chooses to combat that which limits his intelligence and ability to create his own destiny.
Ahab's crusade is about more than simple revenge against the whale: “Transcending his recognition that he is only one small unit of suffering humanity, he imagines himself the representative of his race before the throne of God” (Bergstrom 176). He sees himself as a sort of martyr, as Adam “staggering beneath the piled centuries since Paradise” (Melville 427). His death is not suicide, but a sacrifice in judgment of God Himself. Ahab surrenders his ship, his crew, and his own life in defiance of the great unknowable, proudly hailing the endurance of humanity until the very end. His death gives his life purpose, and because he has died in commitment of a struggle he cannot win, his tale becomes legendary. By pitting himself against fate and its initiator, Ahab becomes a sort of god of the godless. He becomes a hero to those who share his curiosity of the divine, and whose thirsty minds fail to settle for limited knowledge and control regarding their fates.
Melville builds the foundation for Ahab's battle early in the novel with the image of two contrasting churches. Ishmael wanders into each of these houses of worship before setting out on the Pequod. The sermon in the first church refers to the “blackness of darkness,” and suggests that evil is impenetrable and cannot be understood by human beings (Melville 20). The sermon given by Father Mapple in the second church conveys the notion that God gives human beings the power to apprehend truth, and that they should proclaim that truth, even when it goes against conventional ways of thinking. Ironically, Father Mapple's words reflect Ahab's own struggle with accepting divine truth: “And if we obey God, we must disobey ourselves; and it is in this disobeying ourselves, wherein the hardness obeying God consists” (Melville 45). Ahab's world is divided into two kinds of people: those who obey a God they may never personally know, and those who obey only themselves, as they are their own god. Obviously, Ahab falls in the latter category.
Beginning with his soliloquy in Chapter 36, “The Quarter-Deck,” Ahab contends that God is, in fact, a malevolent agency. He strives to defy limitations placed on human beings by conventional morality and religion, questioning God's right to have such complete control over his subjects. Ahab is generally not concerned with the morality of human beings. He is more affected by the agent who gave man intelligence, yet limited what he could come to learn. The captain easily exploits the morals of others, as he “is not concerned in the slightest with whether he is a good or evil man; the question just doesn't enter his mind. Ahab is hurt as men are hurt when a friend or parent whom they have counted on betrays them” (Booth 34). His goal is to ease the suffering of imperfect men by going to battle with their Creator. Robert F. Bergstrom states Ahab's purpose succinctly: “He who created those mysteries to baffle and frustrate mankind has offered His creatures an unendurable insult, and the only redress is to launch an implacable, even if futile, attack on the Deity” (175). Ahab concludes that God has been cruel to man, and that He, too, must answer to someone for His sins.
It is also in “The Quarter-Deck” that Ahab reveals to his crew that his mission is about more than just enacting revenge on the white whale for the loss of his leg. Like Ishmael, Ahab looks for hidden realities in everything around him. After Moby Dick almost premeditatedly bites off his leg, Ahab projects all of his perceptions regarding evil in the world onto the whale that attacked him. Comparing the whale to a wall shoved against him, he complains that “That inscrutable thing is chiefly what I hate; and be the white whale agent, or be the white whale principal, I will wreak that hate upon him” (Melville 138-139). Ahab finds a commonality between the unknowable God and the elusive white whale, and he transfers his anger of the first onto the latter, which is, in his view, possibly more tangible and combatable.
Even reasonable Ishmael tolerates the absurdity of Ahab's conviction, recognizing that many cultures believe in malignant forces in the world, as well. Despite the outrageousness of Ahab's quest for vengeance, Ishmael sympathizes with his disdain for the omnipotent God. He understands Ahab's torment well, and even justifies his transference of anger from God to the whale:
Echoing Ahab's “eat or be eaten” ideology, Ishmael later speaks of the “universal cannibalism of the sea; all whose creatures prey upon each other, carrying on eternal war since the world began” (Melville 227). A fellow seaman, Ishmael, too, finds it easier to follow the laws of nature than to be lead blindly by the laws of the unknowable. Indeed, throughout Moby-Dick, life on a whaling ship takes on a sort of religion of its own. This religion supersedes the base religion of each man who boards the Pequod. Often times, a man must question or even sacrifice his personal convictions in order to contend with the demands of the religion of the sea.
Ahab's obsession with the whale is no more fanatical than a religious man's unquestioning obedience to his god. Melville makes this assertion with the inclusion of Father Mapple, a religious zealot who encourages his fellow Christians to seek out truth to the very end. When Ishmael enters Father Mapple's church, he notes that “each silent worshipper seemed purposely sitting apart from the next, as if each silent grief were insular and incommunicable” (Melville 39). Despite the conviction with which he delivered it, “Father Mapple's creed seems neither to have erased the grief and fear from the hearts of the living nor to have united the congregation in their common fate” (Bergstrom 172). Ahab, on the other hand, becomes a master of manipulating men into thinking they are working towards a common fate. A distinct parallelism between Father Mapple and Ahab is seen in this passage, delivered by Father Mapple during his sermon:
These words could have come from the mouth of either Father Mapple or Ahab; they fit each man's worldly intentions. While Father Mapple encourages Christians to fight all opposition to proclaim the “truth” about God, Ahab desires to find evidence of this “truth,” which he, in fact, defines more as folly. Both men are steadfast in their separate convictions, but the language they use to describe their devotion to them is oddly similar. It is because of this shared passion for truth that Father Mapple and Ahab are equally monomaniacal. Both believe that God exists and that He has power over men's lives. Ahab only exceeds Father Mapple's fanaticism by attempting to literally go head-to-head with the unknowable. A creature of nature, “Ahab's 'mad' purpose is to destroy that which he seeks. In this he responds to the power of nature as he understands it” (Woodson 355). Ahab's monomania is driven by his natural predatory tendencies. This completely defies the passivity necessary to accept that fate is predetermined, which is what Father Mapple would recommend.
Melville elaborates on the dangers of fanaticism in Chapter 71, “The Jeroboam's Story”: “Nor is the history of fanatics half so striking in respect to the measureless self-deception of the fanatic himself, as his measureless power of deceiving and bedeviling so many others” (Melville 257). Ahab believes that fate either doesn't exist, or if it does, we can't know about it. However, in the fatalism of his fellow seamen, he finds an opportunity to unite them for a common purpose. Throughout the novel, the real is often confused with the supernatural, precisely because Ahab exploits mystery and the unknown for his own ends. He easily manipulates his crew into accepting that the hunt for Moby Dick is their destiny: “Death to Moby Dick! God hunt us all, if we do not hunt Moby Dick to his death!” (Melville 141) By telling his crew that God expects them to hunt and kill Moby Dick, Ahab successfully invests them in his purpose.
One of Ahab's most obvious exploits of his crew's fatalism is in Chapter 99, “The Doubloon,” when he directs his men's attention to the gold piece mounted at the head of the ship. He says the “round gold is but the image of the rounder globe, which, like a magician's magic glass, to each and every man in turn but mirrors back his own mysterious self” (Melville 346). The captain expects each man to gaze into the coin and find some sort of symbolism in it, with which he is to come to understand the crew's common destiny. Indeed, this trick helps further unite the men as they draw near the battlefield.
While Ahab uses others' belief in fate to manipulate them, he rejects the notion that it controls his own life. In defiance of fatalism, Ahab refuses to accept Fedallah's prophesy of death. He announces he will remain “immortal on land and on sea” and quickly dismisses the possibility that he should encounter a hearse or be hung by a hemp rope while on this voyage (Melville 395). When lightening hits the ship's sails, Ahab interprets the event as a sign of his power; pious Starbuck assumes that God opposes Ahab. The men on Ahab's ship constantly look for signs from God to determine their fate; Ahab simply helps them interpret these signs as further reason to hunt his white whale and exact revenge on the unknown.
Although Ahab unabashedly exploits his crew's belief in fate, he also gives their lives purpose. One of the first things we learn about Ishmael is that he is going to sea as a sort of self-annihilation, as an alternative to “throw[ing] himself upon the sword” (Melville 14). Chapter 112, “The Blacksmith,” explores the notion of suicidal men who go to sea: “Death seems the only desirable sequel for a career like this … therefore, to the death-longing eyes of such men … does the all-contributed and all receptive ocean alluringly spread forth his whole plain of unimaginable, taking terrors, and wonderful, new-life adventures” (Melville 387). Ahab's exploitation of fatalism can be forgiven when one learns that he has given purpose to the lives of men who were already prepared to lie down and die. Like Ishmael, these men found themselves broken by the torment of life on land, and they fled to the sea for action and adventure, no matter the consequences. It just so happens that by boarding the Pequod, these men become a consequence of Ahab's monomaniacal crusade.
His crew recognizes Ahab as a force that will not be reckoned with; obedience is crucial to maintaining an on-board discipline and chain of command. On the Pequod, Ahab is tyrant, king, god, and the men in the crew are his loyal subjects. Even Stubb considers it a privilege to be kicked in the rear-end by Ahab. Ishmael remarks how odd it is that the motley crew remains loyal to Ahab despite his “madness”:
The sum of these miscreants' convictions is precisely why Ahab seeks justice against God. Their suffering is his suffering, and, by slaying the white whale, he expects to offer them vindication for their individual struggles. To the end, the loyal crew defiantly supports its captain in his crusade. Each man comes to accept Ahab's fate as his own, and, in appreciation of his captain's dignified stance against the unknowable, goes down with him in the fight. He, too, becomes legendary. Instead of giving up on the lives they were dealt, these men create for themselves nobler ends.
Just before Ahab's encounter with the whale, he repents, to Starbuck, the holiest on the ship, nonetheless. He questions free will and his own identity, and comes to understand the folly of his quest. He also knows that he is on a path that cannot be broken – his encounter with Moby Dick is both fated and sure to be fatal. It is at this point that Ahab possesses more understanding than ever before – he is destined to lose, and he knows it. Despite repenting, he cannot turn back, nor does his crew allow him to. Although they anticipate no less than a terrifying end, they help their captain reach their common destiny. Starbuck consoles Ahab when he laments leaving behind his wife and child, Daggoo and Tashtego let Ahab spy Moby Dick first, and the entire crew works furiously to keep the Pequod afloat after it is attacked by the whale. The final image of Tashtego relentlessly hammering the flag to the ship as it sinks signifies the crew's loyalty to their captain's purpose and, to a greater extent, the enduring spirit of humanity in the face of that which it cannot control.
Captain Ahab, a deep-thinking philosopher and man more tuned to nature than civilization, finds limitations in both God and in the white whale he hunts. He is angry at the omnipotent Creator because He built man with the capacity to learn, but not with the ability to understand God Himself or the great mystical underpinnings of the universe. He rejects Father Mapple's assertion that people should blindly accept their fate, as it has already been written by God and cannot be altered on earth. Having lived at sea for forty years, Ahab has come to regard only himself as the author of his destiny. He perceives the world, not through God, but through nature, and because the white whale is the only beast in the sea he cannot control, he compares it to the lack of control men have over their own lives when they blindly follow fate. Ahab's crusade against Moby Dick is a crusade against God Himself. Ahab and his crew of miscreants die in defiance of man's limited knowledge, declaring that, from this point forward, men will create their own destinies. Melville's Moby-Dick, then, becomes the holy doctrine of men who cannot accept religious determinism, and Ahab becomes a god of the godless and a hero to the disillusioned.
Works Cited
Bergstrom, Robert F. “The Topmost Grief: Rejection of Ahab's Faith.” Essays in Literature 2.2 (1975). The University of Nebraska. 171-180. Literary Reference Center. Ohio U. Lib., Athens, OH. 26 Jan. 2010.
Booth, Thornton Y. “Moby Dick: Standing Up to God.” Nineteenth-Century Fiction 17.1 (1962). University of California Press. 33-43. JSTOR. Ohio U. Lib., Athens, OH. 26 Jan. 2010.
Melville, Herman. Moby-Dick. New York: Dover, 2003.
Woodson, Thomas. “Ahab's Greatness: Prometheus as Narcissus.” ELH 33.3 (1966). The Johns Hopkins University Press. 351-369. JSTOR. Ohio U. Lib., Athens, OH. 4 Feb. 2010.
Having been at sea for forty years, Ahab is the ideal Romantic hero; while Charles Darwin has yet to publish his Origin of the Species, Ahab certainly sees the world at sea as a “Survival of the Fittest.” Alienated from the comforts of traditional religiosity, he is finely tuned to nature and its effects on the human mind. He has seen the laws of nature defy the laws of God, and he has come to define the all-knowing Creator as a malevolent force. It is no surprise that Ahab chooses to unleash his internal battle with the spiritual unknown on nature's leviathan, the elusive white whale that took his own leg out from under him. In both philosophy and at sea, Ahab chooses to combat that which limits his intelligence and ability to create his own destiny.
Ahab's crusade is about more than simple revenge against the whale: “Transcending his recognition that he is only one small unit of suffering humanity, he imagines himself the representative of his race before the throne of God” (Bergstrom 176). He sees himself as a sort of martyr, as Adam “staggering beneath the piled centuries since Paradise” (Melville 427). His death is not suicide, but a sacrifice in judgment of God Himself. Ahab surrenders his ship, his crew, and his own life in defiance of the great unknowable, proudly hailing the endurance of humanity until the very end. His death gives his life purpose, and because he has died in commitment of a struggle he cannot win, his tale becomes legendary. By pitting himself against fate and its initiator, Ahab becomes a sort of god of the godless. He becomes a hero to those who share his curiosity of the divine, and whose thirsty minds fail to settle for limited knowledge and control regarding their fates.
Melville builds the foundation for Ahab's battle early in the novel with the image of two contrasting churches. Ishmael wanders into each of these houses of worship before setting out on the Pequod. The sermon in the first church refers to the “blackness of darkness,” and suggests that evil is impenetrable and cannot be understood by human beings (Melville 20). The sermon given by Father Mapple in the second church conveys the notion that God gives human beings the power to apprehend truth, and that they should proclaim that truth, even when it goes against conventional ways of thinking. Ironically, Father Mapple's words reflect Ahab's own struggle with accepting divine truth: “And if we obey God, we must disobey ourselves; and it is in this disobeying ourselves, wherein the hardness obeying God consists” (Melville 45). Ahab's world is divided into two kinds of people: those who obey a God they may never personally know, and those who obey only themselves, as they are their own god. Obviously, Ahab falls in the latter category.
Beginning with his soliloquy in Chapter 36, “The Quarter-Deck,” Ahab contends that God is, in fact, a malevolent agency. He strives to defy limitations placed on human beings by conventional morality and religion, questioning God's right to have such complete control over his subjects. Ahab is generally not concerned with the morality of human beings. He is more affected by the agent who gave man intelligence, yet limited what he could come to learn. The captain easily exploits the morals of others, as he “is not concerned in the slightest with whether he is a good or evil man; the question just doesn't enter his mind. Ahab is hurt as men are hurt when a friend or parent whom they have counted on betrays them” (Booth 34). His goal is to ease the suffering of imperfect men by going to battle with their Creator. Robert F. Bergstrom states Ahab's purpose succinctly: “He who created those mysteries to baffle and frustrate mankind has offered His creatures an unendurable insult, and the only redress is to launch an implacable, even if futile, attack on the Deity” (175). Ahab concludes that God has been cruel to man, and that He, too, must answer to someone for His sins.
It is also in “The Quarter-Deck” that Ahab reveals to his crew that his mission is about more than just enacting revenge on the white whale for the loss of his leg. Like Ishmael, Ahab looks for hidden realities in everything around him. After Moby Dick almost premeditatedly bites off his leg, Ahab projects all of his perceptions regarding evil in the world onto the whale that attacked him. Comparing the whale to a wall shoved against him, he complains that “That inscrutable thing is chiefly what I hate; and be the white whale agent, or be the white whale principal, I will wreak that hate upon him” (Melville 138-139). Ahab finds a commonality between the unknowable God and the elusive white whale, and he transfers his anger of the first onto the latter, which is, in his view, possibly more tangible and combatable.
Even reasonable Ishmael tolerates the absurdity of Ahab's conviction, recognizing that many cultures believe in malignant forces in the world, as well. Despite the outrageousness of Ahab's quest for vengeance, Ishmael sympathizes with his disdain for the omnipotent God. He understands Ahab's torment well, and even justifies his transference of anger from God to the whale:
That intangible malignity … Ahab did not fall down and worship it like them; but deliriously transferring its idea to the abhorred White Whale, he pitted himself, all mutilated, against it. All that most maddens and torments … all truth with malice in it … all the subtle demonisms of life and thought; all evil, to crazy Ahab, were visibly personified, and made practically assailable in Moby Dick. He piled upon the whale's white hump the sum of all the general rage and hate felt by his whole race from Adam down; and then, as if his chest had been a mortar, he burst his hot heart's shell upon it (Melville 154).
Echoing Ahab's “eat or be eaten” ideology, Ishmael later speaks of the “universal cannibalism of the sea; all whose creatures prey upon each other, carrying on eternal war since the world began” (Melville 227). A fellow seaman, Ishmael, too, finds it easier to follow the laws of nature than to be lead blindly by the laws of the unknowable. Indeed, throughout Moby-Dick, life on a whaling ship takes on a sort of religion of its own. This religion supersedes the base religion of each man who boards the Pequod. Often times, a man must question or even sacrifice his personal convictions in order to contend with the demands of the religion of the sea.
Ahab's obsession with the whale is no more fanatical than a religious man's unquestioning obedience to his god. Melville makes this assertion with the inclusion of Father Mapple, a religious zealot who encourages his fellow Christians to seek out truth to the very end. When Ishmael enters Father Mapple's church, he notes that “each silent worshipper seemed purposely sitting apart from the next, as if each silent grief were insular and incommunicable” (Melville 39). Despite the conviction with which he delivered it, “Father Mapple's creed seems neither to have erased the grief and fear from the hearts of the living nor to have united the congregation in their common fate” (Bergstrom 172). Ahab, on the other hand, becomes a master of manipulating men into thinking they are working towards a common fate. A distinct parallelism between Father Mapple and Ahab is seen in this passage, delivered by Father Mapple during his sermon:
Woe to him who would not be true, even though to be false were salvation! … Delight is to him – a far, far upward, and inward delight – who against the proud gods and commodores of this earth, ever stands forth his own inexorable self. Delight is to him whose strong arms yet support him, when the ship of this base treacherous world has gone down beneath him. Delight is to him, who gives no quarter in the truth, and kills, burns, and destroys all sin though he pluck it out from under the robes of Senators and Judges” (Melville 50).
These words could have come from the mouth of either Father Mapple or Ahab; they fit each man's worldly intentions. While Father Mapple encourages Christians to fight all opposition to proclaim the “truth” about God, Ahab desires to find evidence of this “truth,” which he, in fact, defines more as folly. Both men are steadfast in their separate convictions, but the language they use to describe their devotion to them is oddly similar. It is because of this shared passion for truth that Father Mapple and Ahab are equally monomaniacal. Both believe that God exists and that He has power over men's lives. Ahab only exceeds Father Mapple's fanaticism by attempting to literally go head-to-head with the unknowable. A creature of nature, “Ahab's 'mad' purpose is to destroy that which he seeks. In this he responds to the power of nature as he understands it” (Woodson 355). Ahab's monomania is driven by his natural predatory tendencies. This completely defies the passivity necessary to accept that fate is predetermined, which is what Father Mapple would recommend.
Melville elaborates on the dangers of fanaticism in Chapter 71, “The Jeroboam's Story”: “Nor is the history of fanatics half so striking in respect to the measureless self-deception of the fanatic himself, as his measureless power of deceiving and bedeviling so many others” (Melville 257). Ahab believes that fate either doesn't exist, or if it does, we can't know about it. However, in the fatalism of his fellow seamen, he finds an opportunity to unite them for a common purpose. Throughout the novel, the real is often confused with the supernatural, precisely because Ahab exploits mystery and the unknown for his own ends. He easily manipulates his crew into accepting that the hunt for Moby Dick is their destiny: “Death to Moby Dick! God hunt us all, if we do not hunt Moby Dick to his death!” (Melville 141) By telling his crew that God expects them to hunt and kill Moby Dick, Ahab successfully invests them in his purpose.
One of Ahab's most obvious exploits of his crew's fatalism is in Chapter 99, “The Doubloon,” when he directs his men's attention to the gold piece mounted at the head of the ship. He says the “round gold is but the image of the rounder globe, which, like a magician's magic glass, to each and every man in turn but mirrors back his own mysterious self” (Melville 346). The captain expects each man to gaze into the coin and find some sort of symbolism in it, with which he is to come to understand the crew's common destiny. Indeed, this trick helps further unite the men as they draw near the battlefield.
While Ahab uses others' belief in fate to manipulate them, he rejects the notion that it controls his own life. In defiance of fatalism, Ahab refuses to accept Fedallah's prophesy of death. He announces he will remain “immortal on land and on sea” and quickly dismisses the possibility that he should encounter a hearse or be hung by a hemp rope while on this voyage (Melville 395). When lightening hits the ship's sails, Ahab interprets the event as a sign of his power; pious Starbuck assumes that God opposes Ahab. The men on Ahab's ship constantly look for signs from God to determine their fate; Ahab simply helps them interpret these signs as further reason to hunt his white whale and exact revenge on the unknown.
Although Ahab unabashedly exploits his crew's belief in fate, he also gives their lives purpose. One of the first things we learn about Ishmael is that he is going to sea as a sort of self-annihilation, as an alternative to “throw[ing] himself upon the sword” (Melville 14). Chapter 112, “The Blacksmith,” explores the notion of suicidal men who go to sea: “Death seems the only desirable sequel for a career like this … therefore, to the death-longing eyes of such men … does the all-contributed and all receptive ocean alluringly spread forth his whole plain of unimaginable, taking terrors, and wonderful, new-life adventures” (Melville 387). Ahab's exploitation of fatalism can be forgiven when one learns that he has given purpose to the lives of men who were already prepared to lie down and die. Like Ishmael, these men found themselves broken by the torment of life on land, and they fled to the sea for action and adventure, no matter the consequences. It just so happens that by boarding the Pequod, these men become a consequence of Ahab's monomaniacal crusade.
His crew recognizes Ahab as a force that will not be reckoned with; obedience is crucial to maintaining an on-board discipline and chain of command. On the Pequod, Ahab is tyrant, king, god, and the men in the crew are his loyal subjects. Even Stubb considers it a privilege to be kicked in the rear-end by Ahab. Ishmael remarks how odd it is that the motley crew remains loyal to Ahab despite his “madness”:
Here, then, was this grey-headed, ungodly old man, chasing with curses a Job's whale round the world, at the had of a crew, too, chiefly made up of mongrel renegades, and castaways, and cannibals … Such a crew, so officered, seemed specially picked and packed by some infernal fatality to help him in his monomaniac revenge. How it was that they so aboundingly responded to the old man's ire – by what evil magic their souls were possessed, that at times his hate seemed almost theirs; the White Whale as much their insufferable foe as his … (Melville 156-157).
The sum of these miscreants' convictions is precisely why Ahab seeks justice against God. Their suffering is his suffering, and, by slaying the white whale, he expects to offer them vindication for their individual struggles. To the end, the loyal crew defiantly supports its captain in his crusade. Each man comes to accept Ahab's fate as his own, and, in appreciation of his captain's dignified stance against the unknowable, goes down with him in the fight. He, too, becomes legendary. Instead of giving up on the lives they were dealt, these men create for themselves nobler ends.
Just before Ahab's encounter with the whale, he repents, to Starbuck, the holiest on the ship, nonetheless. He questions free will and his own identity, and comes to understand the folly of his quest. He also knows that he is on a path that cannot be broken – his encounter with Moby Dick is both fated and sure to be fatal. It is at this point that Ahab possesses more understanding than ever before – he is destined to lose, and he knows it. Despite repenting, he cannot turn back, nor does his crew allow him to. Although they anticipate no less than a terrifying end, they help their captain reach their common destiny. Starbuck consoles Ahab when he laments leaving behind his wife and child, Daggoo and Tashtego let Ahab spy Moby Dick first, and the entire crew works furiously to keep the Pequod afloat after it is attacked by the whale. The final image of Tashtego relentlessly hammering the flag to the ship as it sinks signifies the crew's loyalty to their captain's purpose and, to a greater extent, the enduring spirit of humanity in the face of that which it cannot control.
Captain Ahab, a deep-thinking philosopher and man more tuned to nature than civilization, finds limitations in both God and in the white whale he hunts. He is angry at the omnipotent Creator because He built man with the capacity to learn, but not with the ability to understand God Himself or the great mystical underpinnings of the universe. He rejects Father Mapple's assertion that people should blindly accept their fate, as it has already been written by God and cannot be altered on earth. Having lived at sea for forty years, Ahab has come to regard only himself as the author of his destiny. He perceives the world, not through God, but through nature, and because the white whale is the only beast in the sea he cannot control, he compares it to the lack of control men have over their own lives when they blindly follow fate. Ahab's crusade against Moby Dick is a crusade against God Himself. Ahab and his crew of miscreants die in defiance of man's limited knowledge, declaring that, from this point forward, men will create their own destinies. Melville's Moby-Dick, then, becomes the holy doctrine of men who cannot accept religious determinism, and Ahab becomes a god of the godless and a hero to the disillusioned.
Works Cited
Bergstrom, Robert F. “The Topmost Grief: Rejection of Ahab's Faith.” Essays in Literature 2.2 (1975). The University of Nebraska. 171-180. Literary Reference Center. Ohio U. Lib., Athens, OH. 26 Jan. 2010.
Booth, Thornton Y. “Moby Dick: Standing Up to God.” Nineteenth-Century Fiction 17.1 (1962). University of California Press. 33-43. JSTOR. Ohio U. Lib., Athens, OH. 26 Jan. 2010.
Melville, Herman. Moby-Dick. New York: Dover, 2003.
Woodson, Thomas. “Ahab's Greatness: Prometheus as Narcissus.” ELH 33.3 (1966). The Johns Hopkins University Press. 351-369. JSTOR. Ohio U. Lib., Athens, OH. 4 Feb. 2010.
“Rise Up, Ye Women”: Patriarchy in the Narratives of Mary Rowlandson and Harriet Jacobs
Harriet Jacobs' Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl is the account of one black woman's struggle for freedom from the bonds of slavery. Written under the pseudonym Linda Brent, the story-telling is highly comparable to that of earlier captivity narratives written by white women enslaved by Native Americans. Jacobs' account is especially stylistically reflective of Mary Rowlandson's captivity tale, Sovereignty and the Goodness of God. Both are relatively short works which were published to urge readers to action. However, they offer distinctly different messages. Rowlandson's narrative vilifies Native Americans, painting them as a threat to women and the virtue of the Christian nation. It also supports the Puritanical power structure, as Rowlandson does not question her role in society: God is her ultimate master, and she is subsequently subjected to the authority of all men, according to God's will. Jacob's story challenges Puritanism, blaming it for the justification of the slavery of her people. She recognizes that the Christian religion serves as a reinforcement of patriarchy, which is responsible for slavery, and to a greater extent, the subjugation of all women, black or white.
Jacobs writes that she shares her story in order to “arouse the women of the North to a realizing sense of the condition of two millions of women at the South, still in bondage” (2-3). Jacobs' distortion of religion makes its first appearance in the narrative's epitaph, a scriptural reference from Isaiah 32.9: “Rise up, ye women that are at ease! Hear my voice, ye careless daughters! Give ear unto my speech.” Jacobs utilizes religion to connect with the white women of the North even before the narrative begins. She must prove that she, too, is a virtuous woman, but also that her people are in need of the assistance of fellow women everywhere. This epitaph also shows that, while she may not always agree with religion, she does not utterly denounce it. Jacobs is instead concerned with the hypocrisy of religion and the corruption of it for personal gain: “There is a great difference between Christianity and religion at the south. If a man goes to the communion table, and pays money into the treasury of the church, no matter if it be the price of blood, he is called religious” (64). By ignoring the Puritanical power structure, Jacobs is able to place the subjugation of women squarely on men. She only refers positively to religion when attempting to justify her own piety or to connect with her white women readers. At all other instances, she points out that scriptural doctrine has given mortal men the power to keep women in whatever place they desire.
Since women did not frequently write and publish books in the early nineteenth century, Rowlandson's narrative is prefaced by a testimonial on her behalf written by an unidentified male. This man lends credibility to the narrative by painting Rowlandson as a “pious” “Gentlewoman” who is married to a minister (66). Jacob's publication follows the same tactic. However, instead of a preface by a male author, the introductory words are written by an upper-class white woman, Lydia Maria Child. Child lends credibility to Jacobs by identifying her as “highly esteemed” by a “distinguished family,” claiming that she has had “frequent intercourse with intelligent persons” as well as “opportunities for self-improvement” (4). She testifies on Jacobs' behalf because “the public ought to be made acquainted with” the “monstrous features” of slavery (5). She, too, reiterates Jacobs' desire to incite the women of the North to action. She also calls on men to “swear solemnly before God” to prevent the enslavement of blacks (5). This, once again, calls attention to the Puritanical power hierarchy, and forces men to recognize their responsibility as representatives of God.
A stark contrast between the two narratives is the authors' treatment of other women. Rowlandson refuses to obey the Indian women while she is held captive. This can be attributed to the fact that, according to the Puritanical power structure, she is equal to other women and the head of her own servants. Indeed, the female Indians in Sovereignty and the Goodness of God are painted as more barbaric creatures than the males. When a male Indian gives Rowlandson a Bible, a female grabs it from her, throws it, and then slaps her across the face. Later, when King Philip helps her wash herself, a female Indian throws ash into her eyes. Even her master acknowledges that he understands her position when he tells her, “Two weeks more and you shal be Mistress again” (96). Jacobs is mistress of no one, and she knows that the only way she may be able to bring peace to her people is to convince white women to protest the unjust treatment of black women. She creates sympathy for her sex by highlighting instances of oppression that all women can relate to: “Slavery is terrible for men; but it is far more terrible for women. Superadded to the burden common to all, they have wrongs, and sufferings, and mortifications peculiarly their own” (66). Dr. Flint, like so many other slave owners, uses Linda's sexuality against her, as a weapon for further enslavement. As soon as she was of child-bearing age, her “master began to whisper foul words” into her ear. Jacobs differentiates between white women's subjugation and that of black women when she writes that “there is no shadow of law to protect [the black woman] from insult, from violence, or even from death; all these are inflicted by fiends who bear the shape of men” (26). Jacobs also goes so far as to paint Mrs. Flint as an utter fool who is jealous of Linda for all the wrong reasons. In a scene parallel to Rowlandson's, Mrs. Flint makes Linda swear on a Bible that she is innocent of relations with Dr. Flint. In Rowladson's narrative, the Bible signifies her loyalty to God in the face of adversity. In Jacobs' story, it represents the hypocrisy of Puritanism.
While Rowlandson remains passive, submitting her life to Providence and all higher authority, Linda is constantly active, striving to find ways to free herself and her family. At one point, Rowlandson actually has a chance to escape her native captors, but she fails to act because she would rather “wait on the Lord” for “deliverance” (77). The truth is that Rowlandson could likely not survive on her own in the wilderness. She chooses to remain the passive female over attempting to free herself. Jacobs, on the other hand, wastes no time taking the opportunity to escape. As soon as she realizes that her children are to be brought to the plantation to be “broke in,” she begins making plans to flee. Of the gentleman that gives her this information, she says, “To this day I feel grateful to [him]. It nerved me to immediate action” (80). Linda realizes that if she does not act fast, her two children will be made slaves as well. She does not wait for God or anyone else to give her guidance. To escape, she can only rely on herself.
It is ironic that Rowlandson, who claims the Indians are such barbaric creatures, submits herself to them without argument. This simply reflects her Puritanical values which place her second in command to male authorities. Even though the Indians were savage characters, she maintains her place as a good Christian woman by allowing them to dominate her. She even goes so far as to recognize King Philip as a benevolent protector, calling him “the best friend that I had of an Indian” (86). Linda does not submit to the same power structure, and, instead, commits a series of “sins” in order to pursue her freedom. First and foremost, instead of allowing Dr. Flint to control her sexuality, she takes charge of it herself, developing an intimate relationship and having two children with Mr. Sands, a successful white lawyer. She also flees and hides from her master for several years, and practices deception by sending him letters postmarked from a different location. While she devotes page after page to confessing her sins and recalling the pain and humiliation of her actions, she also asserts the necessity of action in order to free herself from slavery. She does not see her actions as unforgivable considering the circumstances.
Unlike Rowlandson, Jacobs refuses to accept the Puritanical power structure that reinforced slavery and promoted the subjugation of women. She portrays herself as a devoted mother in an attempt to connect with white women of the North. At her narrative's end, she writes, “Reader, my story ends with freedom; not in the usual way, with marriage” (164). While she “longs for a hearthstone” of her own, she does not plan on marrying to obtain it (164). She does not need a man to provide for her. By proving that religion is often distorted for personal gain, she attempts to undermine the patriarchal society that awards men ownership of all women.
Works Cited
Jacobs, Harriet. “Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl.” Dover: New York, 2001. Print.
Rowlandson, Mary. “Sovereignty and the Goodness of God.” Ed. Neal Salisbury. Bedford/St. Martin's: Boston, 1997. Print.
Jacobs writes that she shares her story in order to “arouse the women of the North to a realizing sense of the condition of two millions of women at the South, still in bondage” (2-3). Jacobs' distortion of religion makes its first appearance in the narrative's epitaph, a scriptural reference from Isaiah 32.9: “Rise up, ye women that are at ease! Hear my voice, ye careless daughters! Give ear unto my speech.” Jacobs utilizes religion to connect with the white women of the North even before the narrative begins. She must prove that she, too, is a virtuous woman, but also that her people are in need of the assistance of fellow women everywhere. This epitaph also shows that, while she may not always agree with religion, she does not utterly denounce it. Jacobs is instead concerned with the hypocrisy of religion and the corruption of it for personal gain: “There is a great difference between Christianity and religion at the south. If a man goes to the communion table, and pays money into the treasury of the church, no matter if it be the price of blood, he is called religious” (64). By ignoring the Puritanical power structure, Jacobs is able to place the subjugation of women squarely on men. She only refers positively to religion when attempting to justify her own piety or to connect with her white women readers. At all other instances, she points out that scriptural doctrine has given mortal men the power to keep women in whatever place they desire.
Since women did not frequently write and publish books in the early nineteenth century, Rowlandson's narrative is prefaced by a testimonial on her behalf written by an unidentified male. This man lends credibility to the narrative by painting Rowlandson as a “pious” “Gentlewoman” who is married to a minister (66). Jacob's publication follows the same tactic. However, instead of a preface by a male author, the introductory words are written by an upper-class white woman, Lydia Maria Child. Child lends credibility to Jacobs by identifying her as “highly esteemed” by a “distinguished family,” claiming that she has had “frequent intercourse with intelligent persons” as well as “opportunities for self-improvement” (4). She testifies on Jacobs' behalf because “the public ought to be made acquainted with” the “monstrous features” of slavery (5). She, too, reiterates Jacobs' desire to incite the women of the North to action. She also calls on men to “swear solemnly before God” to prevent the enslavement of blacks (5). This, once again, calls attention to the Puritanical power hierarchy, and forces men to recognize their responsibility as representatives of God.
A stark contrast between the two narratives is the authors' treatment of other women. Rowlandson refuses to obey the Indian women while she is held captive. This can be attributed to the fact that, according to the Puritanical power structure, she is equal to other women and the head of her own servants. Indeed, the female Indians in Sovereignty and the Goodness of God are painted as more barbaric creatures than the males. When a male Indian gives Rowlandson a Bible, a female grabs it from her, throws it, and then slaps her across the face. Later, when King Philip helps her wash herself, a female Indian throws ash into her eyes. Even her master acknowledges that he understands her position when he tells her, “Two weeks more and you shal be Mistress again” (96). Jacobs is mistress of no one, and she knows that the only way she may be able to bring peace to her people is to convince white women to protest the unjust treatment of black women. She creates sympathy for her sex by highlighting instances of oppression that all women can relate to: “Slavery is terrible for men; but it is far more terrible for women. Superadded to the burden common to all, they have wrongs, and sufferings, and mortifications peculiarly their own” (66). Dr. Flint, like so many other slave owners, uses Linda's sexuality against her, as a weapon for further enslavement. As soon as she was of child-bearing age, her “master began to whisper foul words” into her ear. Jacobs differentiates between white women's subjugation and that of black women when she writes that “there is no shadow of law to protect [the black woman] from insult, from violence, or even from death; all these are inflicted by fiends who bear the shape of men” (26). Jacobs also goes so far as to paint Mrs. Flint as an utter fool who is jealous of Linda for all the wrong reasons. In a scene parallel to Rowlandson's, Mrs. Flint makes Linda swear on a Bible that she is innocent of relations with Dr. Flint. In Rowladson's narrative, the Bible signifies her loyalty to God in the face of adversity. In Jacobs' story, it represents the hypocrisy of Puritanism.
While Rowlandson remains passive, submitting her life to Providence and all higher authority, Linda is constantly active, striving to find ways to free herself and her family. At one point, Rowlandson actually has a chance to escape her native captors, but she fails to act because she would rather “wait on the Lord” for “deliverance” (77). The truth is that Rowlandson could likely not survive on her own in the wilderness. She chooses to remain the passive female over attempting to free herself. Jacobs, on the other hand, wastes no time taking the opportunity to escape. As soon as she realizes that her children are to be brought to the plantation to be “broke in,” she begins making plans to flee. Of the gentleman that gives her this information, she says, “To this day I feel grateful to [him]. It nerved me to immediate action” (80). Linda realizes that if she does not act fast, her two children will be made slaves as well. She does not wait for God or anyone else to give her guidance. To escape, she can only rely on herself.
It is ironic that Rowlandson, who claims the Indians are such barbaric creatures, submits herself to them without argument. This simply reflects her Puritanical values which place her second in command to male authorities. Even though the Indians were savage characters, she maintains her place as a good Christian woman by allowing them to dominate her. She even goes so far as to recognize King Philip as a benevolent protector, calling him “the best friend that I had of an Indian” (86). Linda does not submit to the same power structure, and, instead, commits a series of “sins” in order to pursue her freedom. First and foremost, instead of allowing Dr. Flint to control her sexuality, she takes charge of it herself, developing an intimate relationship and having two children with Mr. Sands, a successful white lawyer. She also flees and hides from her master for several years, and practices deception by sending him letters postmarked from a different location. While she devotes page after page to confessing her sins and recalling the pain and humiliation of her actions, she also asserts the necessity of action in order to free herself from slavery. She does not see her actions as unforgivable considering the circumstances.
Unlike Rowlandson, Jacobs refuses to accept the Puritanical power structure that reinforced slavery and promoted the subjugation of women. She portrays herself as a devoted mother in an attempt to connect with white women of the North. At her narrative's end, she writes, “Reader, my story ends with freedom; not in the usual way, with marriage” (164). While she “longs for a hearthstone” of her own, she does not plan on marrying to obtain it (164). She does not need a man to provide for her. By proving that religion is often distorted for personal gain, she attempts to undermine the patriarchal society that awards men ownership of all women.
Works Cited
Jacobs, Harriet. “Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl.” Dover: New York, 2001. Print.
Rowlandson, Mary. “Sovereignty and the Goodness of God.” Ed. Neal Salisbury. Bedford/St. Martin's: Boston, 1997. Print.
The Battle Over Woman's Virtue: Sexual Imagery in The Last of the Mohicans and “A Panther Captivity”
The 1804 painting The Murder of Jane McCrea by John Vanderlyn portrays a helpless white woman at the mercy of two Indian savages prepared to claim her tresses. McCrea appears completely vulnerable, with the cleavage of her voluptuous bosom exposed to the nearly nude male captors, one of whom wields an ax high above her head. The painting, based on the actual murder of a white woman at Fort Edward in 1777, utilizes an imaginary context in which to tell the story. This imaginary context paints the murder as a highly sexualized act of violence. This type of imagery repeats itself throughout many captivity and Indian war narratives, such as in James Fenimore Cooper's The Last of the Mohicans and “The Panther Captivity Narrative” written under the pseudonym Abraham Panther. Originally, the American frontier offered a truly masculine realm for the white man to explore his fascination with the red man, but the introduction of females to the wilderness undeniably upsets this exclusively male fantasy structure. Consequently, men of both races battle, not only for the dominion of the wilderness, but also to defend or possess the virtue of white women.
Captivity and Indian war narratives often aimed to displace the native as the proper hero of the American wilderness, and instead, suggested Indianized white men like Daniel Boone and Natty Bumppo should be the new chiefs of the frontier. Women, however, had no place in such a dangerous and intimidating territory. Colonists feared that a white woman captured by Indians might be defeminized by her interactions with the wild, or worse yet, that she might be forced to have sexual relations with – or even marry – an Indian. White men also feared that their women could potentially be attracted to these beautiful, physical and exotic natives. Therefore, colonists felt it necessary to protect the virtue of their women, and to a larger degree, the virtue of the nation. Violent sexual imagery like in Vanderlyn's painting helped many authors convey their anxieties about racial integration. Cooper's inclusion of women in the wilderness upsets the masculine balance that white men and Indians shared. The conclusion of The Last of the Mohicans indicates that racial integration is impossible, and that women have no place in the masculine wilderness fantasy between the white man and the red man. “The Panther Captivity Narrative,” on the other hand, challenges the notion that woman cannot survive in the wilderness, and instead indicates that not only Indians but men in general are a threat to woman's virtue.
Cora and Alice, the leading ladies of The Last of the Mohicans, are both inherently and potentially sexual characters. Alice is weak and innocent; she weeps and faints at the sight of physical danger. Cora starkly contrasts her sister, with a “rather fuller and more mature” figure, which quickly becomes the object of two Indians' affections (17). One of these men is Magua, a Huron Indian who threatens the white man's very fears of interracial relationships. Cora is prey to all of the perils white women taken captive by Indians face – defeminization, rape and Indianization. Vanderlyn's sexual imagery is evoked when Magua raises an ax above Cora's head, threatening to kill her: “The form of the Huron trembled in every fibre, and he raised his arm on the high, but dropped it again with a bewildered air, like one who doubted” (413). Magua's hesitation indicates a real affection for Cora. His feelings for her, predicated by violence, have become something more sentimental. Cooper ultimately determines that a white woman/red man relationship is immoral regardless of the foundation on which it is formed. The deaths of both Cora and Magua indicate that interracial relationships were not acceptable in the New World. Furthermore, the novel ends just as it began – with the wilderness as a masculine world with no room for female disturbances.
“The Panther Captivity Narrative” challenges notions that women have no place on the frontier. The tale of the woman taken captive by Indians in 1777 (ironically, the same year of McCrae's murder) is told within a letter to an unnamed recipient requesting information about the “Western wilderness” (211). The writer tells of how he and his companion, Mr. Camher, came upon a “most beautiful young lady! sitting near the mouth of a cave!” (212). As they approach her, the lady screams and swoons, and after coming to and being calmed by the men, tells them her story of captivity. The account, which began as a masculine tale of two men trekking through the wilderness, turns sharply at this point to accommodate the female captivity narrative. However, this captivity narrative does not resemble traditional tales of women like Mary Rowlandson or Maria Kittle. Instead, the woman presents all of the ways in which she is able to successfully survive in the wilderness after her capture.
First, she is driven into elopement by her father, who refuses to permit a relationship between the young woman and the man she loves. On the fourth day after she leaves her father's home, she and her lover are captured by Indians, and the latter is barbarously murdered. Surprisingly, by swooning and laying on the ground until her captors are preoccupied, the woman is able to escape, and subsequently wanders aimlessly in the wilderness for fourteen days. Most narratives would, at this point, focus on woman's lack of ingenuity and navigation in the wilderness. However, “The Panther Captivity Narrative” details this woman's ability to survive on her own: “By day the spontaneous produce of earth supplied me with food, by night the ground was my couch, and the canopy of heaven my only covering” (214).
On the fifteenth day of her wandering, she is approached by a “man of gigantic figure,” who captures her and leads her back to the very cave the writer finds her in (214). The man indicates that he would like to have sexual relations with the woman, and she declines his offer, prompting a scene very much like Vanderlyn's: “... at length he rose in a passion … and brought forth a sword and hatchet. He then motioned to me, that I must either accept of his bed, or expect death for my obstinacy” (214). Once again the woman objects and the man (whose identity is never clearly defined as white, Indian or other) ties her up for the night, giving her time to reconsider her decision. During the night, however, she frees herself from her restraints, and, taking up her captor's hatchet, “with three blows effectually put[s] an end to his existence” (214).
“The Panther Captivity Narrative” turns man's expectations of women in the wilderness upside-down, suggesting that, if white men have a place in the wilderness alongside Indians, so do white women. The woman in this narrative is neither masculinized or Indianized, as previously feared. Despite her nine-year experience in the wilderness, she still reflects a well-bred, sophisticated white woman. She swoons and cries, she is a gracious hostess to the men who discover her, she adopts a small dog as a pet, and her singing cannot be distinguished from that of a bird. Ironically, she also murders and dismembers her captor. This action is acceptable, however, because she commits the act in order to protect her chastity, which would have been wholly in line with white men's desires. “The Panther Captivity Narrative” helps displace the male wilderness fantasy by suggesting that women were indeed fit to survive on the frontier. The woman in the narrative is taken captive not only by Indians, but also by her father and another man whose race is unspecified, indicating that all men are a threat to woman's virtue.
Works Cited
Cooper, James Fenimore. The Last of the Mohicans. New York: Signet, 2005. Print.
Panther, Abraham. “The Panther Captivity Narrative.” Edgar Huntly. Ed. Philip Barnard and Stephen Shapiro. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing, 2006. 211-215. Print.
Captivity and Indian war narratives often aimed to displace the native as the proper hero of the American wilderness, and instead, suggested Indianized white men like Daniel Boone and Natty Bumppo should be the new chiefs of the frontier. Women, however, had no place in such a dangerous and intimidating territory. Colonists feared that a white woman captured by Indians might be defeminized by her interactions with the wild, or worse yet, that she might be forced to have sexual relations with – or even marry – an Indian. White men also feared that their women could potentially be attracted to these beautiful, physical and exotic natives. Therefore, colonists felt it necessary to protect the virtue of their women, and to a larger degree, the virtue of the nation. Violent sexual imagery like in Vanderlyn's painting helped many authors convey their anxieties about racial integration. Cooper's inclusion of women in the wilderness upsets the masculine balance that white men and Indians shared. The conclusion of The Last of the Mohicans indicates that racial integration is impossible, and that women have no place in the masculine wilderness fantasy between the white man and the red man. “The Panther Captivity Narrative,” on the other hand, challenges the notion that woman cannot survive in the wilderness, and instead indicates that not only Indians but men in general are a threat to woman's virtue.
Cora and Alice, the leading ladies of The Last of the Mohicans, are both inherently and potentially sexual characters. Alice is weak and innocent; she weeps and faints at the sight of physical danger. Cora starkly contrasts her sister, with a “rather fuller and more mature” figure, which quickly becomes the object of two Indians' affections (17). One of these men is Magua, a Huron Indian who threatens the white man's very fears of interracial relationships. Cora is prey to all of the perils white women taken captive by Indians face – defeminization, rape and Indianization. Vanderlyn's sexual imagery is evoked when Magua raises an ax above Cora's head, threatening to kill her: “The form of the Huron trembled in every fibre, and he raised his arm on the high, but dropped it again with a bewildered air, like one who doubted” (413). Magua's hesitation indicates a real affection for Cora. His feelings for her, predicated by violence, have become something more sentimental. Cooper ultimately determines that a white woman/red man relationship is immoral regardless of the foundation on which it is formed. The deaths of both Cora and Magua indicate that interracial relationships were not acceptable in the New World. Furthermore, the novel ends just as it began – with the wilderness as a masculine world with no room for female disturbances.
“The Panther Captivity Narrative” challenges notions that women have no place on the frontier. The tale of the woman taken captive by Indians in 1777 (ironically, the same year of McCrae's murder) is told within a letter to an unnamed recipient requesting information about the “Western wilderness” (211). The writer tells of how he and his companion, Mr. Camher, came upon a “most beautiful young lady! sitting near the mouth of a cave!” (212). As they approach her, the lady screams and swoons, and after coming to and being calmed by the men, tells them her story of captivity. The account, which began as a masculine tale of two men trekking through the wilderness, turns sharply at this point to accommodate the female captivity narrative. However, this captivity narrative does not resemble traditional tales of women like Mary Rowlandson or Maria Kittle. Instead, the woman presents all of the ways in which she is able to successfully survive in the wilderness after her capture.
First, she is driven into elopement by her father, who refuses to permit a relationship between the young woman and the man she loves. On the fourth day after she leaves her father's home, she and her lover are captured by Indians, and the latter is barbarously murdered. Surprisingly, by swooning and laying on the ground until her captors are preoccupied, the woman is able to escape, and subsequently wanders aimlessly in the wilderness for fourteen days. Most narratives would, at this point, focus on woman's lack of ingenuity and navigation in the wilderness. However, “The Panther Captivity Narrative” details this woman's ability to survive on her own: “By day the spontaneous produce of earth supplied me with food, by night the ground was my couch, and the canopy of heaven my only covering” (214).
On the fifteenth day of her wandering, she is approached by a “man of gigantic figure,” who captures her and leads her back to the very cave the writer finds her in (214). The man indicates that he would like to have sexual relations with the woman, and she declines his offer, prompting a scene very much like Vanderlyn's: “... at length he rose in a passion … and brought forth a sword and hatchet. He then motioned to me, that I must either accept of his bed, or expect death for my obstinacy” (214). Once again the woman objects and the man (whose identity is never clearly defined as white, Indian or other) ties her up for the night, giving her time to reconsider her decision. During the night, however, she frees herself from her restraints, and, taking up her captor's hatchet, “with three blows effectually put[s] an end to his existence” (214).
“The Panther Captivity Narrative” turns man's expectations of women in the wilderness upside-down, suggesting that, if white men have a place in the wilderness alongside Indians, so do white women. The woman in this narrative is neither masculinized or Indianized, as previously feared. Despite her nine-year experience in the wilderness, she still reflects a well-bred, sophisticated white woman. She swoons and cries, she is a gracious hostess to the men who discover her, she adopts a small dog as a pet, and her singing cannot be distinguished from that of a bird. Ironically, she also murders and dismembers her captor. This action is acceptable, however, because she commits the act in order to protect her chastity, which would have been wholly in line with white men's desires. “The Panther Captivity Narrative” helps displace the male wilderness fantasy by suggesting that women were indeed fit to survive on the frontier. The woman in the narrative is taken captive not only by Indians, but also by her father and another man whose race is unspecified, indicating that all men are a threat to woman's virtue.
Works Cited
Cooper, James Fenimore. The Last of the Mohicans. New York: Signet, 2005. Print.
Panther, Abraham. “The Panther Captivity Narrative.” Edgar Huntly. Ed. Philip Barnard and Stephen Shapiro. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing, 2006. 211-215. Print.
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