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.