Haiti’s (Dis)comorting Legacy: Sexual Abuse and Religious Thought Control In Edwidge Danticat’s Breath, Eyes, Memory

In her novel, Breath, Eyes, Memory, Edwidge Danticat makes public the silenced history of sexually-traumatized Haitian women, a history of what Donette A. Francis refers to as “silences too horrific to disturb.” Haitian history has been written primarily by men, therefore Danticat exposes the repressed accounts of various women affected by sexual abuse in an attempt to write their sufferings into Haiti’s social history. Through the eyes of Sophie, Martine, Tante Atie, Ife, the Haitian community of women, Sophie’s therapist, and the members of her sex therapy group, Danticat reveals the psychological effects of living as a woman in a “rape culture.” In the novel, the Caco women suffer the indignity of sexual abuse in places as public as a cane field and as private as one’s own bed, and the perpetrators range from agents of the state to one’s own mother, indicating that this “rape culture” permeates every aspect of Haitian society. In Haiti, women are subjected and objectified through a violent and forceful system of patriarchy. Unfortunately, this patriarchal system is reinforced by the society’s religious ideologies, which, at a glance offer sympathy and courage to women. However, a closer look at the history of religion in Haiti, combined with the testimonies in Danticat’s novel, proves that Haitian women actually perpetuate the cycle of female subordination by embracing religious customs that serve as mechanisms for patriarchy.

In his article, “Junta, Rape, and the Religion in Haiti, 1993-1994,” Terry Rey cites the definition of “rape culture”:

It is a complex of beliefs that encourages male sexual aggression and supports violence against women. It is a society where violence is seen as sexy and sexuality as violent. In a rape culture women perceive a continuum of threatened violence that ranges from sexual remarks to sexual touching to rape itself (qtd. in “Junta” 75).

In this culture, Rey states, sexual violence is accepted as a method of maintaining relationships with women. He also cites Ira Lowenthal’s research on Haitian language to illustrate his point:

In terminology for intercourse … [a] subject/object relationship [is] rendered so apparent; the terminology also reveals that male aggression is part and parcel of the sexual act. Slang terms (gwo mo) for intercourse are active verbs, almost invariably taking a male subject and a female object in this context, and referring literally to such actions as “cutting” (koupe), “beating” (taye), “hitting” (frappe), “bending” (plwaye), “plucking” (plimen), “shaving” (raze), “pounding” (pile) and “killing” (touye) (qtd. in “Junta” 80).

Statistics illuminate the scope of sexual violence within the country. According to a 1990 study, “the first sexual experience of nearly one in three Haitian women transpires against her will. Thirty-seven percent of all Haitian women fall victim to sexual assaults, with more than a third of these involving rape. Eighty percent of Haitian men “cited cases in which violence against women is justified,” and over half (61 percent) claimed that their wives deserved beatings if they wasted money. Even Haitian law reinforces men’s objectification and abuse of women. Article 269 of the penal code permits a man to kill his wife should he catch her in the act of adultery: “Murder committed by a husband against his wife and/or her accomplice or both, should he surprise them and catch them in the act in the conjugal home, is excusable” (“Junta” 79-80).

Rey also points out that there is no such law permitting women to kill their unfaithful husbands, who face only a maximum $50 fine if they are convicted of adultery. However, rape is punishable by law. In the rare case that a rape conviction arises, it is categorized as an “assault on morals” rather than an attack against the physical, emotional, and psychological integrity of the woman. The “attack on morals,” essentially, damages the honor of the woman, whose value as property becomes lessened once her virginity is lost. As illustrated by the testing of daughters in Breath, Eyes, Memory, Haitian women are preoccupied with purity in order to provide men with honorable wives. If a man determines his new bride is not a virgin, he has the right to reverse the marriage and send the “damaged goods” back to her family (“Junta” 81). In her book, Haiti, History and the Gods, Joan Dayan claims that Haitian women are primarily “vessels for the taxonomic vocations of white male supremacy” who are “alternatively etherealized and brutalized, represented as angels, virgins, furies, or wenches.” She says that Haiti is a “world where purity [is] never simply metaphysical but physical as well, where a body trait (whiteness or blackness) [becomes] spiritual truth (purity or impurity, angel or demon) …” (“Haiti” 267). Dayan’s statement makes an important assessment, which is that male dominance in Haiti is reinforced through spiritual conventions.

Religion in Haiti is a strange breed of Catholicism and Voudou. In his article, “Politics and Religion in Haiti,” David Nicholis explains that Roman Catholicism was the official religion of the French colony of Saint-Dominigue, but that in the colonial period, it failed to convert large numbers of the African slaves. The white colonials thought of the slaves’ religious customs as little more than “superstition,” and ignored the religious and political dimension of Voudou. Although the Africans adhered to the ideology they brought with them, they were still willing to incorporate much of Christianity into their religion. Governed by one god and a plethora of loas, or spirits, Voudou made room for the inclusion of yet another deity, the Christian God (Nicholis 401-402). The church, Nicholis writes, has been generally tolerant of the cult, hoping to one day wean people away from Voudou beliefs and practices. However, the outcome of this tolerance is more a hybridization of the two religions (Nicholis 404). As colonials introduced elements of Christianity, the slaves adopted saints as loas, particularly relating to the story of the Virgin Mary. However, they made use of these Christian symbols by transfiguring them into their own African terms (“Politics” 525). As Elizabeth McAlister states in her book, Rara! Vodou, Power, and Performance in Haiti and Its Diaspora, “To a significant degree, both Voudou and Catholicism have incorporated the other into its philosophies and practices. Each tradition is constitutive and revealing of the other” (123).

Of the colonials’ perception of Voudou as mere “superstition,” Nicholis writes, “The Haitian … is neither more nor less superstitious than people of other nationalities; he conserves his folk traditions in the symbols and in the liturgy of his folk religion” (404). The cult, he argues, has fulfilled an important social function by preserving Haitian tradition among the masses. This tradition not only gives collective strength to the community, but “preserve[s] the histories ignored, denigrated, or exoticized by the standard, ‘imperial’ histories” (“Erzulie” 5). The early leaders of Haiti were critical of the practice of Voudou, and encouraged the adherence to Christianity so that other countries would see Haiti as an independent and respectable nation. Toussaint Louverture banned dancing and outlawed religious and social gatherings at night, when Voudou rituals generally took place. Jean-Jacques Dessalines also forbade dancing, and occasionally punished Voudou worshippers with death. Henri Christophe, too, suppressed Voudou and attempted to reintroduce Christianity into the country. It wasn’t until the reign of Francois Duvalier (1957-1971) and his son Jean-Claude (1971-1986) that Voudou was formally recognized and, to some extent, accepted. Insisting that the hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church should no longer be foreign-dominated, the former Duvalier used folklore symbolism associated with Voudou to enhance his prestige among the masses and to subvert the colonial domination of the church (Nicholis 414). The Duvalier regime has the most political impact on the women in Breath, Eyes, Memory. With the use of religion, Papa Doc and Baby Doc turned Haiti into a terrorist state that permitted – and even mandated – the abuse of its women.

In her article, “Challenging Internal Colonialism: Edwidge Danticat’s Feminist Emancipatory Enterprise,” Newtona Johnson cites Ngugi wa Thiongo’s definition of “decolonizing the mind”:

[Colonialism’s] most important area of domination was the mental universe of the colonized, the control through culture, of how people perceived themselves and their relationship to the world. Economic or political control can never be complete or effective without mental control. To control a people’s culture is to control their tools of self-definition in relationship to others (qtd. in Johnson 152).

Rey claims that “notions of suffering as redemptive, the legitimization of militaristic domination, and the socialization of Haitian women to accept, if not to aspire to, submissive forms of motherhood are three central factors in the development and perpetuation of Haiti’s rape culture” (“Junta” 89). He also points out that throughout Haitian history, military regimes have consistently benefited from a relationship with the Catholic Church. This relationship has allowed military leaders to impose “images of control, authority, and maleness” onto Haitian women, particularly through the positioning of God as the ultimate father. This tradition “sacralizes domination,” placing God first, men second, and women subjugated to both (“Junta” 89-90). Women are encouraged to remain passive and submissive through this ideology. Rey also claims that women who practice Voudou “fall most often victim to sexual violence in comparison with Catholics, Protestants, and women claiming no religious affiliation” (“Junta” 93). Since the Duvalier regimes supported the practice of Voudou, it is not surprising that Haitian women became the target of state-sponsored sexual abuse. Despite the comforting, healing notions it purports to offer, religion in Haiti has often served as a powerful tool for propagating patriarchy.

The “rape culture” of Haiti has basically existed since its colonization, and has been especially predominant in periods of political upheaval. Since the country’s inception, new regimes have implemented the sexual abuse against women associated with the former power (“Junta” 82). Dessalines authorized his troops’ rape and slaughter of French women; Christophe’s troops were responsible for a massacre of mulattos that was accompanied by a mass rape of mulatto women; Conquest rapes between black peasants and state authorities took place during the regime of President Sylvian Salnave; and during the first American occupation of Haiti, Marines were responsible for the drunken rapes of local Haitian women (“Junta” 83). In Breath, Eyes, Memory, the Caco name symbolically links the women to the Cacos, the peasant guerillas that maintained armed resistance against the Marines (Francis 77).

The most intensive period of militaristic abuse against women took place during the Duvalier regime. According to Rey, “there is ample evidence that Francois Duvalier employed sexual violence and humiliation both as a weapon of intimidation against his political opposition … and as a part of his agenda to create a black elite to counter the long-standing dominance of Haiti’s mulatto elite” (“Junta” 84). Under this regime, women emerged as a distinct category subject to surveillance, discipline and punishment. Yet, as Francis explains, “their narratives of sexual violations were rendered invisible as the state exercised its power to obscure violations against women by dismissing their testimonies as nonsensical or inconsequential to the political life of the Haitian society” (79). The Duvalier administration was responsible for employing and enforcing gender-specific violence on a wider scale than ever before in Haitian history. Prior to Papa Doc’s reign, patriarchal codes defined children, women, and the elderly as “political innocents,” with their status as dependents. As such, women were exempt from state violence. Duvalier’s administration, however, ushered in a new definition for women: “enemies of the state.” Under this system, “when women voiced their political opinions in support of women’s rights or the opposition party, they were defined as ‘subversive, unpatriotic and unnatural’ … [and] were deserving of punishment, which often took the form of sexual torture” (Francis 78).

In Breath, Eyes, Memory, Danticat illuminates a culture that had become infiltrated by the violent and bloody Tonton Macoutes, the Duvalier personal security force. This group infiltrated “the press, business, voodoo temples, labor unions, and especially the army,” bearing guns “as an ever-mounting body count attested.” According to Paul Farmer in The Uses of Haiti, “the best way of staying alive in Haiti was to have a powerful macoute as guardian angel” (qtd. in Johnson 153). In Danticat’s novel, Sophie’s mother, Martine, was raped and impregnated by a member of the Tonton Macoutes. She suffers from recurring nightmares, unable to escape her unspeakable past. According to Sophie, in Haiti, “nightmares are passed on through generations like heirlooms” (Danticat 234). These nightmares manifest themselves in the form of stories, like the tale about the woman who has blood pouring out of her skin, so she asks the Voudoun loa of love, Erzulie, to change her into a butterfly so she will never bleed again. Ironically, even though butterflies do not suffer as women do, they don't live very long lives. Martine takes her own life, becoming Sophie's butterfly, and exchanging her womanly suffering for a shortened life span. Sophie addresses her frustration with Haitian patriarchy and female abuse by attacking the cane in the field where her mother was raped. By attacking the cane, she is battling against her mother's perpetrator, the state-enforced oppression of women in Haiti, and men in general.

The Caco women have internalized the patriarchal mindset in Haiti, an indication of the depth of thought control imposed by colonial forces. They are active participants in what Sophie calls a “virginity cult,” where mothers physically test the sexual integrity of their daughters (Danticat 154). At the helm of this cult is the Virgin Mary, who is regularly referred to throughout the text, signifying her importance to the Caco women. Sophie actually recites the Virgin Mother's Prayer as her mother tests her for the first time. Since Martine was raped and impregnated with Sophie, Sophie has a “Madonna image” of her mother. She finds it hard to imagine her mother sexually. Sophie begins an internal spiritual, political and sexual transformation by recognizing the trauma that testing brings to Haitian women. Tante Atie describes Haitian mothers' treatment of their daughters:

They train you to find a husband … They poke at your panties in the middle of the night, to see if you are still whole. They listen when you pee, to find out if you're peeing too loud. If you pee loud, it means you've got big spaces between your legs (Danticat 136-137).

Sophie refers to the testing as “humiliation” (Danticat 123). She also says that to her, “men were as mysterious … as white people” (Danticat 67). Most men get wrapped up in the violence of the culture or lose their sense of obligation to the family's honor, and therefore, are simply not around to support the women of Haiti. Still, the practice of testing is solely for the benefit of males, and the culture awards greater political advantage to them. For example, as illustrated in the novel, when a baby boy is born, a light shines outside of the birthing house. If a baby girl is born, the light is extinguished for the mother to sit alone in the darkness with her new daughter (Danticat 146). Additionally, Tante Atie says that the men in Haiti “insist that their women are virgins and have ten fingers” (Danticat 151). Ife tells Sophie that it was her duty to keep her daughters chaste until they were ready for marriage. A woman's purity would directly reflect the honor of her husband. Sophie tells the story of a man who chose a virgin to marry, and on their wedding night, cuts her to make her bleed in order to defend his honor. The woman dies and the man parades around showing off sheets stained with her blood (Danticat 155).

Danticat exposes this internalization of patriarchy through a number of spiritual images that outwardly offer women peace and security, but inwardly bind them to the system that dominates them. During Sophie’s testing, Martine tells her that they “could be like Marassas,” spiritual twins in the Voudou religion (Danticat 85). According to Miriam J.A. Chancey, “Danticat uses the symbol of the marassa … to highlight the divisions that are created between two women who have been brought up to deny their sexuality as well as each other,” but that “the image of her mother as her marassa only serves to terrorize Sophie and alienate her from her identity, which becomes both sexualized and demonized in its association (by the mother) with Voudou” (120-124).

The Caco women’s devotion to the Virgin Mary stems from an association with the Voudou loa of love, Erzulie, who is referred to just as much within Danticat’s novel. Identifications and descriptions of Erzulie are many. To some, she is Venus, to others, the Virgin Mary herself. She is both a saint and the devil incarnate. She typically appears in one of three emanations – “as Erzulie-Freda, the lady of luxury and love; as Erzulie-Dantor, the black woman of passion identified in Catholic chromolithographs with the Mater Salvatoris, her heart pierced with a daggar; and as Erzulie-ge-rouge, the red-eyed militant of fury and vengeance.” Though a woman, she oscillates between masculine and feminine gender roles, taking on a “garb of feminity – and even speaks excellent French – in order to confound and discard the culturally defined roles of men and women” (“Erzulie” 6). Especially empowering for Haitian women, most accounts Erzulie pertain to her treatment of men and how they must serve her. Servants of Erzulie can, at least metaphysically, experience an escape from colonialism and the suffocating patriarchy it employs. Embedded in Erzulie’s image are “all the uses, pleasures and violations of women in Haiti” throughout history (“Erzulie” 16).

Still, the most binding aspect of Haiti’s rape culture is the widespread devotion to the Virgin Mary. Due to her symbiotic relationship with Erzulie, Haitians easily assimilated her story into their own religious ideology. However, “Orthodox Mariology, which depicts the Virgin Mary as a model of submission and obedience, has come under attack by many feminists as one of the linchpins of Christian – especially Catholic Christian – patriarchy.” Rey argues that “the traditional images and theology of Mary carry psychological messages which are patriarchal and destructive to women’s self-development.” He cites Mary Daly, who actually identifies the Virgin Mary as the original rape victim, “a reminder to women of their destiny to be raped, for in the patriarchal system, a virgin is a future rape victim” (“Junta” 91). Daly’s assessment is in reference to the Virgin’s spiritual Annunciation: “I am the handmaid of the Lord. Be it done to me according to thy word” (Luke 1:38). She completely submits her body to the will of God, setting an example for passivity amongst righteous women. Because she was a mortal woman, she is not considered a distant, ethereal goddess, but a sister and mother embroiled in the struggles of womankind. Therefore, she becomes a powerful religious symbol for rape survivors in Haiti.

In her article, “Mary and Femininity: A Psychological Critique,” Patricia A. Harrington addresses the mentality behind feminine passivity, like exhibited by the Virgin Mary. She says that faith is defined as “a feminine attitude of passive receptivity to a loving father, and is most highly exemplified in a young woman consenting to conceive that father’s son. For someone to identify with Mary means, in psychological terms, that she would take up a passive attitude toward a father figure” (213). It follows, then, that servitors of the Virgin Mary should allow themselves to be both politically and sexually passive to male authorities. In many patriarchal societies, the Virgin Mary serves as a model for the femininity that all women are expected to exhibit. Harrington supports Rosemary Ruether’s argument that “the patriarchal split between activity and passivity along hierarchical sexist lines has resulted in the association of Mary with passivity, to the detriment of women.” She adds that “Mary cannot be a liberating symbol for women as long as [she] preserves this meaning of ‘femininity’ that is the complementary underside of masculine domination” (Harrington 213-214). A confusing duality exists within this construct of virgin mother. Women are expected to remain chaste but fill the role of a maternal figure. Despite the colonial projection of the Virgin Mary and its insistence on women’s purity, Haitian tradition tells women that it is not good to be a virgin, no matter what the priests, nuns, or prospective partners claim. One of the most feared spirits in Voudou culture is the djablesse. The djablesse is the ghost of a virgin having died before the opportunity to marry. She wanders the forests and cities, “condemned to walk for a number of years for the sin of having died a virgin.” According to Dayan, “If you believe in the Church, then you must remain chaste until marriage, but if you listen to the gods, then you must be physically possessed in order to rest in peace” (“Erzulie” 26).

Despite religious customs or conventions, Sophie ends the practice of testing by taking her own virginity with a pestle. Even though she does not participate in sexual relations with a man, she dismantles her chastity, breaking her bond to the Virgin Mary. Eventually, she recognizes that the individual agonies of the Caco women were “links in a long chain” of patriarchal abuse (Danticat 203). It is important to note that in addition to joining a sexual phobia group to deal with her trauma, Sophie also visits a therapist, who is an initiated Santeria priestess. Rey claims that “in Haiti, victims of politically motivated sexual assault have additional reasons for steering clear of secular authorities” and that “like rape survivors elsewhere, they are likely to be reluctant to trust male counselors.” Voudou priestesses and other women of traditional healing, who already serve as secondary health care providers for the majority of Haitian people, generally offer the best avenues of recovery for rape victims (“Junta” 97). The fact that a religious woman offers Sophie an avenue to heal herself indicates that challenging the trauma caused by testing is not blasphemous. Once Sophie learns that her mother is pregnant out of wedlock, the Madonna image is shattered. After Martine kills herself, Sophie dresses her for her funeral from head to toe in bright red, calling her a “Jezebel, hot-blooded Erzulie who feared no men, but rather made them her slaves, raped them, and killed them” (Danticat 227). Sophie abandons her Virgin Mary mentality for one that puts women in control. No longer will she allow spiritual conventions to control her sexuality.

In Breath, Eyes, Memory, Danticat pulls back the veil on a society that has repressed the history of sexual abuse amongst its women. She illustrates how women oppressed by patriarchy internalize the political and gendered weaponry utilized by men in a “rape culture.” This patriarchal structure depends primarily on religious images to distort the value of women and to inscribe specific gender roles upon them.


Works Cited

Danticat, Edwidge. Breath, Eyes, Memory. New York: Vintage Books, 1994. Print.

Dayan, Joan. “Erzulie: A Women’s History of Haiti.” Research in African Literatures 25.2 (1994): 5-31. JSTOR. 20 May 2010. Print.

Dayan, Joan. Haiti, History and the Gods. Berkely: University of California Press, 1995. Print.

Chancy, Myrian J. A. Framing Silence: Revolutionary Novels By Haitian Women. New Jersey: Rutgers, 1970. Print.

Francis, Donette A. “’Silences Too Horrific to Disturb’: Writing Sexual Histories in Edwidge Danticat’s Breath, Eyes, Memory.” Research in African Literatures 35.2 (2004): 75-90. JSTOR. 20 May 2010. Print.

Harrington, Patricia A. “Mary and Femininity: A Psychological Critique.” Journal of Religion and Health 23.3 (1984): 204-217. JSTOR. 20 May 2010. Print.

Johnson, Newtona. “Challenging Internal Colonialism: Edwidge Danticat’s Feminist Emancipatory Enterprise.” Obsidian III Literature in the African Diaspora 6.2, 7.1 (2005-2006): 147-166. Print.

McAlister, Elizabeth. Rara! Vodou, Power, and Performance in Haiti and Its Diaspora. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002. Print.

Nicholis, David. “Politics and Religion in Haiti.” Canadian Journal of Political Science 3.3 (1970): 400-414. JSTOR. 20 May 2010. Print.

Rey, Terry. “Junta, Rape, and Religion in Haiti, 1993-1994.” Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion 15.2 (1999): 73-100. JSTOR. 20 May 2010. Print.

Rey, Terry. “The Politics of Patron Sainthood in Haiti: 500 Years of Iconic Struggle.” The Catholic Historical Review 88.3 (2002): 519-545. JSTOR. 20 May 2010. Print.

Perpetual Transition and Crossing Boundaries in Edwidge Danticat's Breath, Eyes, Memory

In the Introduction to her book, Black Women, Writing and Identity: Migrations of the Subject, Carole Boyce Davies discusses Black female specificity, or the concept that a Black woman not only faces oppression for her skin color, but also for being a female. She says, “For it is the additional identity of femaleness which interferes with seamless Black identity and is therefore either ignored, erased or 'spoken for'” (6). Davies later claims that Black women are in a state of “perpetual transition,” consistently crossing boundaries between “cultures, identities, sexualities, classes, geographies, races, genders and so on …” (16) In the novel Breath, Eyes, Memory, Edwidge Danticat tells the story of a Haitian-born woman crossing multiple boundaries to better understand, celebrate, and sometimes, challenge what it means to be Haitian as well as woman. Sophie, Danticat's protagonist, crosses physical boundaries by traveling back and forth between Haiti and the United States. The novel explores the concept of “doubling,” and dualities abound throughout the text. Symmetry, cycles of repetition, and the blurring of boundaries help Danticat illustrate both the “perpetual transition” of Haitian women, as well as their Black female specificity and multiple sources of oppression. Most specifically, Sophie crosses boundaries three ways: spiritually, culturally and politically. To confront and accept her unique position as a woman of multiple subjectivities, she must challenge the spiritual, cultural and political shackles that bind her.

A result of European colonialism, Haiti fosters a patriarchal mindset and, historically, those in power have used religion as a weapon for thought control. The Caco women have internalized this mindset, and now subscribe, most adamantly, to what Sophie calls a “virginity cult,” where mothers physically test the sexual integrity of their daughters (154). The Virgin Mary is referred to often throughout the text, signifying her importance to the Caco women. Sophie actually recites the Virgin Mother's Prayer as her mother tests her for the first time. Since Martine was raped and impregnated with Sophie, Sophie has a “Madonna image” of her mother. She finds it hard to imagine her mother sexually. Sophie begins her transformation by recognizing the trauma testing brings to Haitian women. Tante Atie describes Haitian mothers' treatment of their daughters:

They train you to find a husband … They poke at your panties in the middle of the night, to see if you are still whole. They listen when you pee, to find out if you're peeing too loud. If you pee loud, it means you've got big spaces between your legs (136-137).

Sophie refers to the testing as “humiliation” (123). Despite religious customs or conventions, she ends the practice by taking her own virginity with a pestle. Even though she does not participate in sexual relations with a man, she dismantles her chastity, breaking her bond to the Virgin Mary. It is important to note that in addition to joining a sexual phobia group to deal with her trauma, Sophie also visits a therapist, who is an initiated Santeria priestess. The fact that a religious woman offers Sophie an avenue to heal herself indicates that challenging the trauma caused by testing is not blasphemous. Once Sophie learns that her mother is pregnant out of wedlock, the Madonna image is shattered. After Martine kills herself, Sophie dresses her for her funeral from head to toe in bright red, calling her a “Jezebel, hot-blooded Erzulie who feared no men, but rather made them her slaves, raped them, and killed them” (227). Sophie has abandoned her Virgin Mary mentality for one that puts women in control. No longer will she allow spiritual conventions to control her sexuality.

Sophie not only crosses spiritual boundaries, she traverses between cultures as well. Danticat illuminates a culture that had become infiltrated by the violent and bloody Tontons Macoutes, the personal security force of Haitian dictator FranVois Duvalier. Haiti's brutal history is that of a culture controlled by aggressive forces that work to keep particular individuals in a particular place. The Haitian culture is one that fosters the subjugation of women unto men, and that links women directly to the domestic space. According to Sophie, in Haiti, “nightmares are passed on through generations like heirlooms” (234). These nightmares manifest themselves in the form of stories, like the tale about “the girl who wished she could marry a star and then went up there and, as real as her eyes were black, the man she wished for was a monster” (164). These stories serve to keep women in their domestic space, to deter them from dreaming about crossing boundaries. Sophie's grandmother, Ife, tells a story about a lark who tries to steal a little girl's heart. The little girl in the story represents Sophie, and the lark represents opportunity. It is opportunity that threatens to take Sophie away from her mothers and her motherland. Ife interprets Sophie's return to Haiti as a denial of opportunity in America, and the embracing of her native roots. However, she soon learns that her granddaughter has returned home with a “greater need to understand” the purpose of the testing practice (170). Eventually, Sophie realizes she sympathizes with her mother, who has her own nightmares to deal with, and recognizes their individual pain as “links in a long chain” (203). Sophie divorces herself from her mother and the culture of her motherland first by deflowering herself with the pestle. She then marries Joseph, a man from a culture other than her own. She chooses education as an avenue out of poverty, even though the women in her family have traditionally avoided literacy. Sophie crosses cultural boundaries many different ways. Her journey is recorded in the name of her daughter, Brigitte Ife Woods, which reflects Sophie's encounters with multiple cultures.

A more subtle hurdle for Sophie exists in the political arena. She must cope with the political control the Tontons Macoutes have on the men and women of Haiti. She must also address her female specificity, which is dominated by men in both the old and new cultures to which she belongs. Sophie says that to her, “men were as mysterious … as white people” (67). Most men get wrapped up in the violence of the culture or lose “their sense of obligation to the family's honor,” and therefore, are simply not around to support the women of Haiti. Still, the culture awards greater political advantage to males. For example, as illustrated in the novel, when a baby boy is born, a light shines outside of the birthing house. If a baby girl is born, the light is extinguished for the mother to sit alone in the darkness with her new daughter (146). Additionally, Tante Atie says that the men in Haiti “insist that their women are virgins and have ten fingers” (151). Ife tells Sophie that it was her duty to keep her daughters chaste until they were ready for marriage. A woman's purity would directly reflect the honor of her husband. Sophie tells the story of a man who chose a virgin to marry, and on their wedding night, cuts her to make her bleed in order to defend his honor. The woman dies and the man parades around showing off sheets stained with her blood (155). Sophie also tells the story of a woman who had blood pouring out of her skin, so she asks Erzulie to change her into a butterfly so she will never bleed again. Ironically, even though butterflies do not suffer as women do, they also don't live very long lives. Martine becomes Sophie's butterfly, and exchanges her womanly suffering for a shortened life span. Sophie addresses her frustration with Haitian politics and female inequality by attacking the cane in the field where her mother was raped. By attacking the cane, she is battling against her mother's perpetrator, the Tontons Macoutes, and men in general. After Martine's funeral, Sophie will return to her new home in America to Joseph, the husband who, although he is not Haitian, utilizes his authority as a male to place domestic and sexual demands on his wife. Sophie must continue her “perpetual transition” as a Haitian-American woman, and now turn her efforts to demanding equality in a new political realm.

Danticat's tale verifies Davies' claims about Black women's migrating subjectivities. Sophie crosses one boundary after the next in order to embrace, celebrate and redefine what it means to be both a product of multiple cultures and a woman. She defies religious conventions to take control of her sexuality. She distances herself from harmful practices associated with her native culture. Finally, she begins to confront the political forces that have created the entire cycle of trauma the women of Haiti have been subject to. Because she has the power to evaluate and change her life, Sophie becomes a powerful figure for other boundary-crossing women who share in the “perpetual transition” of Black femininity.


Works Cited

Danticat, Edwidge. Breath, Eyes, Memory. New York: Vintage Books, 1994. Print.

Davies, Carole Boyce. “Introduction: Migratory Subjectivities: Black Women's Writing and the Renegotiation of Identities.” Black Women, Writing and Identity: Migrations of the Subject. New York.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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:

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.

“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.

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.