100 pages • 3 hours read
Hannah Webster FosterThe Coquette
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1797A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
Themes
Virginity
When Mr. Boyer writes to Mr. Selby of breaking off his relationship with Eliza, he says, “I would not be understood to impeach Miss Wharton’s virtue; I mean her chastity. Virtue in the common acceptation of the term, as applied to the sex, is confined to that particular, you know” (78). During the era in which Foster wrote The Coquette, honor, virtue, and chastity were intrinsically linked. Stemming from the puritanical forbidding of premarital and extramarital sexual intercourse, the value placed upon a woman’s virginity was of paramount importance in early America. Much of the danger faced by women in early American literature was the threat of losing their virginity before marriage. This extended beyond the danger of rape; the importance of chastity extended to platonic social conduct. Insinuation and innuendo could be enough to ruin the image of an otherwise virtuous woman. This led to an excessive policing of a woman’s public conduct.
Virginity was therefore a powerful social currency that determined a woman’s value. Rumors of any illicit activity could be as damaging as actually losing one’s virtue. This becomes evident in the novel when rumors about Sanford and Eliza begin to circulate in the neighborhood. A neighbor tells Mr. Boyer that “some supposed he would marry her; others, that he only meditated adding her name to the black catalogue of deluded wretches, whom he had already ruined!” (80). Rather than helping her, the neighbors merely speculate. Lucy underscores the importance of virginity/virtue on public opinion: she tells Eliza that “while retained, it affords conscious peace to our own minds, and ensures the esteem and respect of all around us” (133).
The loss of her virginity sends Eliza on a downward spiral that culminates in her literal and social death. Not only was being unchaste met with religious condemnation, it also damaged one’s social reputation. The double standard is evident: while Major Sanford is a well-known philanderer, he moves freely through the social world. Eliza, on the other hand, confines herself to her home, partially to avoid rumor and judgment. When she dies, Lucy and Julia strive to both repair her reputation and to ensure that she stands as an example of the danger loss of virtue entails.
Republican Womanhood, Wifehood, and Motherhood
In the years during and after the American Revolution, the new republic was infused with an ethic of independence, self-reliance, and industry. There was a general drive to work together in order to make the nation flourish. Men occupied the political sphere; they were the soldiers and politicians that formed the backbone of the revolution. In their absence, women, traditionally relegated to the domestic sphere of the home, took up more responsibility in governing their household. Beyond the stereotypical jobs relegated to mothers (housework, cooking, child rearing), women were seen as the moral backbone of the household, charged with raising new generations of patriotic Americans. Women’s moral behavior and virtues were under constant scrutiny. Because they were not able to vote, women in early American society were able to exercise political power by raising those who could.
In The Coquette, Mrs. Richman, Lucy Sumner, and Julia Granby exhibit many aspects of Republican motherhood. These three women exhibit upright, moral behavior and work to foster that behavior in Eliza. Mrs. Richman and Lucy are exemplary wives. They are faithful to their husbands and exercise discretion and modesty in their interactions with other people in their lives. Julia exhibits model behavior for an unmarried woman. While she does allow herself to have fun and participate in many of the same social pleasures as Eliza, she sets parameters for enjoyment that are guided by modesty, decorum, and virtue.
Guilt and Illness
Sudden physical illness in an otherwise healthy person was viewed as a consequence of conscience, and therefore of guilt. Eliza’s friends are horrified at the physical and mental changes in her during the final arc of the novel. As Eliza’s affair with Sandford advances, the guilt wreaks havoc on her mind and body. By the time she decides to run away, she tells Julia Granby that “[g]rief has undermined my constitution. My health has fallen a sacrifice to a disordered mind” (146). Guilt and illness in The Coquette have a reciprocating effect; as Eliza’s melancholy advances, she commits more and more to the behavior that causes feelings of guilt to try to find comfort, which, in turn has a detrimental effect on her health. Grief over losing Mr. Boyer initiates this vicious cycle, and Major Sanford’s constant manipulation perpetuates it.
