Fantomina

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Sexual Desire=Literary Agency P1 (Haywood rejects asexual woman/intro)
Women were denied sexual desire, (only allowed to be the object of a man’s desire, or denied it completely in their function as mothers), they are also denied the right to literary agency. (Amatory Fiction writers reject this).
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Sexual Desire=Literary Agency P2 (How?)
Haywood utilises her female character’s role as an object of male desire, giving her an awareness of the power in defying seduction, and seducing men herself.
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Sexual Desire=Literary Agency P3 (Literary Prostitution/Criticisms: Animalistic Motherhood + bad influence)
Haywood prostitute (1728 Pope: "Cow-like Udders, Ox-like eyes", "bare forebuttocks", lived by pen, selling words, and reputation, actively ‘seducing’ the virtuous feminine public for financial gain. L.P: can lead to- "fatal errors in conduct"
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Sexual Desire=Literary Agency P4 (Cont. absurd cow/Work + Author/writing 'vessel')
(cont.) The absurdity of a cow writing a novel, symbolises the absurdity of the female writer cri problem: conflates author + work. // The writing 'vessel'=criticism to 'male creativity', Haywood gives birth to 'illegitimate' children and literature.
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Sexual Desire=Literary Agency P5 (Fantomina's Vanity + power=condemnation/****)
"She was naturally vain." (p.227) Vanity can be read as an awareness of her own desirability, and the power she can have over men and over her own body. Thus, the patriarchy recognises and condemns this power in the ****.
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Sexual Desire=Literary Agency P6 (Beauplasir's 'reserve')
Her desire is referred to implicitly at the playhouse when she first describes Beauplasir: ‘[she] had discovered something in him, […] she should not be displeased, if he would abate […] his reserve.’ (p.228)=Her wish to overcome his self-control.
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Performative Gender P1 (Femininity as performance/intro)
Is it the masquerade that brings ‘woman’ as we know her into existence? We are compelled to act gender rather than be gender by nature. (Butler: "Gender is a choice/Gender is a role" (like clothes.)) Gender as an ongoing process rather than a state.
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Performative Gender P2 (Fluid identity=fluid gender)
Fantomina: "she had the power of putting on almost what face she pleased", the body and Fantomina's identity are fluid-couldn't gender be also? Fantomina is a Phantom, she as a subject doesn’t exist outside of these performances.
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Performative Gender P3 (Parody of female faithfulness)
Fantomina: Dotes on Beauplasir despite his inconstancy. This ends in her peril (pregnancy). She performs female stock characters throughout, reveals all these roles to be masks, and not nature. (Faithful Fantomina, Amourous servant-girl-
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Performative Gender P3 (Parody of female faithfulness) cont.
-Mourning widow, wicked harlot, and deceptive woman). These are all performances, femininity is a performance.
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Other cards in this set

Card 2

Front

Sexual Desire=Literary Agency P2 (How?)

Back

Haywood utilises her female character’s role as an object of male desire, giving her an awareness of the power in defying seduction, and seducing men herself.

Card 3

Front

Sexual Desire=Literary Agency P3 (Literary Prostitution/Criticisms: Animalistic Motherhood + bad influence)

Back

Preview of the front of card 3

Card 4

Front

Sexual Desire=Literary Agency P4 (Cont. absurd cow/Work + Author/writing 'vessel')

Back

Preview of the front of card 4

Card 5

Front

Sexual Desire=Literary Agency P5 (Fantomina's Vanity + power=condemnation/****)

Back

Preview of the front of card 5
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