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The Coquette: Ideology of a Virtuous Woman
Hannah Webster Foster’s The Coquette, published in 1797, is based on a true story of a
socially elite New England woman, Elisabeth Whitman, who after giving birth to a stillborn,
illegitimate child at a roadside motel died under an assumed name. Foster uses epistolary
exchanges in The Coquette to allow an intimate view into character’s thoughts, establishing how
the societal limitations placed on a woman may allow her to be manipulated by her desires, just
as Whitman may have been. The debate about the role women ought to play in society has been
ongoing throughout history. It was certainly not more prominent than after the American
Revolution when independence was fresh in the minds of those who fought for freedom of
persecution.
Women however, continued to be placed into the private sphere where their
individuality, or lack thereof, was defined and oppressed by a patriarchal culture. Considerable
constraints on women and expectations of virtuousness were relentlessly dictated by society and
with substantial consequences should a woman fall short of the defined respectable behavior.
Elizabeth Dill, writer of “A Mob of Lusty Villagers: Operations of Domestic Desires in Hannah
Webster Foster’s The Coquette,” states how “the most popular American texts during the late
eighteenth century portray the virginity of the heroines only to highlight its untimely loss” (255).
Foster demonstrates in The Coquette how women are valued for their virtuous character and
destroyed socially in its absence by juxtaposing Eliza Wharton’s attitude toward the confines of
womanhood with other female characters in her novel. The reader encounters noteworthy
women in The Coquette alongside Eliza and the two prominent females are Lucy Freeman and
Mrs. Richman. These two women prove to validate that despite being encircled by worthy
counsel, Eliza is misled by her desires.
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“By attempting to weigh all choices objectively rather than heeding the protective
morality mouthed by her contemporaries, [Eliza] may be blinded to the dangers of the choices
she entertains” (Hamilton 136). Eliza’s personality begins to evolve from the moment she is
liberated from her duties as caretaker for her fiancé Reverend Haly due to death. A man she was
fully prepared to fulfill the role of the devoted daughter and marry as her parents requested,
although she “never felt the passion of love” (808). She embraces her sudden freedom which has
awarded her self-awareness and reveals a thirst for social interaction. Although the first letters
are to Lucy, it is Mrs. Richman’s voice we plainly hear first through these letters. It is in Letter
III that Mr. Boyer is introduced and he is obviously smitten with Eliza as displayed through
constant eye contact, as well as proven in Letter IV from Boyer to Mr. Selby. He writes, “I was
introduced to Miss Eliza Wharton; a young lady whose elegant person, accomplished mind, and
polished manners have been much celebrated” (810). Unbeknownst to Boyer, Eliza wants to
enjoy her freedom that “youth and innocence afford” as she admits to Mrs. Richman. Eliza
insists Boyer could not possibly be an object of affection so quickly after obtaining freedom
from her previous engagement. Eliza refers to Mrs. Richman as being “rather prudish” right
after she tells Eliza that “fashionable dissipation is dangerous” (812). Claire Pettengill, author of
“Sisterhood in a Separate Sphere: Female Friendship in Hannah Webster Foster’s The Coquette
and The Boarding School,” writes how Eliza is a member of a respectable circle of women
which “requires the women to exercise both the positive and the negative ‘arms’ of sisterhood
within the female circle itself” (192). Mrs. Richman simply wants to shield Eliza and keep her
from chasing the delusional dream that she can do as she pleases by having many suitors. It is
not only Mrs. Richman that extensively warns Eliza that Major Sanford, who is introduced in
Letter VI via invitation to Eliza for a ball, “is deficient in one of the great essentials of the
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character, and that is, virtue” (816). Her dear friend Lucy, her best friend, warns her as well.
Foster uses these two women in Eliza’s life to demonstrate how a woman can make choices that
are clearly endorsed by society.
Pettengill also mentions that Eliza is not the only one of these female characters to make
major transitions in the novel as Lucy will get married, and Mrs. Richman will face the birth and
death of her first child, Harriet. “The Coquette deals with the possible breakdown of an
established female circle as its members accept suitors, marry, and bear children, or – worst of
all – fall prey to seduction” (193). Lucy is clearly, from the beginning, very forthright in her
opinions of behavior and choices of Eliza. It is Lucy who originally suggests to Eliza that her
behavior is “coquettish” (809). With the overall majority of her correspondence addressed to,
and from Lucy, it appears that Lucy is the mirror character that always makes the more
appropriate choices. It becomes known to the reader that Lucy, as well as Mrs. Richman are
making the necessary transitions from daughter to wife to mother. Lucy is engaged and
eventually marries in the novel, becoming Mrs. Lucy Sumner; and Mrs. Richman has established
a marriage and becomes pregnant with her first child. Lucy, seemingly Eliza’s conscience,
offers the shrewdest guidance with her regard of Mr. Sanford in Letter XXXI: “I consider my
time too valuable to be spent in cultivating acquaintance with a person from whom neither
pleasure nor improvement are to be expected.” Lucy continues:
I look upon the vicious habits and abandoned character of Major Sanford, to have
more pernicious effects on society, than the perpetrations of the robber and the
assassin…But to the disgrace of humanity and virtue, the assassin of honor, the
wretch, who breaks the peace of families, who robs virgin innocence of its
charms, who triumphs over the ill-placed confidence of the inexperienced,
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unsuspecting, and too credulous fair, is received, and caressed, not only by his
own sex, to which he is a reproach, but even by ours, who have every conceivable
reason to despise and avoid him (841).
Never were better words written to Eliza, who in her next letter to Lucy does not bother
to acknowledge the lengthy rant about Major Sanford and his character. In fact, she addresses
her feelings regarding Mr. Boyer, who by this time she has semi-committed herself to. Eliza has
done this because she is the first to acknowledge that Boyer is a sensible choice considering he is
obviously approved by her friends. In Letter XXXIII to Lucy, Eliza writes how she does not like
Mr. Boyer’s continual discussions on “care and confinement.” She explains to Lucy that she
clarified to Boyer that she would really appreciate it if he would discontinue any notion they are
anything more than an amicably joined coupled, and to allow her more time for to offer any
pledges of matrimony (843). As Kristie Hamilton, author of “An Assault on the Will:
Republican Virtue and the City in Hannah Webster Foster’s The Coquette” explains the
“evidence for [Eliza’s] coquetry in the novel consists largely of her taste for social events, her
gay demeanor, her good-humored enjoyment of making conquests and her desire to remain free
of ‘hymenial chain’ for a time” (141). Eliza becomes disconcerted by Mr. Boyer’s presence by
Letter XXXVI. She explains to Mrs. Richmond how she has spent a majority of her time with
Boyer before and after Lucy’s wedding, only to feel the constant strain of his judgment of her
concerning her desire to socialize.
“We are to have a ball here, this evening. Mr. Boyer has been with us, and tried to
monopolize my company; but in vain. I am too much engaged by the exhilarating
scenes around, for attending to a subject which affords no variety” (845).
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Eliza is completely honest with Mrs. Richmond, as she is offers her the many reasons
why she is exasperated by Boyer. She includes the fact that Major Sanford was at the ball and
how she “drew him for a partner” (846) to dance. She goes on to write “He is an excellent
dancer, and well calculated for a companion in the hours of mirth and gaiety.” Eliza is very
much aware Mrs. Richmond disapproves of Sanford, yet Eliza continues in her attempt to
convince her of the many reasons why he is so charming. The reader discovers that Eliza
becomes unable to make a choice between the two men; yet she finally gives in to Boyer
considering his persistent proposals of marriage and the reigning encouragement of her friends..
There is no time for congratulations as Major Sanford is just as persistent in his quest to have
Eliza to himself, even though his offer doesn’t include marriage. The reader soon learns that
Boyer has found Eliza and Major Sanford sitting intimately in the garden, and leaves angrily
without providing the weeping Eliza a chance for explanation. In Eliza’s letter to Lucy, she goes
through great lengths to detail her side of the story; however, she doesn’t allude to the separation
from Boyer until the end. What she does is set the stage for Lucy, justifying how she has
allowed Sanford’s charms to lead her astray:
Yet I must own to you, from whom I have never concealed an action or idea, that
his situation in life charms my imagination; that the apparent fervor and sincerity
of his passion affect my heart. Yet there is something extremely problematical in
his conduct (855).
Eliza, for a short time, sees that Sanford is trying to keep her from marrying Boyer, yet
“he mysteriously conceals his own intentions and views” (855). Eliza gives Sanford an
opportunity to openly profess his love or else she chooses Boyer. Sanford does not and realizes
she has become suspicious of his motives. She writes, “I know the right, and I approve it too; I
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know the wrong and yet the wrong pursue” (856). Despite this interaction, Eliza is not able to
bring herself to let him go. Eliza, by refusing to make the choice, has indeed made one. It is
from this point forward that Eliza goes through “increasing alienation from those whom she most
loves as she follows the conventional downward spiral of the seduced woman” (Hamilton 198).
The formula for the seduction novel is less than virtuous behavior leads to the heroine’s
promiscuity, followed by pregnancy and ending with death in childbirth. Gillian Brown, author
of “Consent, Coquetry, and Consequences,” explains:
At the center of the seduction scenario is a woman who comes to a destined end.
In the predictability of her sad story, the seductive heroine represents an ideal of
consent as originary and effective. Her exercise of consent, her affirmative or
denial can be seen to be consequential. In their generative capacity (all sexually
active women in seduction stories seem to immediately conceive) women
exemplify an inevitable sequential process of consent that consent theory can only
fantasize (635).
Foster’s novel is not just a tale of seduction, as Eliza was “dedicated to choosing her way
and her partners…something of a republican heroine” (Brown 636). It is an epistolary
hypothesis of how a woman within high society makes her choices based on her individuality
and alleged love, may find herself disgraced and alone. It is Mrs. Richman, a confident and wise
married friend, who first told Eliza how she “had wrong ideas of freedom and matrimony” (822).
Lucy, her best friend, states that she herself has “pride enough to keep [her] above coquetry, or
prudery; and discretion enough…to secure [her] from both” (823) in her letter to Eliza
attempting to keep her on “the path of rectitude and virtue” (838). In the end, Eliza cannot be
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saved by Lucy or Mrs. Richmond, as she recognizes she has stained the social ideology of a
virtuous woman.
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Works Cited
Foster, Hannah Webster. The Coquette. The Norton Anthology of American Literature: Volume
A. Ed. Nina Baym. W.W. New York. 2007. 806-904.Print.
Brown, Gillian. "Consent, Coquetry, and Consequences." American Literary History 9.4 (1997):
625-652. MLA International Bibliography. EBSCO. Web. 24 Apr. 2011.
Pettengill, Claire C. "Sisterhood in a Separate Sphere: Female Friendship in Hannah Webster
Foster's The Coquette and The Boarding School." Early American Literature 27.3 (1992):
185-203. MLA International Bibliography. EBSCO. Web. 24 Apr. 2011.
Dill, Elizabeth. "A Mob of Lusty Villagers: Operations of Domestic Desires in Hannah Webster
Foster's The Coquette." Eighteenth-Century Fiction 15.2 (2003): 255-279. MLA
International Bibliography. EBSCO. Web. 24 Apr. 2011.
Hamilton, Kristie. "An Assault on the Will: Republican Virtue and the City in Hannah Webster
Foster's The Coquette." Early American Literature 24.2 (1989): 135-151. MLA
International Bibliography. EBSCO. Web. 24 Apr. 2011.
Harris, Jennifer. "Writing Vice: Hannah Webster Foster and The Coquette." Canadian Review of
American Studies/Revue Canadienne d'Etudes Américaines 39.4 (2009): 363-381. MLA
International Bibliography. EBSCO. Web. 24 Apr. 2011.