Roxana and Her Tragedy

Roxana as Tragedy

"Roxana" stands unique among Daniel Defoe's work in that it ends a tragedy. The work is a lot more than that, however. "Roxana" dispenses with the formalities associated with many texts and paints sex as a commodity from the very get-go. Roxana ends up a tragedy not so much because of what transpires at the end of the novel, but because Roxana herself cannot deal with her decision to prostitute herself: Roxana is a tragic figure because at the end she cannot reconcile her morals, her guilt and the fact that although she has been able to achieve wealth through her actions, through social upward mobility has eluded her, partly through her own eyes. In fact, her reliance on her beauty and body compound this desire for social upward mobility, and eventually result in a sort of manic race to delude not only her daughter, newest Dutch husband and society as to her past, but herself as well, the coup de grace of vanity.

"Roxana" even begins with the narrator effusing a surprising awareness of her social status and infusing the work with an unerring picture that its protagonist is an aspiring social climber: "London, a large and gay City, took with me mighty well, who, from my being a Child, lov'd a Crowd, and to see a great many fine Folks." (5)

Roxana constantly argues for being better than she actually "is." She is a Frenchwoman, but protests several times even in the first few pages that hers are English mannerisms, not at all French. In fact, she insists that she speaks in a perfect English accent as well, completely devoid of the French influence that "marred" the first 10 years of her life.

For instance, "I went to English schools, and being young, I learnt the English tongue perfectly well, and with all the customs of the English young-women; so that I retained nothing of the French, but the speech; nor did I so much as keep any remains of the French language tagg'd to my way of speaking, as most Foreigners do, but spoke what we call natural English, as if I had been born here." (6)

In that passage, Roxana "doth protest" that she is someone whom she truly is not several times. The most telling turn of phrase is, most definitely, "what we call natural English." Not only does Roxana falsely infuse herself into a culture as a native when she is not, she assigns herself a certain status: She gives herself the status of one who is so ensconced in a society as to be able to point out the outsiders -- the foreigners -- and assign terms to her group of natives.

For Roxana, this is part keeping up appearances, and part fooling herself. This is key foreshadowing, as she uses that same ability to fool herself to convince herself several pages onwards that she is correct -- or at least, without option -- in sleeping with the landlord for rent money and much more.

"Roxana" waxes tragic because Roxana fails to heed her maid Amy's moralistic ramblings on prostitution early in the novel. Roxana recoils from the sheer thought of selling herself to her landlord for rent and a comfortable existence when Amy interposes the fact that she is truly not prostituting herself if she does it for her very survival -- and her children's very survival.

At first, this thought process rings hollow with Roxana: "Why, madam, says Amy, I hope you won't deny him, if he should offer it."

"What d'ye mean by that, Hussy, said I? No, I'd starve first."

"I hope not, Madam, I hope you would be wiser; I'm sure if he will set you up, as he talks of, you ought to deny him nothing; and you will starve if you do not consent; that's certain."

"What, consent to lye with him for bread? Amy, said I, how can you talk so?"

"Nay, Madam, says Amy, I don't think you wou'd for any thing else; it would not be lawful for any thing else, but for bread, Madam; why nobody can starve, there's no bearing that, I'm sure."

"Ay, says I, but if he would give me an estate to live on, he should not lye with me I assure you." (28)

But in fact, that is exactly what the landlord does: Through what can best be described as "fuzzy law," he justifies the fact that both he and Roxana are married. He claims that in situations such as theirs where the spouses are away indeterminably, it is entirely legal to perform adultery and cohabitate. He is not even shy about introducing the fact that he is a man of means and she is a woman without.

These persuasions actually do sway Roxana. The interesting observation is, had not the landlord and Amy so diligently argued for the necessity, morality and legality of this act of prostitution, surely Roxana would have done so herself. She wants to lye with the landlord, and sees it not only as a way out, but a not-very-despicable way out either, truth be told.

Roxana convinces herself that what she is doing is correct. She in fact implores Amy to stop talking and persuading lest she change her mind, which is already made up before she lies with the landlord. Here, Roxana treads the fine line between mistress and Whore. One of the most impressive qualities of Roxana is that though she takes pains to convince herself that what she is doing is correct -- morally, ethically, practically, legally and societally -- she never hides the fact that what she is doing is prostituting herself. Even though we as readers can easily make a case for her being a mistress or even a wife to some of the gentlemen with whom she lays, she herself never makes that case; Roxana is a strange dichotomy of one who acts like a mistress, has children like a mistress, lives life like a mistress, has the social aspirations of at least a mistress but much more like a wife, but is fully convinced that she is a whore.

Indeed, Roxana actually begins to fall for the men who are, technically, her Johns. She establishes that she is very much taken in by the landlord's generosity. However, even that is partly a sham, a sham on herself: Roxana qualifies her "love" for the landlord by observing that one of the reasons she is so enamored of him is that he has bestowed all of this wealth and these gifts upon her without desiring anything else in return.

Of course, it is patently obvious to all concerned -- Amy, the reader and even Roxana herself -- that the landlord desires more than just friendly companionship. Even whilst the landlord kisses her and makes verbal love to her, Roxana persists in her "belief" that his motives are pure. This "belief" is not so much a belief, but a crutch for Roxana as she persuades herself that what she is doing will not only benefit her materially, but ascribe to her socially-climbing aspirations as well.

Take the following critical passage: "I answered, that within those two limitations, I was sure I ought to deny him nothing, and I should think myself not ungrateful only, but very unjust, if I shou'd; so he said no more, but I observ'd he kiss'd me more, and took me in his arms in a kind of familiar way, more than usual, and which once or twice put me in mind of my maid Amy's words; and yet, I must acknowledge, I was so overcome with his goodness to me in those many kind things he had done, that I not only was easie at what he did, and made no resistance, but was inclin'd to do the like, whatever he had offer'd to do." (35)

Here, Roxana is willing to reciprocate her landlord's advances, and even desires the physical contact tantamount to adultery. However, she is careful to plead, both to herself and to her reader, that she only feels this readiness because of her landlord's unerring kindness to her. She couches her readiness to prostitute herself in terms of power to benefit a benefactor.

The end result of this is a power game: Roxana understands fully her power over men: She knows that because of her beauty, she is able to turn situations from where men may lord power over her -- since she is utterly broke, and they have money and the means to create a comfortable life for her -- to situations in which she is the one who wields the power. After all, if she refuses the men, or does not like their terms, she can simply move on to another who will sign onto her list of qualifications and requirements before she loves them.

In other words, Roxana needs this sham -- this charade -- to preserve the authenticity of her feelings towards the landlord. She is eager from the first moment to "lay" with the landlord, should it produce her tangible benefits, but she must take great pains to fool all concerned that this is simply not the case.

This is entirely evident when she is all ears to the particulars of her arrangement with the landlord. Although she at first demurs from the possibility of prostituting herself for anything other than bread (see above, infra) she soon constructs a veritable contract with her landlord over what will be provided by her, and, of course, what will be provided by him.

Take, for instance, the extremely contractual nature of Roxana's agreement with the landlord: "As to that, my dear, I have taken such measures as shall make an equality still; and with that, he shew'd me a contract in writing, wherein he engag'd himself to me; to cohabit constantly with me; to provide for me in all respects as a wife; and repeating in the Preamble a long account of the nature and reason for our living together, and an obligation in the penalty of 7000 l. never to abandon me; and at last, shew'd me a bond for 500 l. To be paid to me, or my assigns, within three months after his death." (42)

Here is a contract for prostitution indeed! Although Roxana protested that she would not "contract" to prostitute herself for anything other than "bread," here she is veritably setting in stone what she will receive for this consideration -- to pursue contract language one step further -- of cohabitation. But the protestations are necessary for Roxanne to alleviate her guilt, reconcile her morals, but most importantly, her desire for social upward mobility.

As mentioned above, Roxana is highly concerned with social upward mobility, as is evidenced by her protestations that she is English, not French in any way, shape or form. In fact, this desire to climb social is evident in all of her relations with men, and eventually represents her downfall, or tragedy.

Take her encounter with the prince, for instance. Here, Roxana shortens the period of time during which she vacillates about whether prostituting herself to the prince is the correct thing to do. Compared to the process with the landlord, with the prince, Roxana almost quite literally jumps right in.

That is because by this encounter, her morals have abated. Roxana is no longer concerned nearly as much with the morality of prostituting herself. As a result, she is much less wracked by guilt as she entertains and then finally enters into a very similar cohabitation "contract" with the prince.

She is no longer even dependent on the sham of necessity of bread, or even any other material goods. Roxana is quite well-aware, of course, that the prince will look after every one of her material wants, but she is not nearly as needy as she was when she became the landlord's cohabitational companion. With the prince, there is a certain air about Roxana: This is what she has learned to do: manipulate men, and use her beauty as her power to achieve a certain set of objectives.

The thought that these objects are not moral or may wrack her with guilt no longer influence her decision-making. However, one remaining factor remained which troubled Roxana: the status of her maid, Amy. Amy, after all, was a necessary ingredient to the story. Although Roxana had the inclination herself (as established above) to prostitute herself to the landlord, the prince, and the other men to follow, she needed a deus ex-machine, via the narrative, to make her decisions more palatable to her readers, her men, her companions and most importantly to herself.

That is where Amy comes in. Lest the reader begin making comparisons to Amy's role as the devil character in "Roxana," Roxana makes them herself, repeatedly questioning whether Amy was the devil, or at least if she has the devil inside. But make no mistake: the foil of Amy is constantly necessary to balance Roxana's viewpoints and decisions, and Roxana knows this more than anyone else. As a socially upwardly mobile person, and one who is conscious of all social morays and expectations, Roxana realizes Amy's worth, but also fears her power and resents the fact that suddenly, by virtue of her actions, she is brought to the same level as her maid.

Indeed, Roxana is accustomed to a certain social status, since her father always had money, and even in the early days of her husband's noted tendency to lose all of his earnings or fail in every business opportunity, Roxana herself managed to comport herself in a manner very suited to a lady. In those times, there were strict rules of social observance, one of which was that her maid was, naturally, at a lower rung than she was on the socio-economic scale.

Suddenly, Roxana finds herself in a position in which she is subservient to her maid: When she is completely without funds, Amy offers to work for free, and not only that, Amy even gives Roxana money when she is able, as she hates to see her boss suffer so. As a result, Amy and Roxana become more friends and confidants than they do maid and boss.

In fact, at several moments, Roxana describes the fact that she would like to unbosom herself to Amy, her maid; by this, she means that feels the need to take her -- yet again -- into her confidence on any string of happenings tied, inevitably, to her initial falling with the landlord. That is why a scene that is, perhaps on its surface, the most unexpected, actually is the most predictable.

Roxana goads and goads until Amy -- who, to her own discredit is waiting to answer the string of questions -- agrees to consider prostituting herself to the landlord as well. Roxana has already entered her conjugal relationship with the landlord, having signed his contracts, and having consummated their cohabitation scheme. They do not have a child yet, though, and people are beginning to wonder at the state of affairs being enjoyed by the two.

In the mean time, Roxana finds that Amy's impertinence is at a new high. Although she still does exercise her duties as maid, she is able to take many liberties with Roxana since she is privy to Roxana's darker side to her lifestyle. That is essentially why Roxana veritably insists that Amy enter a sexual relationship with her landlord, a man to whom she is, by all practical purposes, bethroted. Roxana pushes Amy into bed, and although Amy protests, it is quite clear that she is happy with the state of affairs; she had been discussing the possibility of sleeping with the landlord herself for some amount of time; although for Amy, it is less clear whether prostitution is at stake: although the landlord does present her with gifts as a result, he has always done so (treating her, in fact, as Roxana's pimp), so Amy's status is unclear.

What is not unclear, however, is Roxana's motivation in pushing Amy into bed with her "husband." Roxana simply cannot stand the fact that -- by virtue of having prostituted herself -- she is at a level that is equal to or even lower than her maid's level. Roxana has lost her socially exalted lofty status as a result of her decision to price first material goods and then social mobility above her virtue. With having pushed Amy into a similar relationship with the landlord -- and then lingering to actually watch the act -- Roxana ensures that Amy has no social status above her own; finally, the two are equal, and both are complicit in the other's wrong-doing and eventual downfall and tragedy.

Here, Roxana solves several of her issues at once. First, her guilt is allayed because of the knowledge that she is not the only one who is compromising her virtues and morals on accord of a better material and social status. Second, her morals themselves are relaxed comfortably because she has a partner in crime, Amy. However, her desire to social climb -- eventually her downfall -- is not at all extinguished by her actions. Rather than pull Amy up to her level, Roxana has succeeded in pulling herself down to Amy's level. Although her theory is that her beauty gains her power over her men, because of her desire to be of a certain social status, she fails. Women of this desired social status do not prostitute herself, and try as she might to fit in with their sorts, Roxana's own knowledge of her past actions and her fears of discovery keep her at a much lower social status rung.

That is why, by the end of the novel, Roxana is sure to fail, sure to lose in her quest, and sure to end a tragedy. The most persuasive sign of this tragedy is the sheer paranoia and doubt that engulfs the two women -- Roxana and Amy -- when Roxana is married to the wealthy Dutch merchant.

Take the following passage: "What shall I do, Amy, said I, as soon as I could speak; and what will become of me? And then I cried again so vehemently that I could say no more a great while; Amy was frighted almost out of her wits, but knew nothing what the matter was; but she begg'd to know and perswaded me to compose myself, and not cry so; Why madam, if my master should come up now, says she, he will see what a disorder you are in; he will know you have been crying, and then he will want to know the cause of it; with that I broke out again, O! he knows it already, Amy, says I, he knows all! 'tis all discover'd! And we are undone! Amy was thunderstruck now indeed: Nay, says Amy, if that be true, we are undone indeed; but that can never be; that's impossible, I'm sure." (298)

Here, Roxana is finally playing the part of the victim, a part that she had internally been playing since her first decision to prostitute herself to the landlord. Here, we see as readers that it is truly impossible for Roxana to reach her ultimate goal, which is full, unequivocal assimilation into a culture. First, she has difficulty proving her assimilation because she is French; regardless of how much she protested, she was still at least one part French, and this French portion was easily discoverable. Then, she sought unimpeded social climbing, but in order to attain this, she needed material goods. She achieved those material goods, but then found that social climbing was out of reach.

She finally found a foreign man, and an opportunity to go abroad and leave all of her past behind, but still her past comes to haunt her in the person of her daughter, forcing her to brink of despair and anguish. Even if Amy had not murdered the daughter and engendered the eventual, unmitigated, inevitable and last tragedy, still "Roxana" would have been a tragedy, a tragedy of failure.

It is quite relevant that Defoe named his novel the "fortunate" mistress. Machiavelli discussed fortune, virtue and differences of the genders in his works, and the comparison is striking and absolutely necessary:

The single most articulated value in the work of Machiavelli is virtu (Latin virtus), which is linked, of coruse, to our word, "virtue." Machiavelli means it more in its Latin sense of "manly," but individuals with virtu are primarily marked by their ability to enforce their will on volatile social and socio-economic situations.

They impose their will through a combination of strong will, strength, and brilliant and strategic calculation. In one of the most famous passages from The Prince, Machiavelli describes the proper direction towards the volatility of the world, or Fortune, by comparing Fortune to a lady: "la fortuna e donna," or "Fortune is a Lady."

Here, Machiavelli is referring to the courtly love tradition, where the lady that constitutes the object of desire is approached and entreated and begged to comply. The ideal Prince, however, for Machiavelli does not entreat or beg Lady Fortune, but rather, he physically grabs her and takes whatever he wants.

This, of course, was a scandalous passage and still is today, but it represents a powerful translation of the Renaissance idea of human potential to the area of politics. For if, according to Pico della Mirandola, a human being can self-transform into anything it wants, then it must be possible for a single, strong-willed individual to order the chaos of political life, and this stems directly from the Princes directive to take what he wants.

Machiavelli's truest tone is struck in Chapter XV: "Hence it is necessary for a prince wishing to hold his own to know how to do wrong, and to make use of it or not according to necessity. Therefore, putting on one side imaginary things concerning a prince, and discussing those which are real, I say that all men when they are spoken of, and chiefly princes for being more highly placed, are remarkable for some of those qualities which bring them either blame or praise."

Here, Machiavelli states something that had not before him, and rarely since him, been argued. This is that man must do wrong to succeed. In essence, nice guys do indeed finish last.