At first glance, Eliza Haywood’s Fantomina appears to be a saga of a woman’s sexual escapades and the freedom derived from them. However, on a deeper level, much of this freedom is obtained not through sex, but rather in a mercantile fashion. The converse is witnessed as well: mercantilism and business practice is also directed towards Fantomina throughout the story. In a male-dominated economic world, Fantomina eventually attempts to equalize herself with the opposing gender once her constructed “royal” or “noble” values are stripped away. As she does, the very language of the capitalist system is found throughout the novella. In addition, Fantomina begins to even treat her love for Beauplaisir as a mercantile venture, attempting to maximize …show more content…
She is accosted by “a Crowd of Purchasers…each endeavoring to outbid the other in offering her a Price for her Embraces” (Haywood 258). Indeed, she has given up her noble status and has resolved to perform as someone who must trade and barter to survive - a prostitute. In doing so, she offers her first trade (although largely unconsciously), namely herself. In doing so, Fantomina begins to realize that she can rake in profits, specifically in terms of pleasure. She finds that she can gain a “vast deal of pleasure in conversing with him [Beauplaisir] in this free and unrestrained manner” (Haywood 259). However, she simultaneously displays great naïveté. As a woman, especially a one of noble birth, she has hardly been informed of the “terms of service” inherent in mercantile capitalism. Rather, her life prior to her new escapades centered on the study of manners and “well-defined codes of behavior” (Lawall 297). Haywood higlights this, as “[She] was just as adept at modifying the external presentation of herself as she was of her fiction, moving between careers..." (Anderson 11), using her knowledge of the capitalist world as a self-published author. This completely visible during and after her rape by Beauplaisir. Haywood herself notes that Fantomina is “fearful, – confus'd, altogether unprepar'd to …show more content…
Indeed, "In Fantomina, the fair "Incognita" represents the heroine's final role, and the role that Beauplaisir finds most threatening” (Anderson 7). As Incognita, Fantomina finally becomes sexually active, directly requesting Beauplaisir’s presence in her chambers rather than implying desire, unlike her actions as Celia and Widow Bloomer. By adopting a masked personality, in addition, she ironically reveals to Beauplaisir the performance-based of their relationship, exposing "...the pervasive concept of performance that resonates through Haywood's early and late fiction[, which] complicates the idea that the novel lets us see through or past a surface representation and into the essential..." (Anderson 2). However, this case permits the reader to finally truly gaze into the essence of the situation, as Fantomina has taken control of her body and feminine identity; Incognita remains an unknown face of womankind. With newfound control, Fantomina undermines the masculine attempt to "Censor the body and...censor breath and speech at the same time" (Cixous 880). Even then, Fantomina maintains a male-centered control of her body by implying that feminine liberation is solely a separation from male dominance, rather than a completely new societal structure. Despite this, Beauplaisir’s reaction to her attempt at any sort of liberation portrays him as a synecdoche for mankind taking up