List of characters
* Eliza Wharton— the protagonist of the novel who, following the death of her fiancé is pursued by two men: Reverend J. Boyer and Major Peter Sanford. Her free spirit and lack of commitment to the male sex bestow her the term "coquette." Her coquettish nature eventually leads to her demise. * Rev. J. Boyer — the first of Eliza's suitors. He is a safe and modest man who wishes to have Eliza's hand in marriage, yet his predictable nature is not appealing enough. Ultimately, Eliza's lack of sincerity and commitment causes him to end his pursuit of her. * Major Peter Sanford — the second of Eliza's suitors. He is a womanizer who provides excitement for Eliza yet shows no signs of future commitment. However, he eventually marries another woman; this does not prevent Eliza from further continuing her relationship with him. * Lucy Freeman — Eliza's best friend, from whom she often seeks advice. Lucy's disapproval of Eliza's decisions is evident in her letters. During the novel, she gets married; thus, her name is changed to Lucy Sumner. * Charles Deighton-Sanford's primary confidant. Sanford expresses his thoughts in his letters to Charles. * Mr. T. Selby — Reverend Boyer's primary confidant. He expresses his blatant disapproval of Eliza in his responses. * Nancy Sanford— Major Peter Sanford's wife. Although not as attractive as Eliza, her wealth compensates. She is briefly mentioned in Major Sanford's letters. * Gen. and Mrs. Richman — Relatives of Eliza (Mrs. Richman is Eliza's cousin). The couple provides her with a place to stay upon the loss of her fiancé. While they truly look out for her best interests, their advice is often overlooked. * Julia Granby — a free-spirit and one of Eliza's closest friends. She comes to comfort Eliza during her time of despair. * Mrs. Wharton — Eliza's widowed mother. Coping with the loss of her husband, she is happy when Eliza returns home but distressed to see her in such a disdainful state.Plot summary
The story is about Eliza Wharton, the daughter of a clergyman. At the beginning of the novel she has just been released from an unwanted marriage by the death of her betrothed, the Rev. Haly, also a clergyman, whom Eliza nursed during his final days in her own home. After this experience, she decides she wants friendship and independence. After a short period of time living with friends, she is courted by two men. One, Boyer, is a respected but rather boring clergyman, whom all of her friends and her mother recommend she accept in marriage. The other, Sanford, is an aristocratic libertine, who has no intention to marry but determines not to let another man have Eliza. Because of her indecision and her apparent preference for the libertine Sanford, Boyer eventually gives up on her, deciding that she will not make a suitable wife. Sanford also disappears from her life and marries another woman, Nancy, for her fortune. Eliza eventually decides that she really loved Boyer and wants him back. Unfortunately for Eliza, Boyer has already decided to marry Maria Selby, a relation of Boyer's friend. Sanford later reappears married, but is able to seduce the depressed Eliza. They have a hidden affair for some time until, overcome by guilt and unwilling to face her family and friends, Eliza arranges to escape from her home. Like the real-life Elizabeth Whitman, she dies due to childbirth complications and is buried by strangers. Mrs. Wharton (Eliza's mother) and all of Eliza's friends are deeply saddened by her death. Sanford, too, is devastated by her death. In a letter to his friend, Charles Deighton, he expresses his regret at his wretched behavior.Genre and narrative form
Together, ''The Coquette'' and '' Charlotte Temple'' by Susanna Rowson (1791) have been called "the canonical representations of seduction novels by women". Written in epistolary form, this novel allows the reader to directly engage with the events central to the plot by entering the minds of the characters. The letters serve as windows into the thoughts of the writers, creating an intimate connection. The reader also benefits from an unbiased perspective, since it is the culmination of different character's input that creates the story. The epistolary form is also an intriguing way to captivate an audience. Reading letters addressed to others has a feeling akin to eavesdropping; it exposes thoughts otherwise not publicly known.Sources
Foster's tale was loosely based on the biography of Elizabeth Whitman (1752–88), whose death at 37 in a roadside tavern after giving birth to a stillborn child was widely publicized in the New England papers nine years before the novel's publication. Like her fictional counterpart, Whitman was accomplished, vivacious, and widely admired. She is known to have been engaged to the Rev. Joseph Howe (prototype for Foster's Rev. Hale), and then later to the Rev. Joseph Buckminster (fictionalized as Rev. Boyer), but she married neither. Whitman attracted the attention of the poetInterpretation and criticism
''The Coquette'' received a revival of critical attention during the late twentieth century. It is often praised for its intelligent portrayal of the contrast between individualism vs. social conformity and passion vs. reason. It has also been studied for its relationship to political ideologies of the early American republic and its portrayal of the emerging middle class. Foster's tale has been read on the one hand as a "novel for providing a subversive message about the ways in which the lives of women even of the elite are subject to narrow cultural constraints" and, on the other hand, as an instructive novel that "comes down on the side of the ideology of Republican motherhood and the women's sphere, a sphere that celebrated those women who with appropriate sentiment and rationality accepted their "place" in the world. Foster's epistolary narrative allows for the development of multiple points of view and for a variety of readings. Rather than being presented as a one-sided coquette, the development of Eliza's character through her letter writing allows for a reading of Eliza as both "victim" and "transgressor" of society's norms. Cathy N. Davidson argues that ''The Coquette'' is not merely a novel about the evils of sin and seduction, but rather "a remarkably detailed assessment of the marital possibilities facing late-eighteenth-century women of the middle or upper-middle classes." Davidson notes the centrality of Foster's novel in "countering received ideas on women's circumscribed power and authority," positioning ''The Coquette'' as "an important voice in the debate on women's role in the Republic." In her exploration of the early American novel, Davidson uses the contradictions between Foster's novel and the moral accounts of Elizabeth Whitman's death to explore the emergence of the early American sentimental novel:Eliza Wharton sins and dies. Her death can convey the conservative moral that many critics of the time demanded. Yet the circumstances of that death seem designed to tease the reader into thought. It is in precisely these interstices—the distjunctions between the conventional and the radical readings of the plot – that the early American sentimental novel flourishes. It is in the irresolution of Eliza Wharton's dilemma that the novel, as a genre, differentiates itself from the tract stories of Elizabeth Whitman in which the novel is grounded and which it ultimately transcends.In ''Redefining the Political Novel'', Sharon M. Harris responds to Cathy Davidson's work by arguing that ''The Coquette'' can be understood as a political novel; she writes, "By recognizing and satirizing, first, the political systems that create women's social realisms and, second, the language used to convey those systems to the broader culture, Foster exposes the sexist bases of the new nation's political ideologies." Countering Davidson and Harris, Thomas Joudrey has argued that the novel fortifies obedience to a patriarchal conception of marriage. In its sustained denigration of fancy and passion, ''The Coquette'' "deprives the imagined readers not merely of actualized resistance but also of the very mental capacities that perceive injury and formulate alternatives to their oppression." One aspect of ''The Coquette'' that has garnered significant critical attention is the role of female friendship within the text. In ''Perfecting Friendship: Politics and Affiliation in Early American Literature'', Ivy Schweitzer discusses the "affective failures" of Eliza Wharton's female friends and argues that while Eliza can be understood as "the champion of an inclusive, even feminist 'civic republicanism,'" her friends belong to "the female 'chorus'
Adaptations
A poem titled ''The Coquette,'' borrowing heavily from Webster Foster's work, was printed in 1798 in '' The Humming Bird'', the first known magazine published by a woman editor in the United States.Notes
References
* . * . * . * . * . * . * . *Waterman, Bryan. "Who Reads an Early American Book?" Common-place. Apr. 2009. Web. 26 Nov. 2010.Further reading
* Bontatibus, Donna R. ''The Seduction Novel of the Early Nation: A Call for Socio-Political Reform''. East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 1999. * Dill, Elizabeth.External links
* Foster, Hannah Webste