Roxana

Roxana: The Fortunate Mistress (full title: The Fortunate Mistress: Or A History of the Life and Vast Variety of Fortunes of Mademoiselle de Beleau Afterwards Called the Countess de Wintselsheim in Germany Being the Person known by the Name of the Lady Roxana in the Time of King Charles II) is a 1724 novel by Daniel Defoe. The novel examines the possibility of eighteenth-century women owning their own estate despite a patriarchal society as with Roxana's celebrated claim that the Marriage Contract is ... nothing but giving up Liberty Estate Authority and everything to the Man.The novel further draws attention to the incompatibility between sexual freedom and freedom from motherhood: Roxana becomes pregnant many times due to her sexual exploits and it is one of her children Susan who come back to expose her years later near the novel's close helping to precipitate her flight abroad subsequent loss of wealth and (ambiguous) repentance.The character of Roxana can be described as a proto-feminist because she carries out her actions of prostitution for her own ends of freedom but before a feminist ideology was fully formed (though Defoe also works to undercut the radicalism of her position). The book also explores the clash of values between the Restoration court and the middle-class.Roxana also discusses the issues of truth and deceit. As the text is a first-person narration and written to simulate a real first-hand account of a woman first comes the issue of subjectivity but also the underlying lie as to the veracity of the text. The reader can only trust in Roxana to give us a true account of her story but as she often lies to other characters in the book and even to herself she is not a reliable narrator. Furthermore the whole construction of her character is made on lies and disguises. Her name or names are not mentioned until the end of the novel so even the most basic aspect of her identity - her name - is a mystery for the majority