Femininity & Morality
Examining the futile pursuit of happiness and the fickleness of one’s own heart through Hannah Webster Foster’s The Coquette.
In Hannah Webster Foster’s The Coquette, the main character Eliza has the unique opportunity to experience a facet of freedom and independence that was largely unattainable for women of her time period. While I agree with other points made by readers about how Eliza’s position and circumstance made her more susceptible to becoming a victim, and while I agree that interpretations benefiting the feminist agenda can easily be drawn, my own interpretation of Eliza’s pursuit of happiness was a lot more conservative.
I can agree that at first this novel seemed as if it could be a piece of literature at the forefront of feminist thought, but after further reading, and following along with Eliza as she single-handedly destroyed her own life, I have a much more conservative analysis. It is an undeniable fact that Eliza should have the constitutional right, as is written in the Declaration of Independence, to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,” but her downward spiral illuminated a greater lesson-to-be-learned.
I do not think that Foster’s novel simply serves as a cautionary tale to women of the time. I do not think that Eliza‘s character was unable to find happiness in her independence simply because of the social constraints placed on her as a woman. I do not think this novel is about women’s rights at all. While the inequalities and the oppression she faces as women in her time is apparent to modern-day readers, I think this novel serves as a cautionary tale for all people about the dangers of a perpetual pursuit of “happiness.”
Eliza is pleasure seeking in what she claims to be a search for “a contentedness with one’s place in life” (347). What is happiness? What if what makes you happy today is not what makes you happy tomorrow? What if the thing that makes you happy is illegal or dangerous or immoral or harmful? Eliza’s search was degrading, harmful and destructive in not just her own life but in others’ too.
Her relationship with a married man made her “happy,” but does that excuse it? Nancy lost a husband and a friend to Eliza’s immoral behavior. This doesn’t excuse Sanford’s part in this, but Eliza’s mistakes aren’t erased simply by arguing that she is somehow still a victim.
All the women in her life spent their energies at attempting to comfort her, and steer her in the right direction, to protect her, and care for her, and love her, and Eliza was stubborn and held steadfast to what she believed she wanted, and what she believed was best for her.
Her never-ending pursuit of what she believed could make her happy led to her death. I do not think that she is a victim, and even though it can be argued that she is a victim of her position in society, I do not think that is to blame for her actions.
As an adult with an understanding of actions versus consequences, plus the fact that she was surrounded by friends warning her and counseling her, Eliza intentionally made all the decisions that led to her pregnancy and her death.
In this novel, I think the true message lies in the fickleness of one’s own heart and how emotions are deceptive. Because she was a woman, Eliza was not granted the same amount of acceptance and understanding for her folly as the men in the story were, but she felt a moral obligation to do the opposite of what she was doing yet she continued to do it. She knew that the minister was in love with her, but she didn’t decide she had feelings for him until it was too late. The loneliness that resulted from her unwed social status was her own fault.
I think the real message of happiness in this novel is the liberty and the freedom to find one’s purpose and to use one’s purpose to create one’s own sense of happiness and contentedness within. Happiness that is constructive and that benefits society. Eliza’s downfall is a direct result of the actions she took on a chase for pleasure rather than finding a purpose for her life and being content with herself.
Mostly, I think this sad story is a representation that proves true the Bible verse: “The heart is deceitful in all things and desperately wicked” Jeremiah 17:9.
Eliza seems to represent those who feel a God-sized void within themselves and yet rather than turn to God for fulfillment, that chase after the things of this world and find themselves never satisfied. CS Lewis summed this up nicely when he said, "If we find ourselves with a desire that nothing in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that we were made for another world.”
Have you read Foster’s The Coquette? What are your thoughts? What words of wisdom do you turn to when you find yourself drawn to destructive decisions to seek happiness?
