Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Editor's Acknowledgements
- List of Figures
- List of Contributors
- Part I Overview and Scope
- Part II Legal and Social History
- Part III Drama
- Part IV Fiction
- 9 ‘What Do You Take Me For?’: Rape and Virtue in The Female Quixote
- 10 ‘Nothing But Violent Methods Will Do’: Heterosexual Rape and the Violation of Female Friendship
- 11 Bringing Sentimental Fiction to its (Anti-)Climax: Laurence Sterne's A Sentimental Journey
- Part V Other Genres
- Notes
- Index
10 - ‘Nothing But Violent Methods Will Do’: Heterosexual Rape and the Violation of Female Friendship
from Part IV - Fiction
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Editor's Acknowledgements
- List of Figures
- List of Contributors
- Part I Overview and Scope
- Part II Legal and Social History
- Part III Drama
- Part IV Fiction
- 9 ‘What Do You Take Me For?’: Rape and Virtue in The Female Quixote
- 10 ‘Nothing But Violent Methods Will Do’: Heterosexual Rape and the Violation of Female Friendship
- 11 Bringing Sentimental Fiction to its (Anti-)Climax: Laurence Sterne's A Sentimental Journey
- Part V Other Genres
- Notes
- Index
Summary
The threat, the violent attempt or the actual rape of female characters is found in many eighteenth-century novels. Yet, in addition to depictions of male perpetrators of sexual violence, we also commonly find culpable women, who help to lure and trap the intended rape victims. Many female accomplices are minor characters who pose as virtuous and trustworthy friends. This is the case in Samuel Richardson's Clarissa (1748) and Eliza Haywood's The History of Miss Betsy Thoughtless (1751), as supposed female friends assist male perpetrators in luring and/or confining virtuous female protagonists. However, in Daniel Defoe's Roxana (1724) and Henry Fielding's Tom Jones (1749), the treacherous women are major characters responsible for instigating the rapes of women living in their own homes. These deceitful women are important participants in the rape narratives, yet they often get overlooked in analyses of patriarchal violence against women. These narratives of female betrayal and rape push readers beyond didactic messages that educate naïve, young women about the dangers of rakes and artful male seducers circulating within polite society. Rather, female perpetrators of rape presented in popular novels including Tom Jones complicate women's roles as continual victims of patriarchal aggression. These treacherous female characters force us to acknowledge women's acts of violence and betrayal against one another. Moreover, this repeated narrative leads readers to question why women's acts of betrayal are linked to rape, which is a violent violation of an individual's (and in these cases, a woman's) autonomy and consent.
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- Information
- Interpreting Sexual Violence, 1660–1800 , pp. 119 - 130Publisher: Pickering & ChattoFirst published in: 2014