The Coquette Literary Analysis

Justine Sabo

Professor Sidle

ENGL2327

9 March 2017 Literary Analysis on Eliza Wharton from "The Coquette" ` In her epistolary novel, "The Coquette", Hannah Webster Foster, uses the death of Eliza Wharton to bring attention to the the social injustices and cultural restraints that women of the new nation faced. Eliza Wharton's downfall is caused by her quest for freedom and independence from the cultural norms where women were expected to conform to social expectations or suffer the consequences. Foster highlights the circumstances surrounding Eliza's downfall by allowing the reader to get an inside look at her feelings, motives, and the sequence of events leading up to her demise through the close examination of letters written by

Her thoughts on marriage are made clear that after the death of Mr. Haly, the man her parents had arranged for her to marry, when Eliza says, “I wish for no other connection than that of friendship (818)”. Foster emphasizes the effects that marriage can have on friendship though her letter to Lucy Freeman about marriage where she writes that, “Marriage is the tomb of friendship.” She explains that as soon as people get married they forget about their friends and turn all of their focus to their family. Throughout this novel Foster shows that there can be successful marriages and uses the Richmans as an example as well as Eliza’s friends

(897)”He has manipulated Eliza into sleeping with him. Foster uses this text to show that Eliza has finally given into his Major Sanford’s seductive ways and has lost all virtue. Julia Granby, a friend of the family reveals that she saw Eliza sneaking around with a man who everyone know is Major Sanford. Eliza decides that rather than shame her mother and friends and be subject to the criticism of the community she will leave. Eliza understands that in choosing to ignore the advice of her friends, she is now paying the consequences, she asks Julia to, “preserve the remembrance of her former virtues” (908) after she