Towards The Awakening Of Women: On Eliza Haywood's View Of Marriage

As one of the most popular English women writers in the first half of 18th century, Eliza Haywood has published numerous works. In all her works, Haywood represents her concern to women's life, and pays her attention to their education. Haywood engages in a process that Mary Anne Schofield has identified as"double writing"(1985): using traditional form to conceal radical subtext. This thesis is focused on studying two of Haywood's fictions: Love in Excess and The Adventures of Miss Betsy Thoughtless, and tries to illustrate how Haywood instructs her women audience through her novels, and how she urges women to fight for their happy marital life in a patriarchal society. With the double writing as the main line, this thesis analyzes how Haywood, as a woman writer in 18th century, expresses her initial consciousness as a woman, and how she awakens the contemporary women via her novels.Firstly, Haywood's three part seduction novel, Love in Excess, is studied. The thesis presents that how Haywood suggests women should possess modest passion. Through analyzing various women characters that paid a price for excessive passion, the thesis divides these female characters into two categories: powerful women and submissive women. Since almost all powerful women have been punished while the submissive ones rewarded in the novel, the thesis concludes that Haywood advises her women audiences to maintain modest passion, which is a strategic move to success in marriage. In addition, Haywood's hidden message to women is that: since all violation behavior of patriarchal power will in due to be punished, women should rather pretend to obey all the rules to obtain trust from men in the hope of gaining and manipulating power later. Then, the thesis discusses the subversive point of view of Haywood on moral advice before marriage. The effect of moral advice on women is presented and questioned. Since moral advice cannot help women out of problems, women are suggested to build their own moral values: if rights are violated, women should fight to protect them; women are not slaves of men and they should have their own thoughts. At last, the thesis focuses on the heroine of Haywood's didactic novel, The Adventures of Miss Betsy Thoughtless (1751), and discusses the problems met by Miss Betsy in her marriage and provides a solution to problematic marriage. Haywood awakens her contemporary women by her novels, and her instructions and guidance make her an important voice in women's literary history and the creation of English novel.