19. Roxana by Daniel Defoe

And this is the third novel by Daniel Defoe that's recommended reading.  I hadn't read this before.  It was published in 1724 as The Fortunate Mistress.

Again, the story is told by the heroine.  Roxana is wickeder than Moll, I think, because she's motivated by greed and vanity more than survival.  But maybe it's understandable that after early poverty she wants the security of financial independence, and not to be dependent on someone else.  Eventually she has affairs with princes, enormous wealth and a doting husband but it doesn't bring her happiness, as she has to lie about her earlier life and is terrified of being discovered.

I was shocked by Roxana's lack of feeling for her children, whom she palms off to relatives.  The last part of the book is about the efforts of one of her daughters to get Roxana to admit she's her mother.  Is this the first example in literature of a stalker?  Roxana does eventually help her other surviving children, but this daughter is dealt with (the implication is she's murdered) by Roxana's maid and ally, Amy.

The relationship between Roxana and Amy is interesting.  Early on in the story Roxana corrupts Amy (by getting her to sleep with one of her husbands).  Is this because Roxana feels herself to be corrupt and wants to bring Amy down to her level?  Then Amy is her go between and trusted companion.  In the end Roxana drives Amy away (because Amy wants to kill her daughter and Roxana is revulsed) and Amy seems to have murdered the daughter anyway and then rejoined her.

The story ends very abruptly.  In the very last paragraph, Roxana and her husband arrive in Holland in flourishing circumstances, then Roxana and Amy fall "into a dreadful course of calamities ... The blast of Heaven seemed to follow the injury done the poor girl by us both, and I was brought so low again that my repentance seemed to be only the consequence of my misery, as my misery was of my crime". 

So it seems to me that Roxana contrasts with Robinson Crusoe.  He is selfish and ambitious, but through sufferings and insight is reformed.  She is wicked, and miserable, but her repentance is because of her misery - she lacks Robinson's insight.