User:Sandeep Banwait/sandbox


 * Author of the article “Marriage, Coverture, and the Companionate Ideal in The Coquette and Dorval,” Karen A. Weyler turns the pages of history all the way to the year 1797 to interpret and analyze the work of Hannah W. Foster, in her famous novel The Coquette, also known as The History of Eliza Wharton. Weyler’s article challenges the question of what exactly the role women held, their worth and value to others, at that time in society. In analyzing and finding the answers to her questions, Weyler sets out to investigate through certain indications and topics Foster brings about in her famous novel, The Coquette.
 * In interpreting and unwinding the novel, Weyler states that The Coquette portrays the classic plot of romance and tragedy between Eliza, Rev. Boyer and Major Sanford, but it also shines a light on certain issues that were starting to arise in that time in society. Since the novel takes place in a male dominant society, where women hardly played much of a role Foster made sure to write and talk about certain issues that many women, like herself were facing; marriage and coverture. Weyler explains that through certain indications we realize that The Coquette highlights many topics such as the importance of marriage, the negative influence and misuse of coverture and lastly the value of a woman being nothing without a man. She breaks it down and explains how one will never or hardly ever read a novel based on a single woman or even skim through a mention of a single woman being content, independent and positively looked upon in the that time and age. Instead the society was shown to portray women as being part of a business partnership or merger and less based upon ones personal inclination. As Weyler writes in her article, marriage was seen as a contractual and public event and it was merely seen to be a political, legal, religious and most particularly, economic status. With marriage, women were given no power over the assets they brought with them, instead under coverture the men legally held ownership of everything given. Not only were the roles of women slim to none, whatever the women brought with them or owned afterwards will never be there’s, because legally its under there husband’s name. Weyler goes further into explaining how these issues were the core obstacles in Foster’s Coquette and the means for Major Sanford and Eliza’s tragedy.
 * After answering her questions, Weyler concludes her article by mentioning that without the existence of certain topics (coverture and marriage) The Coquette could have ended in a different way, then Foster had choose for it to. The two key factors that could have changed The Coquette in a whole different direction, it seems like they were also very much the causes for why the novel ended the way it did. Weyler closes her article in saying that these issues were very much real obstacles many women were dealing with in that point of history, the readers come to understand that The Coquette isn’t just a novel it’s an unfortunate insight to many woman's harsh realities.Sandeep Banwait (talk) 04:13, 29 October 2012 (UTC)Sandeep Banwait