Response to Sheila's Perception of 18th Cent. Women

Sheila I understand exactly what you're saying about the women in these stories. They do seem a little air-headed for the choices of men they desire. The men also seem one dimensional in the way they treat women in these readings. However, you have to remember what the authors are doing as far as the mechanics of the stories. The authors are trying expose their messages through the actions of their characters. By Behn and Gay creating such characters shows us they probably have similar messages in their works. I think that you are on to something when you stated, "I have noticed a common theme of the "sweet" girls always falling for the asshole guys." I assume that it's no coincidence that this occurs in both pieces and I understand your obvious disliking of that aspect in both stories.

In your article you stated that the authors made you question eighteenth century women and I see your point, but I have to disagree. When writing, you really can only write about what you know. Therefore, maybe these two authors have this perception of women because of their personal experiences with women. What I'm saying is that just because these two wrote about air-headed women in the eighteenth century, doesn't mean it represents all women in the eighteenth century. A better analogy would be, if me and some random guy wrote two separate stories but they had one common theme, all the women are twenty five years old and they are money hungry, cut throat, liars. When students two hundred years from now read our stories, should they conclude that all twenty five year old women in our time were money hungry, cut throat, liars? Maybe just the twenty five year old women that we knew were money hungry, cut throat, liars. So it does make sense to definitely say there's something going on with the women's characters in these stories that suggests some type of shallow sense of romance but to generalize all the women of the century Is a bit harsh. But I did enjoy reading your blogs, I must add and I definitely respect your comments and points of view of the readings.