Fantomina the Phantom

Fantomina, by Eliza Haywood, is a weirder story than most we have read in class. There is something odd about the main character in a way that makes me hope I never meet anyone like her. She is raped, then continues to put herself in situations that she is raped by the same guy. Many people would say she is more of a mentally ill patient with an obsession with this gentleman, but it also has some element of the infamous Stockholm Syndrome that people like to bring to the table. Stockholm Syndrome is when a victim of a crime (kidnapping, sexual abuse, etc.) ends up claiming that they love the perpetrator. To try and cope with the tragedies happening to them they try to act as though this is how life should be and that if they love the person and want to be with them it will no longer be an issue. Even though her story was not as tragic as many others you can read about, it is a valid theory nonetheless.

I do think part of what made this story so famous and popular was that she was forced to enter a monastary after all her games and adventures. People of this time were very quick to criticise the church and any stories of Nuns, what they were before or after their time, were easy to sell. This was one that critisizes the church while saying that the woman who become Nuns are being punished and must have done something horrible to deserve it.