Escaping the Past: The moral intricacies of Roxana.
Daniel Defoe characterizes Roxana as a vain and immoral person. In the introduction of the text, the editor states the following: .
Roxana, like Moll Flanders, offers a morally much more complex story of making money by deception and harlotry. Roxana herself tells the reader in passage after passage that she repents her history of whoring, theft, false pretences and veniality, but this does not stop her rejoicing in the amount of money she has gained from her immoral activity. (Clark, xxix).
Roxana is the prominent character in this text. She merely surpasses all the other characters that seem to be no more than pieces of setting within the text. She overshadows all, even Amy. At the beginning of the story, Roxana, our main devilish character, marries a "fool."" This marriage is only the beginning of bad decisions that are made on Roxana's part. These strings of bad decisions are the effects that snowball throughout the text. .
For example, every time she makes a bad decision, she ends up with another child. Though Roxana had abandoned her children from her first marriage, she continues to bear them with multiple lovers. She could not even begin to take care of her first few children during her most lonesome and low point, yet she continued to consummate her love with many man there after. She was even well to do and far from any means of helplessness when she continued to bear children that she simply could not take care of on her own. .
Along with bad decision-making, Roxana has not ethical conduct. She allowed for Amy, her house servant, to sleep with the same man that Roxana herself was sleeping with. She saw no shame in the idea. In fact, she allowed Amy to sleep with the landlord until she was pregnant. Roxana said, " I called Amy, and encourag'd her too, and told her, that I wou'd take Care of the Child and her too- (44). This is sufficient support to the idea that Roxana has no motherly instincts.
