In Fantomina: Or Love In a Maze by Eliza Haywood, the main character moves through various gender roles and utilizes these different personas to explore and subvert the notion that a woman’s virtue is determined through her chastity. Haywood presents a critique of patriarchal society of the 18th century in which female identity is practically non-existent. Instead, women are displaced and overshadowed by the personas that they are forced to put on. A recurring theme in this novel or short story is female empowerment. The heroine understands the importance of performance and visuality in order to navigate a male dominated world. In this essay I will explore the different gender roles the heroine embodies. I will also explain how she embodies…show more content… Eliza Haywood’s unnamed heroine assumes four very different disguises throughout the course of the narrative. They include taking on the role of a prostitute, maid, widow and lady. The protagonist is a woman of high social standing and is fed up with the restrictions placed on her and other women of her social rank. In the 18th century women have little to no rights. Her social position she has many restrictions placed upon her. She is not allowed to carry out a conversation of any type with a person of the opposite sex, nor is she allowed to pursue them. After seeing Beauplaisir from her balcony for the first time, she becomes intrigued by him. The first role she takes on is that of a prostitute named Fantomina. As she changes her persona for the first time, she realizes that she has the power to change her appearance as she pleases and that in fact she is quite talented at doing so. She is driven by her curiosity and interest in Beauplaisir. Fantomina embodies this role by changing her clothes and offering her body in exchange for money. “As Fantomina changes character, she modifies her behaviors to align with his expectations.” (Anderson