The late 18th century is at the height of radical changes in ideology, industrial boom, and scientific progress for the Western world. Rapid changes and a growing middle class are expanding the audience for books on conduct. As more and more people were economically secure and had access to education, more women had to look to the nobles as an example to follow. The emphasis of etiquette in polite English society serves as an indicator of how gender roles have been socially constructed. Increasing numbers of educated women meant fledgling feminist ideas. Eliza Haywood, one of the first writers of Amatory Fiction, stories of romance and sexual love, writes Fantomina; or Love in a Maze from 1725, in which the protagonist goes to great lengths to repeatedly seduce the same man. The young woman is Haywood's way of reclaiming the trope of the disgraced or persecuted maiden so often used in Restoration fiction. The clever choices of disguises chosen by a morally condemnable heroine allow conservative audiences to suspend disbelief and be delighted by her antics. The role of these adopted distinctives reflects how budding feminist ideas in 18th-century England had to present themselves so as not to alienate a conservative audience. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay Fantomina is, in essence, a tale of sentient experience. The heroine, whose identity is never revealed but is introduced as "A young woman of distinguished birth, beauty, wit and spirit", is constructed as an ingenious mind but defined by her body. Unlike men, whose virtue was represented by their role in the public sphere, women's role was to produce children, thus limiting their "value" to the private sphere. The virtue of the female sex was determined solely by her body, and therefore women were expected to keep it chaste. Conduct books would often advise women to remain modest so as not to appear masculine. In each of her disguises, the heroine maintains a certain air of passivity and even submission as she actively pursues Beauplaisir. She reverses the roles of active seduction while always maintaining a lower position, making the man believe that he is the one courting her. Furthermore, women were also considered the more emotionally unstable sex, requiring them to be more closely protected from their passions. Spontaneous or improper conduct would undoubtedly lead to a woman's reputation being tarnished, and Haywood does not let her passionate protagonist act without consequences forever. She constructs the narrative in a way that would allow her nameless lady to embody the different profiles of single women, who would have varying degrees of freedom in eighteenth-century England. The protagonist, first of all, goes beyond the limits of decency by posing as a prostitute who she rightly calls Fantomina. She chooses to pose as a prostitute in the Playhouse pit to have the freedom to interact with men. Beauplaisir gets his attention and they end up alone. This act is sure to cause a stir among the upper-middle class and aristocracy of the time, yet she manages to somewhat maintain her innocence at first, resisting Beauplaisir's advances. His reaction is emotionally instinctive, as Fantomina, realizing that she has lost her honor, breaks down and cries. He may have taken away her innocence, but the fact that she fights him suggests that she isn't completely morally bankrupt. This keeps the audience entertained but not disconnected from.