I thought Haywood’s amatory short story ‘Fantomina’ was absolutely awful on a plot basis. It follows a young woman who isn’t even given the care to be named and only known as ‘The Lady’ as she takes up a multitude of disguises and identities to pursue the love of Beauplaisir. The plot was disgraceful however, as in taking on her initial disguise of the prostitute ‘Fantomina’, Beauplaisir rapes her and this only makes her desire him more for some reason. Beauplaisir is a man-slut and discards her when tired of her, so she only proceeds to create another disguise and follow him in order to remain making love to him, and he is willing to use and then discard of her for his own pleasure on multiple occasions, at one point even in two relationships with him at once. The lady is granted no agency and her own trait is an infatuation for Beauplaisir, who is presented as the ideal masculine hero but in reality an awful and extremely stupid man. I was appalled by the presentations of characters and gender in ‘Fantomina’ and how the complete wrong attitudes were elevated and praised - for goodness sake rape was rewarded as oppose to punished. It also just included random capitalisation of words and many an unfinished sentence that just made the reading experience more unpleasant. One of the greatest shocks was that I looked at some other reviews for Haywood’s story and many praise the lady for being “so fun” or a “girlboss”, which confused me a little as I really didn’t read her in such way but it seems to be the general consensus. Maybe I didn’t read it entirely correctly, but I lack any praise for this work and quite frankly hated it. Thankfully it was only a short story as oppose to a novel, because the plot could’ve been expanded upon far more, so many scenes are rushed but given how awful in plot and content they were I for once don’t regard such as a criticism. (this was rated 0.75)

I did however reread 2 days later in prep for my seminar as it its only really short, in the context of being wrapped in a blanket rather than the backstage of a theatre, and allowed myself to not judge only on the SA but appreciate how in some ways 'Fantomina' did come out of the story with agency and deceived Beauplaisir, her chasing of him alternatively being a pseudo act of revenge. Also post lecture her ending fate could be read as a gaining of agency rather than a punishment as I initially viewed it, though I think I still lean toward my initial interpretation. Being written by a woman about a woman making a predatory man seem foolish, it was revolutionary for its time (18th century) of which is commendable, though that being said the themes and plot just simply not being what I enjoy to read remains unchanged.