Method of The Study
middle class family can go to school. The middle class girls must learn it for recommended as a future wife. They must learn basic skills such as reading,
dancing and singing. Roxana learns those girl‟s educations. With those
advantages, Roxana can appeal to aristocrat men. Roxana believes that her skills may bring her fortune and happy future life.
Roxana‟s educated characteristic somehow also influences her other characteristics. She studies well at school so that she turns to be critical. Murphy
states that a person‟s character in the novel can be revealed through what the
character thought . Roxana‟s critical way of thinking is expressed through her
argument against what her husband said. She cannot do anything except obeying what her husband has ordered.
Never ladies marry a fool, any husband rather that a fool, with some other husband you may be unhappy, but with a fool you will be miserable; with
another husband you may, I may be unhappy, but with a fool you must; nay, if he would, he cannot make you easy; everything he does is so
awkward, everything he says is so empty, a woman of any sense cannot be surfeited, and sick of him twenty times a-Day Defoe, 2000: 2
Roxana‟s critical way of thinking is the reflection of her dissatisfaction to her husband for unhappy marriage life and their gap of intelligence. Everything
her husband‟s say is right and the best. He does not care with his wife‟s opinion. It is true that
woman at that time is weakness because man‟s control. Though her husband is a conceited fool in managing his family business, he is dominant in the
family. This following quotation implicitly shows how Roxana criticizes him. First, and which, I must confess, is very insufferable, he was a conceited
fool, Tout oponiatre, everything he said, was right, was best and was the purpose Defoe, 2000: 3.
At that time, a man or husband has power to control the family. Everything a man says and orders, woman must obey it. In her opinion about her
husband is a kind of fool who is stubborn. She could not do anything except obeying and following what her husband has ordered though she does not agree.
Men‟s absolutism controls their family at that time. Roxana experiences man‟s absolutism in her marriage.
After she is abandoned by her husband, she is left penniless without choice and resigned to a life of poverty or death by starvation. She is afraid of her past
experienced to come back. Applying M.J. Murphy‟s theory states that
characteristics can be seen through the past life of the character 1972: 161. Roxana‟s reason for being Landlord‟s mistress is she cannot endure the misery of
life. This following quotation implicitly shows the proposal of the Landlord is one of her critical and logical reason to overcome her misery and poverty
But poverty was my Snare, dreadful Poverty The Misery I had been in, was great, such as would make the heart tremble at the apprehensions of
its return; and I might appeal to any that has had any experience of the world, whether one so entirely destitute as I was, of all manner of all helps,
or friends, either to support me or to assist me to support myself, could withstand the proposal; not that I plead this as a justification of my
conduct, but it may move the pity, even of those that abhor the crime Defoe, 2000: 18.
The statement above can be seen that Roxana is depressed because poverty. Roxana get a trauma with her marriage life. His husband can not give her
and the five children a good life. She has no choice because man‟s control. That‟s why she chooses to be a mistress of the Landlord to survive and fulfil her family
need.
Murphy stat es that a person‟s character in the novel can be revealed
through the reaction of the character. The author can also give the readers clue to a character by letting them know that character reacts to various situations and
events 1972: 162. Being the Lan dlord‟s mistress is a way of her survival. She
will have anything that her family needed. She can solve her problems. But if I should be a Wife, all I had then, was given up to the husband, and
I was thenceforth to be under his authority only; I had money enough, and needed not fear being what they call a cast-off mistress, so I had no need
to give him twenty thousand pounds to marry me, which had been buying my lodging too dear a great deal Defoe, 2000: 70.
From the statement above, it can be seen that she is smart in the way of thinking. She criticizes the life between a wife and a mistress. She stays comfort
to be a mistress. As a mistress she gets a freedom to manage her money. Roxana tries to explain her idea about the different between a mistress and
a wife. M.J. Murphy‟s theory states that characteristics can be seen through the
past life of the character 1972: 162. The past life can be shown through the direct comment of the character‟s thought. Roxana‟s smart characteristic is also
seen from the way she sees herself as a mistress instead of a wife. I had no inclination to be a wife again, I has had such bad luck with may
first husband, I hated the thoughts of it; I found that a wife is treated with indifference, a mistress
with strong passion; a wife is look‟d upon, as but an upper servant, a mistress is sovereign; a wife must give up all she has;
have every reverse makes be thought hard of it; and be upbraided with her very pin-money; whereas a mistress makes the saying true, that what the
man has, is hers, and what she has is her own; the wife bears a thousand insults, and is forced to sit still and bear it, or part and be undone; a
mistress insulted, helps herself immediately, and takes another Defoe, 2000: 145.