Grand Theft Chastity

In The Rambler, No. 4, Johnson writes that the novels of his time have the potential to corrupt young people because they reflect real life and can be read as highly instructional. He warns: “To this fatal error all those will contribute who confound the colors of right and wrong, and, instead of helping to settle their boundaries, mix them with so much art, that no common mind is able to disunite them.” Essentially, he see the novel the way people view music, movies and video games today: Powerful tools that must be monitored, lest they teach the young to venerate immorality.

The story of Fantomina by Eliza Haywood is a perfect example of what Swift fears will infest the minds of young people. The lady in the story has no regard for her own integrity or chastity. She doesn’t just lie; she lies in order to get a man to take advantage of her as many times as possible before he looses interest. In the end, neither the lascivious girl nor the womanizing man who has readily fallen for her deceptions are punished at all. The story never denounces the actions of either character and there is no discernible moral at the end. In fact, the only apparent judgment the narrative makes is to describe the “intrigue” as “full of variety.”

Personally, I can’t believe that Haywood’s story was even published at this time and I can see why Swift would be worried about its moral value. I feel like this type of story is equivalent to something like Grand Theft Auto (which I still worry about my younger brother playing) or the movie Scarface—where violence and stealing is glorified. It is definitely kind of scary to think that people use video games to kill animated cops and hookers for fun and that everyone loves to quote Al Pacino’s lines. However, I know that reading Fantomina did not make me want to dress up in different disguises and meet gentlemen, regardless of how clever and ingenious the female protagonist. I also know that no matter how many police cars my brother shoots at in Grand Theft Auto, he will still pull over if caught speeding in real life (hopefully).

(Grand Theft Auto)

Therefore, while Swift is perhaps correct that novels have more sway over our opinions than fairy tales, because “the power of example is so great,” yet I don’t think that he is seeing the bigger picture. The people reading these novels, just like people today, see both good and bad everywhere they look. The mixture of good and evil is what makes the novels believable and verisimilar. If novels (and videogames/TV/movies) praised only the moral and condemned only the wicked, they would be of no more use to us than fairy tales.