Ironic inversion in Eliza Haywood's fiction: fantomina and "The History of the Invisible Mistress"

This article contends that Fantomina can best be understood as an ironic inversion of “The History of the Invisible Mistress”, a Spanish nouvelle published as an interpolated tale in Paul Scarron's Le Roman Comique. Both works revolve around the efforts of a heroine to capture and hold the attention of a young man upon whom she has set her heart. The plot of both works concerns the successive disguises by which the heroines seek to test their heroes. But where Don Carlos, the hero of “The History of the Invisible Mistress”, remains chaste and faithful to his initial pledge, Beauplaisir, with whom Fantomina becomes sexually involved, displays the inconstancy of a roving libertine. Hence, where “The History of the Invisible Mistress” ends happily in marriage, Fantomina concludes with its heroine's pregnancy and exile in disgrace by her mother to a monastery in France. A comparison of the two texts affords a fascinating glimpse into Haywood's aims and strategies in Fantomina.