American Embassy Letters Analysis

Daniel Defoe and Lady Mary Montagu are two 18th century authors who stand out during their time, because they challenged its ideologies and introduced revolutionary ideas through their writing. Two of their most famous texts, Defoe’s Roxana and Lady Mary’s Turkish Embassy Letters are exemplary of their differences from others 18th century’s authors. Roxana is a fictional story in prose, while Turkish Embassy Letters are real letters written by Lady Mary during her stay in Turkey, put together after her death. Their writing style makes them already distinctive among others, since it was considered unusual and problematic to write something other than poetry during their time. They also go beyond showing something, and they produce a meaning

Her womanhood allows her to have an inside look at the ‘secret’ world of Turkish women, which strengthens her arguments. She has the sight male authors were missing: a female sight. With this distance she takes from the Western male authors she challenges her European 18th century society. She speaks highly of a foreign culture and country, which was very unusual for a travel writer to do, let alone for a woman to do. Lady Mary’s discussion around the veil, and the beauty of Turkish women takes her praising even further and makes her challenge even more her own society. She not only fights for women’s liberty, she uses unfamiliar concepts to strength her defence. Roxana and Turkish Embassy Letters can therefore be compared on a level of the ideas they defend. Both texts discuss gender equality, by arguing that women should have the same possibilities men have, and should be able to choose what they really want. In Roxana’s case, she wants to remain unmarried, in order to keep her freedom, whereas Lady Mary claims the veil allows Oriental women to have the liberty to do what they want. While they defend women’s liberty through different elements, marriage and the veil, they have a common point to their approach of the subject: both women put on a masculine persona when discussing the issue. ‘[S]eeing Liberty seem’d to be the Men’s Property, I would be a Man-Woman; for as I was born free, I woul’d die so’ (171). Roxana describes herself as Man-Woman, she assumes her masculine role because it is the only way she is allowed to keep her freedom. Lady Mary also assumes a masculine role, but unlike Roxana she does not assume it so openly. Her masculine persona is done through her writing by questioning and