Research Paper on:
Narratives and Their Uses in Uncle Tom's Cabin, The Coquette, and Wieland

Unformatted Sample Text from the Research Paper:
the characters themselves) is central to the themes of the work and the readers interaction with the text. In The Coquette, for example, Foster uses the epistolatory form not only  to give the reader a deeper insight into the motivations and feelings of the characters but also to imbue the text with a greater depth of realism than would have  possible had she used a different structure: the events in the narrative are presented as reality thinly disguised as fiction, and by casting these events in a form which allows  the reader to see them through the eyes of the protagonists, Foster interweaves the use of language with the societal and moral codes of the day.  The novel was highly popular in its day, and various commentators have  pointed out that it evidently struck a chord with its readership in a way that other contemporary works did not: if we assume that the interaction of the reader with  the text is a vital element in the popularity of the text, it is evident that there was much in The Coquette for the reader to identify with. The narrative  deals with the concepts of virtue, and with womens attempts to transcend the social and cultural mores which restricted their independence and confined them to a series of extremely limited  life-choices: much of the discourse within the text speaks overtly of virtue and the need to conform to virtuous moral codes, but at almost every turn we see Eliza contravening  such codes in her efforts to direct her life in a way which will be fulfilling and productive for her.