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Illusory Control: Female’s Sexuality and Male’s Fantasy in The Changeling
Chien-hang Liu
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DOI:10.17265/2159-5836/2018.09.002
Xinyang Normal University, Xinyang, China
Thomas Middleton and William Rowley’s The Changeling enacts an astonishment on the stage to the audience about the protagonist Beatrice-Joanna’s down fall—the noble lady being straightly encroached by her desire and being manipulated by the obscene servant De Flores, who, by means of rape, controls her body and finally destroys her. My article attempts to explore male’s expectations and their power over female’s sexuality with Jacques Lacan’s psychoanalytical approach. Moreover, it will elaborate that Beatrice-Joanna’s tragic outcome is not only contributed by her murder and moral degradations, but also, before her transgression being committed, her body has already been regulated by the patriarchal power in the Renaissance society—either she is valuable in the marriage market with her chastity or she is condemned by losing it. Also, the science of medicine employed to test virginity represents the male’s methodological hegemony and anxiety in facing the unknown of a female’s chastity. For the fantasy always regulating the male’s power structure over female’s body, the real manipulation over female sexuality is doomed to be an illusion.
fantasy, jouissance, sexuality, virginity/chastity
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