84 The Colonial and Revolutionary Periodsstory of Eliza Warton,” the novel concludes, “let the American fair learn to reject
with disdain every insinuation derogatory to their true dignity and honor. ... To
associate is to approve; to approve is to be betrayed!” That may be one thematic level
of The Coquette. But another, slyly subverting it, is Eliza’s quest for freedom: her
clearsighted recognition of what marriage entails for most women, given the laws
and customs of the day, and her ardent longing for what she calls “opportunity,
unbiassed by opinion, to gratify my disposition.” On this level, The Coquette charts
the difference between what women want and what they are likely to get. In the pro-
cess, it poses a question to be explored more openly and fundamentally in many
later American narratives: is it possible for an individual to remain free in society or
to survive outside it?
Social questions about the new American republic were at the center of another
significant prose narrative of this period, Modern Chivalry by Hugh Henry
Brackenridge (1746–1816). Published in instalments between 1792 and 1815,
Modern Chivalry was later described by Henry Adams as “a more thoroughly
American book than any written before 1833.” Its American character does not
spring from its narrative structure, however, which is picaresque and clearly bor-
rowed from the Spanish author Cervantes, but from its location and themes. The
book is set in rural Pennsylvania and offers the first extended portrait of backwoods
life in American fiction. Its two central characters are Captain John Farrago and his
Irish servant Teague O’Regan, American versions of Don Quixote and Sancho Panza.
And, as they travel around, their adventures provide an occasion for satirizing the
manners of post-Revolutionary America. Farrago is a rather stuffy, aristocratic
landowner, but narrative sympathy tends to be with him, or at least with his politics,
since he is presented as an intelligent democrat, part Jeffersonian and part
independent, inclining to the ideas of Thomas Paine. O’Regan, on the other hand, is
portrayed as a knave and a fool, whose extraordinary self-assurance stems from his
ignorance. At every stage of their journey, the two men meet some foolish group that
admires O’Regan and offers him opportunities – as preacher, Indian treaty maker,
potential husband for a genteel young lady – for which he is totally unequipped. The
captain then has to invent excuses to stop such honors being bestowed on his serv-
ant; and each adventure is followed by a chapter of reflection on the uses and abuses
of democracy. The satirical edge of Modern Chivalry anticipates the later
Southwestern humorists. The disquisitions on democracy, in turn, reflect debates
occurring at the time over the possible direction of the American republic. A notable
contribution to these debates were the series of essays now called the Federalist
papers (1787–1788) written by Alexander Hamilton (1757–1804), John Jay (1745–
1829), and James Madison (1751–1836). The authors of these essays argued that,
since people were “ambitious, vindictive, and rapacious,” a strong central govern-
ment was required to control “factions and convulsions.” Furthermore, Madison
(who was, in fact, a friend of Brackenridge) insisted that, in order to control faction
without forfeiting liberty, it was necessary to elect men “whose wisdom,” as Madison
put it, “may best discern the true interests of their country, and whose patriotism
and love of justice, will be least likely to sacrifice it to temporary or partialGGray_c01.indd 84ray_c 01 .indd 84 8 8/1/2011 7:54:57 AM/ 1 / 2011 7 : 54 : 57 AM