“Reason itself supports me”: Violenta’s Voice of Reason in Delarivier Manley’s “The Wife’s Resentment” (1722)
In “The Wife’s Resentment” (1722), Delarivier Manley portrays the consequences of betrayal, being driven by pleasure, and revenge, all as part of a collection called “The Power of Love”. Powerful it is. In this novel, Seignior Roderigo, Knight of Valencia, is depicted as a lover of leisure. He is first described as a man “devoted to his pleasures” (1), and it is made known that he was not fond of studies, but of “[walking] up and down the city, wasting his youth in trifles, music, masquerades, courting of ladies”, the latter of his habits being the most relevant to us. Roderigo is said to not know what it is to love, and to see the courting of ladies as a conquest, and to have no regard for them. After he meets Violenta, who is said to have "more wit than all the women of Valencia", he falls helplessly in love for her. Violenta is depicted as a rational and virtuous young woman, while Roderigo’s driving force is pleasure. This defies the previous belief that women were more emotional and irrational than men, which had been put to question by the culture of sensibility that prevailed in the Eighteenth Century (Rabin, 62). I will analyze how Violenta’s dialogue allows us to see that, after all, she is the voice of reason in this text.
Although self-control was the measure of a rational man, the man in this story has none. As Dana Y. Rabin puts it, “The rational man – and in this case the gendered language is quite precise –responded to ‘appetites’ and ‘fancies’ with self-control. In the face of displacement by passion and the possibility of insanity, Shaftesbury defined the true self as the one in full control of itself and those characteristics that could displace it.”(66) How interesting it seems, then, that Roderigo is the one who truly cannot control his emotions about Violenta… and later, about Aurelia. On the contrary, Violenta is smart and firm in her beliefs. One of her letters to Roderigo reads “My Lord, Your person is handsome, your present very well, your letter is witty and extraordinarily' well writ; but what are all these accomplishments to a virgin that values nothing but virtue?” (2) Violenta questions what good is anything Roderigo can give her, if they are not married? After all, she is a very smart young woman who wants to preserve her virtue, and no amount of letters will change that.
Throughout the story, it is evident when they interact that Violenta is smarter than Roderigo. But after Roderigo tricks her into a false marriage, and then marries another woman, named Aurelia, Violenta seems to lose all reason and turns to murder, but this is not the case. When Ianthe, her maid, suggests talking about the issue with Roderigo, Violenta answers: “No! no, Ianthe!" said Violenta, "those are light and small offenses that we can be reasoned out of the sense of; what Roderigo had commited against me, Reason itself supports me in my desire of vengeance! And should my heart give way to any other thoughts, I would with my own hands divide it from this wretched body!” (8) Violenta is aware that she could be reasoned out of her rage as much as she reasons herself and Ianthe into commiting murder. She remains a wicked sort of voice of reason because, although she convinces Ianthe to aid her in killing Roderigo, she makes sure that Ianthe is completely free of any possible incrimination. Even in the throes of murder, Violenta is extremely eloquent and her reasoning is made clear: as she rips Roderigo's tongue out, she says "Oh, perjured and abominable tongue! false and cruel as thou wed, how many lies didst thou tell, before with the chain-shoe of this cursed member, thou could'st make a breach to overthrow my honor?" (11) We can see that her rage is caused by Roderigo fooling her, an offense not only to her honor and reputation but also to her wit. When she confesses to her crime, she recounts the events without hesitation, warns other young girls about the betrayal of their honor, and even begs to be condemned to death, for she “[holds] [herself] unworthy to live, after being stained with blood; though that blood was shed to wash away [her] stain (12). Even in her final words, Violenta is careful to explain herself and make her motives clear, and warn others so they do not end up like her; in other words, she knows that what she did was necessary (for her) but not right, to put it that way.
To sum up, Violenta’s dialogue in “The Wife’s Resentment” lets us see that all throughout the story, even in the middle of murdering the man who betrayed her, Violenta remains rational. This is not to justify the murder, but to point out how, even in her trial, she does not plead to being judged as having been in an altered state of mind. No emotion is wild enough for her to justify killing whom she once thought to be her husband and she makes it clear. Through Violenta’s dialogue, Manley portrays an image of reason and thought, and through Roderigo, the polar opposite. At first, this depiction can be thought to confirm the idea that women are emotional while men are rational, but as we have seen, it is truly the opposite way around.
Works cited:
Manley, Delarivier. “The Wives Resentment”. The Power of Love. 1722. PDF.
Rabin, Dana Y. "Old Excuses, New Meanings: 'Temporary Phrenzy,' Necessity, Passion and Compulsion". Identity, Crime, and Legal Responsibility in Eighteenth-Century England. Palgrave Macmillan, 2004, pp. 61-94.
