ABSTRACT
The story of Roxana is that of a beautiful woman who made just such a fatal choice; she scorns the comforts and virtues of middleclass respectability to become a courtesan to the wealthy and the titled. Although in the telling of her adventures and misadventures distinctive themes from Moll Flanders come into play, there are nevertheless many congruences, not least in her addiction to the accumulation of wealth. Roxana in her fifties is depicted by Daniel Defoe contemplating the sick dynamic driving her to her own destruction; her avarice had contributed to her moral downfall, but she acknowledges that greed has not been the dominating motivation. In Defoe’s day “Roxana” had become the generic name for an oriental queen, suggesting ambition, wickedness and exoticism. In her regal display on that ostentatious occasion, Roxana earns her title but seals her own fate. She was to pay a heavy price for her self-indulgence.
