The Fantasy of Disclosure in The Faerie Queene: A Look at Misogyny and the Fear of Female Sexuality

In Edmund Spencer’s The Faerie Queene, fantasies are the clues to the substructures of the unconscious. In Book I, fantasies work to expose the “ulcers” that threaten to destabilize the magnanimity of the righteous Christian man. Spencer evokes the powerful use of images to disclose the idea that the abyss of female sexuality is a direct threat to the virtues of Protestantism. Two scenes in particular illustrate first, how females are viewed as the creators of sin, which leads to weakness in man, and secondly, how female sexuality is the primary source of misdirection for the heterosexual Christian male because it creates sexual desire and fantasy, which can lead him astray. In the first scene in which the fantasy of disclosure of the “ulcers” first occurs, Spenser depicts female reproduction and maternal functions as Errour, or “A monster vile, whom God and man does hate” (I.i.13). Additionally, Errour’s ability to breed is grotesque because the progeny she proliferates is emblematic of a never-ending cycle of deceit that continually seeks to subvert Protestant principles. In the second scene in which the fantasy of disclosure occurs, the exposure of Duessa’s hideous “neather parts” suggest that female sexuality is indeed fundamentally evil because it undermines Protestant ideology. Thus, the “ulcers” that Spencer discloses and identifies within an obscure second level reading of The Faerie Queene are those things that stand for the “Other.” The “Other” in this context represents women and the female capacity to create life, and inspire sexual desire in the heterosexual male. Therefore, through the lens of this ideology, the “Other” undermines the established order of Protestantism and its fantasy of rebirth in the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost (all males, of course). Interestingly enough, the anti-feminism exhibited in Book I is there right from the first depiction of courtly love between Redcrosse and Una. In stanza 10, Spenser illustrates a negative depiction of courtly love because its seductive power distracts Redcrosse, leads him astray, and
Commented [LG3]: Yes, it’s true that the Incarnation and Trinity are emphasized in protestant thought (vs. Marian veneration in Catholic tradition) Commented [LG2]: There’s a nice pun here, since “fundament” also means “bottom” or “nether parts”…. Which I suspect is what Spenser is driving at! Commented [LG1]: Good sense of the ideology of sexual reproduction here….

into Errour’s cave. However, what’s also at play is the fantasy that despite having many choices in life or “So many pathes,” the right path can only found through faith and Protestant ideology (I.i.10). Thus, this fantasy is disrupted when Redcrosse ends up in doubt, loses his wits, and cannot find his path. This is an important revelation in the narrative because it reveals that the beauty of female sexuality has led Redcrosse astray. And as a result, he is momentarily incapable of discerning or choosing the righteous path. Hence, the distraction of courtly love, and the “delight” he experiences in Una, causes Redcrosse to end up in Errour’s cave. In this way, it’s not surprising that the primary source of misdirection for Redcrosse is depicted as the blindness that female capacities incite. Furthermore, it also turns out that being led “stray,” means in the direction of the hideous dangers of female sexuality, the “darksome hole” of Errour’s cave where Redcrosse is almost strangled by her desperate embrace (I.i.14). However, I will first examine the encrypted fantasy that Redcrosse possesses in which he strongly believes that “Vertue gives herself light, for daknesse for to wade” and thus believes that by the nature of his faith he is capable of defeating any “hidden shade” (I.i.12). This fantasy or notion holds that Christian truth is the “light” that can defeat evil. Likewise, it holds that since Redcrosse has “Vertue,” he is infallible and indestructible. Hence, he also knows more than Una by simple fact that she is a mere woman. Thus, her warnings to temper his rashness fall upon deaf ears since there is a fantasy at play, which holds that Redcrosse possesses unyielding righteousness that should serve to protect him from all unseen evils. Also, what does she know since she is only a “Ladie milde”? Nonetheless, the fantasy is momentarily disrupted by the fact that despite having virtue, Redcrosse is full of pride and almost dies as a result of his own hubris. But, more importantly, this scene serves to exemplify the Protestant distrust of women and their faculties, which further emphasizes the Protestant fantasy of male supremacy over women.

This makes sense since Errour is “A monster vile, whom God and man does hate,” which in itself has two meanings. The first points to reading Errour as a symbol for false religion; e.g.: Catholicism. The second suggests that there is a subconscious fear of Errour’s ability to procreate without needing male capabilities. This latter reading suggests that female reproduction is dangerous because it’s viewed as a symbol for the creation of sin itself. After all, according to Protestant dogma, Eve- a woman was the vehicle by which man fell from the grace of God and into original sin. Hence, there is a Christian fantasy at work here; a desire to disclose or prove that the “darksome hole” in which Errour resides is also the womb that houses the hideous dangers of female sexuality that jeopardizes the Protestant fantasy of rebirth in man alone. Furthermore, the image of “A thousand yong ones” that Errour breeds asexually suggests that the monstrous mother gives birth to new errors, false religions and teachings, and her proliferation of sin is a continual threat to Protestant ideals. In other words, the religious tenets of Protestantism must ensure that female sexuality is continually misrecognized as a potential error that will lead Everyman astray. Unfortunately, this fantasy embodies the cultural intuition of misogyny that was the normative model of Elizabethan culture. Thus, the wounding of the female reputation by representing it as fundamentally evil ensured that women were kept marginalized and dehumanized, so that they where used as nothing more than vessels into which men could deposit their seed. This is why the narrative depicts that Errour is afraid of being exposed by the “glooming light” of Redcrosse (I.i.14). Instead, she “wont in desert daknesse to remaine, / Where plaine none might see her, nor she see any plaine” (I.i.16). Or is it that her exposure threatens to disclose the fantasy of the Protestant male derived rebirth, which could then destabilize the religious ideology? If so, Redcrosse’ immediate disposal of Errour is appropriate, and so is the monstrous cannibalism described in stanza 25 in which “Her scattered
Commented [LG8]: Nice use of rhetorical question. Commented [LG7]: Or radically idealized (as in Una’s case). Commented [LG6]: Yes! Commented [LG5]: This is very interesting: let’s push it even further. If your analogy works (and it does), then female sexuality would stand for a particular conception of the Christian “church” (often figured as female) in its degenerate and dangerous aspect – Roman Catholicism. “rebirth in man alone” would therefore signify a “church” freed from theological errors (the Other in spiritual terms) – that’s the reformist fantasy. Commented [LG4]: Interesting point.

brood, soone as their Parent deare / They saw so rudely falling to the ground…They flockéd all about her bleeding wound, / And sucked up their dying mothers blood, / Making her death their life, and eke her hurt their good.” This image of cannibalistic matricide depicts on a certain level a literal eating away at the future, which further compounds the misogynistic tension present in the text. What’s more, the brood then destroys itself due to lack of temperance, so for now the future threat of encountering error is eradicated. Thus, the Protestant fantasy of defeating evil through holiness prevails as the “Other” is exposed and destroyed. The second disturbing act of disclosure that I will discuss involves the portrayal found in Canto VIII, in which female sexuality is depicted as fundamentally evil. For example, Una as a symbol for Protestant truth mirrors the fantasy of the submissive and asexual feminine archetype that that religious ideology preserves. On the other hand, Duessa is portrayed as a secular symbol of female sexuality. As a result, the text suggests that Duessa’s sexuality embodies a dangerous type of agency and sexual prowess, which undermines the Protestant ideology that views Una as the ideal female exemplar. Thus, it is vitally important that Duessa’ hideous “neather parts” be disclosed so that the exposure of “the shame of all her kind” functions first, to uphold the delusional perceptions of Protestantism, and secondly, to further proliferate the fear towards female sexuality by portraying it as a radical evil that must be avoided, and held at bay. Thus, since Duessa is emblematic of the hideous dangers of female sexuality it makes sense that just prior to the actual moment in which she is disrobed, and her repugnant anatomy is exposed; she is further dehumanized and vilified through the image of her unnatural “dalliance” with the Gyant Orgoglio (I.viii.5). It’s obvious, that such an unnatural woman would be the lover of a monstrous male, and that her villainous sexual prowess would be the cause of Redcrosse’ misdirection. That is of course, until the Protestant fantasy is reanimated, and Redcrosse is pulled
Commented [LG9]: Terrific insight.

out of the “darksome hole” he is currently in by Arthur and Una, who represents Christian Truth. This is overtly demonstrated in the argument to canto viii: Faire virgin to redeem her deare Brings Arthur to the fight: Who slayes the Gyant, wounds the beast, and strips Duessa quight. The use of the word “quight” in conjunction with the act stripping underscores the Protestant ideological fantasy that Christian Truth is the only tool by which the many layers of deception can be disclosed. Moreover, the word “quight” anticipates the future of the narrative by foreshadowing that the “Faire virgin” or Una will “free, clear, rid1” the world of the falsehood that Duessa embodies. And while this is good for Protestantism, it compounds the cultural misogyny of the text by suggesting that women like Duessa, who possess sexual agency are false, must always be false since they cannot be faithful. After all, a pure asexual female is not capable of being false. This is due primarily to her inability to experience sexual desire or pleasure since her sexual capacities are solely utilized for creating progeny. Thus, in Una the fantasy of the “cuckold husband/man” does not exist. While in Duessa, this fantasy is a constant threat to the male ego, and so must be “quight.” For this reason, stanza 46 illustrates how Redcrosse is finally able to perceive Duessa’ ugliness once he is reunited with Una who represents Christian Truth. Again, there is a Protestant fantasy at work, which claims that clarity is obtainable only through the capacity of Holiness that results from the rebirth in a trinity composed exclusively of men. Hence, the desire is to ensure that Protestant ideology is upheld, and what better way to guarantee this notion, than by instilling fear and hatred towards the “Other” or that, which is already marginalized within society?
Commented [LG10]: Fine detail here.

1

Source for definition of the word “quight”: OED.

Nonetheless, the really unsettling aspect of the disrobing of Duessa is the fact that underneath all the superficial Protestant fantasies that seek to represent the individual as basically good and righteous, therein also lays a strong desire to expose the interiority of other individuals in order to judge and condemn them. After all, isn’t this what happens to Duessa? For instance, Duessa is “disaraid, / And robd of royall robes” (I.viii.45). Then, after being stripped naked, all her body parts are catalogued, described and assessed. This is ironic because in stanza 48 the narrator claims “My chaster Muse for shame doth blush to write.” Well, not really, since stanzas 46 through 47 provide very detailed, and graphic descriptions of Duessa’ hideous nature just before the narrator mentions the “neather” region of her body, which is the most monstrous of all, since it contains the working tools of her sexuality. Thus, what this reading of the text actually reveals is that Protestant ideology is only as strong, and can only survive when disclosure of the “Other” occurs in order to prevent the disclosure of itself. In other words, Protestant fantasies survive because their interiority is not revealed. This is the same principle by which Una remains robed while Duessa becomes exposed. Hence, by misdirecting the attention from itself, and projecting it unto something that already creates uneasiness enables Protestant ideology to maintain its foothold within the culture. Accordingly, this notion ties back to the ideology of vision itself in which things are misrecognized, misinterpreted, or recognized but nonetheless ignored. In this way, The Faerie Queene reveals how fantasy functions on many different levels, mainly however, to disclose the interiority of the “Other” because by “opening the greatest of wounds to expose the ulcers underneath,” fear is propagated within the culture. And, when fear dominates the society, the society is an unable to recognize the flawed ideology that is generating the fear itself. Moreover, Protestant ideology functions mainly trough fantasy because fantasies
Commented [LG11]: Brilliant point.

are boundless, timeless, and most importantly, they are representative of the inner-workings of the subconscious. Thus, when the subconscious harbors dark desire, and is ruled by fear, the perceptions outwardly projected represent delusions of the imagination that further complicated the ideologies of vision by concealing the true nature of people and things.

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Commented [LG12]: This is a superb essay. There are occasional glitches in the syntax and punctuation, but the argument is extremely well constructed and the reading of the text goes from strength to strength. The analysis of the mechanics of fantasy is finely – even ruthlessly rendered – and really captures the perversity of Sp’s normative allegory. Brilliant work. GRADE: A+