100 pages • 3 hours read
The Coquette
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During Reading
Reading Questions & Paired Texts
Reading Check and Short Answer Questions on key points are designed for guided reading assignments, in-class review, formative assessment, quizzes, and more.
LETTERS 1-3
Reading Check
1. Who are the friends that Eliza goes to stay with in New Haven?
Short Answer
Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.
1. How does Eliza feel about the death of her fiancé?
2. What traits does John Boyer possess that the high society Eliza lives in approves of?
LETTERS 4-9
Reading Check
1. Who writes the first letter not written by Eliza (Letter 4)?
Short Answer
Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.
1. After Sanford asks her to the ball, what difference does Eliza notice between Mrs. Richman’s attitude toward Sanford and Mrs. Sanford’s attitude toward Boyer?
2. In his letter to Deighton, what excuse does Sanford offer for plotting to seduce Eliza?
LETTERS 10-13
Reading Check
1. What does Sanford compare to a “noose” in his letter to Deighton? (Letter 11)
Short Answer
Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.
1. What does Eliza’s letter about the dinner at the Laurences’ estate reveal about her conflicting feelings toward Sanford?
2. What advice does Lucy offer Eliza about the two men Eliza is trying to choose between?
Paired Resource
- This article from the American Battlefield Trust discusses the changing role of women during the American Revolution.
- This resource relates to the theme of Republican Womanhood, Wifehood, and Motherhood.
- What conflicts existed in post-Revolutionary America regarding the role of women? How does Eliza’s drive toward independence relate to the post-Revolutionary conflict over gender roles?
LETTERS 14-18
Reading Check
1. What does Lucy tell Eliza she has heard Sanford is going to buy?
Short Answer
Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.
1. In the garden, what reasons does Eliza give Boyer for refusing his proposal?
2. What intentions toward Eliza and Nancy does Sanford reveal in his letter to Deighton?
LETTERS 19-22
Reading Check
1. In Boyer’s letter to Eliza, when does he say he will return to visit her?
Short Answer
Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.
1. What does Eliza mean when she tells Sanford that she is a “prisoner of friendship”? (Letter 19)
2. What advice does Eliza’s mother give her about how to find happiness in life?
LETTERS 23-28
Reading Check
1. In his letter to Deighton, what does Sanford say has generally attracted women to him in the past?
Short Answer
Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.
1. What does Selby observe about Eliza and Sanford after he first arrives at the Richmans’ estate?
2. How does Mrs. Richman react when she learns that Eliza is going to an event with Sanford?
Paired Resource
“18th Century Etiquette for Women”
- This article from Debrett’s explains key components of polite behavior for women in 18th-century society.
- This resource relates to the theme of Republican Womanhood, Wifehood, and Motherhood.
- How do etiquette expectations for women place Eliza at a disadvantage in dealing with Sanford and Selby? What point is Foster making by including these expectations in her narrative?
LETTERS 29-36
Reading Check
1. In her letter recounting Sanford’s arrival in Hartford, whom does Lucy reveal Sanford has paid a call on?
Short Answer
Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.
1. In the letter that Eliza sends Lucy following Sanford’s departure from New Haven, what evidence is there that Eliza’s thinking about her romantic attachments is changing?
2. How does Eliza’s behavior at the ball indicate that she may not have changed as much as she needs to in order to be a suitable wife to Boyer?
LETTERS 37-41
Reading Check
1. What does Eliza’s mother keep from her and then finally hand over after Eliza returns from visiting a friend with Boyer?
Short Answer
Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.
1. How does Sanford’s letter to Deighton demonstrate that Sanford’s attitude toward Eliza has both changed and not changed?
2. What ultimately causes Boyer to break off his relationship with Eliza?
LETTERS 42-48
Reading Check
1. To whom does Boyer become engaged?
Short Answer
Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.
1. How does Sanford’s attitude toward Eliza change again after Boyer breaks off his and Eliza’s relationship?
2. In her letter to Lucy, what lesson does Eliza say she has learned from losing Boyer’s regard?
Paired Resource
“Illustrating Victorian Womanhood”
- This resource from Painting Poetry explores the connections between Victorian poetry and art that depict the idealized and the feared in constructions of womanhood.
- This resource relates to the themes of Virginity; Republican Womanhood, Wifehood, and Motherhood; and Guilt and Illness.
- What were the dominant perspectives on women during the Victorian period? How long after Foster wrote The Coquette did this period begin, and where is there evidence in the story that these views of womanhood are already emerging?
LETTERS 49-54
Reading Check
1. Who is the mutual friend of Eliza and Julia who arrives in Hartford for a visit?
Short Answer
Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.
1. What advice does Lucy give Eliza about how to move forward?
2. What does Sanford’s letter to Deighton make clear about Julia’s hopes regarding Sanford’s marriage?
LETTERS 55-61
Reading Check
1. What favor does Sanford ask Eliza to grant him that Eliza initially refuses?
Short Answer
Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.
1. After Eliza backs out of the proposed visit to Boston, what beliefs does Eliza express to Lucy about her relationship with the Sanfords?
2. When she calls on Nancy Sanford, what does Julia learn about the tea at the neighbors’ house, and what conclusion does she reach about this information?
LETTERS 62-69
Reading Check
1. What tragedy befalls the Richmans?
Short Answer
Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.
1. When Julia first returns to Hartford after her long absence, what does she learn about Eliza’s emotional state?
2. What is Mrs. Wharton’s reaction when she finds that Eliza has left her home?
Paired Resources
- This article from Samson Historical explains 18th-century customs regarding marriage, focusing on the ways attitudes toward female chastity varied over time and by social class.
- This resource relates to the themes of Virginity; Republican Womanhood, Wifehood, and Motherhood; and Guilt and Illness.
- What role might seduction novels have played in either undermining or reaffirming traditional 18th-century beliefs? How does the information this article impact your understanding of Eliza’s situation now that she has consummated her relationship with Sanford?
“The Mysterious Life of Elizabeth Whitman”
- This article profiles Elizabeth Whitman, the woman on whose life Foster based The Coquette. (Note: The ending of Whitman’s life gives away events in Eliza’s story that students have not yet encountered; you may wish to hold this resource until after students have finished the novel.)
- What are the similarities between Whitman’s life and Eliza’s? Does Foster’s portrayal of Eliza demonstrate respect for Elizabeth Whitman? Why or why not?
LETTERS 70-74
Reading Check
1. In what town does Eliza die?
Short Answer
Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.
1. What is Sanford’s ultimate fate?
2. What memorial to Eliza does Lucy provide?
Recommended Next Reads
Charlotte Temple by Susanna Haswell Rowson
- Rowson’s classic seduction novel, one of the most popular examples of the genre in the late 18th century, follows the eponymous heroine Charlotte Temple as she is seduced and disgraced.
- Shared themes include Virginity; Republican Womanhood, Wifehood, and Motherhood; and Guilt and Illness.
- Shared topics include seduction novels, sentimental novels, 18th century American fiction, morality, social and gender norms, and double standards and their impact on women.
- Charlotte Temple on SuperSummary
The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne
- Written in the 19th century, The Scarlet Letter re-examines and subverts the tropes of the seduction novel as it relates the seduction, disgrace, and redemption of its heroine, Hester Prynne.
- Shared themes include Virginity and Guilt and Illness.
- Shared topics include early American literature, the meaning of American womanhood, morality, social and gender norms, and double standards and their impact on women.
- The Scarlet Letter on SuperSummary
The Awakening by Kate Chopin
- Chopin counters the assumptions about women that underpin the traditional seduction novel as she tells the story of Edna Pontellier, whose extramarital affair awakens her to the possibilities of life outside the roles of wife and mother.
- Shared themes include Republican Womanhood, Wifehood, and Motherhood and Guilt and Illness.
- Shared topics include early American literature, morality, social and gender norms, and double standards and their impact on women.
- The Awakening on SuperSummary
Reading Questions Answer Key
LETTERS 1-3
Reading Check
1. The Richmans (Letter 2)
Short Answer
1. Although Eliza respected Mr. Haly, she did not really love him; she only agreed to marry him because her mother wished it. Now that he is dead, she does not feel the deep sadness she is expected to display and is irritated by the obligations of mourning. (Letter 1)
2. Boyer is a clergyman with a university education and is about to secure his own parish. He has excellent manners; the attention he pays to Eliza is polite and well within acceptable social boundaries. (Letter 3)
LETTERS 4-9
Reading Check
1. John Boyer (Letter 4)
Short Answer
1. Eliza realizes that Mrs. Richman is trying to promote the match between Eliza and Boyer, signaling her complete approval of the man. When Sanford enters Eliza’s life, however, Eliza notes a new coldness in Mrs. Richman’s attitude and correctly surmises that her friend disapproves of Sanford. (Letters 5-6)
2. Sanford claims that Eliza seems like a “coquette,” and since he believes that flirtatious women are carelessly playing with men’s hearts, he feels justified in pursuing her in a way that might harm her socially because this will be a just punishment. (Letter 8)
LETTERS 10-13
Reading Check
1. Marriage (Letter 11)
Short Answer
1. Despite the fact that Eliza intends to break off her association with Sanford and clearly understands that he is trying to manipulate her, she is still susceptible to his charms because he is handsome, powerful, and polished. (Letter 10)
2. Lucy explicitly tells Eliza that Sanford is immoral and that Boyer is a better choice. She acknowledges that Boyer cannot offer the high-society pleasures that Sanford can offer, but she points out that Boyer is reliable and can offer Eliza solid, respectable security in life. (Letter 13)
LETTERS 14-18
Reading Check
1. A house in Eliza’s hometown, Hartford (Letter 15)
Short Answer
1. Eliza tells him that it is not that she doesn’t like him, but that she doesn’t yet want to marry; she is young and unsure of herself, and she wants to continue to enjoy her present freedom a while longer. (Letter 14)
2. Sanford plans to court Nancy with the intention of marrying her for her father’s money. He plans to continue his pursuit of Eliza as well, but only for the sexual conquest since he views it as an amusing challenge to wrest her away from Boyer. (Letter 18)
LETTERS 19-22
Reading Check
1. In two weeks (Letter 22)
Short Answer
1. Eliza is referring to her friendship with the Richmans, and she means that she is constrained by their ideas of what is right and wrong and thus not free to pursue a friendship with Sanford. (Letter 19)
2. Mrs. Wharton advises her daughter that happiness is something people choose to create for themselves by valuing their own role in society; it is not, as Eliza thinks, dependent on circumstances. (Letter 21)
LETTERS 23-28
Reading Check
1. The possibility of reforming him (Letter 28)
Short Answer
1. Selby sees that Eliza is maintaining a friendship with Sanford; from his perspective, she is being flirtatious. He sees that Sanford takes a great deal of interest in Eliza’s correspondence with Boyer and watches her movements closely. (Letter 23)
2. Mrs. Richman warns Eliza again that Sanford intends to ruin her and reiterates her belief that if Eliza were reasonable, she would accept Boyer’s proposal. She also accuses Eliza of leading Boyer on. (Letter 27)
LETTERS 29-36
Reading Check
1. Eliza’s mother (Letter 31)
Short Answer
1. Eliza recounts having definitively broken off her attachment to Sanford and suggests that she sees him clearly when she comments that Nancy seems “taken in” by the man. There is even a suggestion that her views on marriage—and, by extension, Mr. Boyer—may be changing when she describes her respect for the Richmans’ marriage. (Letter 30)
2. Even though Eliza believes that she has become more serious and writes very positively about Boyer to Mrs. Richman, she ignores Boyer at the ball because he seems dull compared to her surroundings—and she even dances with Sanford. (Letter 36)
LETTERS 37-41
Reading Check
1. A letter from Sanford (Letter 41)
Short Answer
1. Sanford’s letter indicates that the real possibility that he might lose Eliza to Boyer has clarified his thinking, and he now realizes that he is genuinely attached to Eliza and wishes he could marry her. His feelings for her, however, are still not enough for him to actually offer marriage, as she does not have the financial resources to rescue him from his debts. (Letter 37)
2. Eliza’s relationship with Sanford has become the focus of local gossip, and Boyer decides that he must confront her. Since he has already issued the ultimatum that she must choose between him and Sanford, when Boyer arrives and finds her alone in the garden with Sanford, this is the last straw, and he breaks off their connection. (Letter 40)
LETTERS 42-48
Reading Check
1. Maria Selby (Letter 47)
Short Answer
1. After he learns that he has successfully broken up Eliza and Boyer, Sanford immediately loses interest in Eliza because he feels revenged on her friends for their disapproval of him. (Letter 42)
2. Once she knows that she has permanently lost her relationship with Boyer, Eliza keenly feels the loss and realizes that sometimes it is only when we lose something that we understand its value. (Letter 44)
LETTERS 49-54
Reading Check
1. Julia Granby (Letter 50)
Short Answer
1. Lucy tells Eliza that now that her reason has returned, she should forget about her failed past romances and focus on finding a respectable match that will ensure her future happiness. (Letter 49)
2. Julia hopes that Sanford will marry because she believes that he will then stop pursuing Eliza. However, in his letter to Deighton after his marriage to Nancy, Sanford makes it clear that he intends to continue to pursue Eliza. (Letters 51, 54)
LETTERS 55-61
Reading Check
1. To be friends with his wife, Nancy (Letters 55, 57)
Short Answer
1. Eliza claims that Sanford and Nancy have become like siblings to her and that Sanford no longer views her in a romantic light. (Letter 59)
2. Julia learns that Nancy was not invited to this tea, and she surmises that Sanford only attended so that he could spend time with Eliza. (Letter 60)
LETTERS 62-69
Reading Check
1. They lose a child. (Letter 62)
Short Answer
1. Julia finds that Eliza is depressed and withdrawn, and she learns that Eliza rarely socializes now, unless it is with Sanford. (Letter 64)
2. Mrs. Wharton is distraught and wishes Eliza had remained at home, where Mrs. Wharton would be able to care for her during her pregnancy. (Letter 67)
LETTERS 70-74
Reading Check
1. Danvers (Letter 71)
Short Answer
1. Sanford loses his money, his reputation, his wife, his mistress, and both of his children. Disgraced and disgusted at his own shameful behavior, he decides to leave America in order to start over somewhere else. (Letter 72)
2. Lucy ensures that Eliza has a proper headstone and that it describes not her failings but her virtues. (Letter 74)
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