SOURCE: "Woman's Influence," in Studies in the Novel, Vol. XI, No. 1, Spring, 1979, pp. 3-22.

In the essay that follows, Backscheider examines some methods of influencing other people, particularly men, and bringing about change that female authors of early novels gave to their female characters.

The meaning and attainment of influence, power, and success frequently provide conflicts and themes for fiction. In spite of the fact that female writers were necessarily concerned with these concepts, that readers of novels were predominantly women, and that the issues of the Feminist Controversy remained alive throughout the eighteenth century, critics have paid little attention to a central problem for the heroine of many early English novels by women: discovering appropriate and effective ways to influence the men around her.

In Jane Barker's Love Intrigues, the heroine Galesia describes her girlhood experiences in order to divert a friend from the melancholy news of...