Moral Ambiguity in Aphra Behn's the History of the Nun

Many Restoration scholars would agree that The History of the Nun or, The Fair Vow-Breaker is among Aphra Behn's most neglected novellas. However, trying to find criticism of this work, one of Behn's last, is as difficult as finding the work itself. The History of the Nun is a compelling story and there is certainly much more that can be said about it, especially in feminist criticism. The History of the Nun should be given more attention because it reflects the human condition of moral and social ambiguity, especially the way women respond to situations in a society that is insensitive to their needs and desires.

The moral ambiguity in The History of the Nun reflects the moral ambiguity of Isabella's and Behn's society. For example, the opening paragraph is an indictment against the way male vow-breakers are overlooked, but female vow-breakers are sorely punished. The narrator proves the error in this double standard by claiming that, in Heaven, the making and breaking of vows is given ultimate priority and should not, therefore, be taken lightly by anyone.

But since breaking vows seems to be an inescapable human foible, we must be equitable in our judgements against vow-breakers. In Isabella's case, her dishonesty is justified insofar as male philandering is justified in her society, "What man that does not boast of the numbers he has thus ruined, and who does not glory in the shameful triumph? Nay, what woman, almost, has not a pleasure in deceiving . . . ?" (139). In other words, men "fool around"; women lie. Since women are powerless to physically "undo" men in the phallogocentric sense, they have only cunning and deceit either to protect themselves or to pursue a hedonistic lifestyle comparable to that of many men. The narrator does not excuse Isabella or anyone else who breaks a vow, but suggests that as long as men are not expected to fulfil their vows, especially their marital vows, then neither should women be expected to keep their vows.

The narrator implies and many readers would assert that it is virtually impossible for Isabella to adhere to her society's unrealistically high moral standards because they are unfair and even hostile toward women. From a feminist standpoint, Isabella cannot be held accountable for her misdeeds because the codes of morality she is expected to conform to are not her own because they are foisted upon her by a male-dominated hegemony. In "Aphra Behn and the Female Plot," Ros Ballaster argues that it is this tension between absolutist morality and feminine pragmatism that drives the plot of The History of the Nun,

Behn's dramatization of the destructive effects of the confrontation between a concept of absolute moral justice, the inherent truth-telling capacities of the word, and the contingencies of political and social survival in the form of feminocentric tale of love constituted one of the major causes of her popularity as a fiction writer in the late seventeenth century. (193)

Behn and her narrator are not trying to challenge a male-dominated morality system as much as they are opposing a double standard. All members of a society, male and female, should be expected to live by the same moral code, whatever code that society has constructed for itself.

Implicit in this ambiguity is the ambiguity of genre. What kind of story is The History of the Nun? Why, for example, is Isabella not as easy to characterize as Oroonoko? Although there is ambiguity in Oroonoko's heroism, Isabella's heroism is even more vague and elusive. Although both do morally-questionable acts, such as murder their spouses, Oroonoko remains true to his society's moral code, while Isabella repeatedly disobeys the rules of her society even when she knows the consequences of her actions.

There are at least three ways to approach The History of the Nun and its hero[ine], Isabella. The "traditional" approach portrays Isabella as "a monstrous woman who breaks her sacred promises and who is then capable of any and every evil" (Craft 822). A more "feminist" approach claims that "Isabella is 'by Nature innocent' . . . , but she cannot resist the power of men and male-dominated institutions" (Pearson 51). A third approach is to consider both extremes simultaneously and try to place Isabella somewhere between guilt and innocence and the work somewhere between moral tale and social reform literature.

The reason this story has been so troubling is because what might have been a straightforward "woman's" tale of love and marriage becomes something far more complex and even sinister. So troubling is this ambiguity that, according to Jacqueline Pearson, Thomas Southern's and David Garrick's dramatic adaptations of the story significantly alter the moral atmosphere by characaturizing the "villains," especially the male characters, since it was unthinkable for a virtuous woman to become despicable unless oppressed and systematically abused by evil men.

The luxury of placing most of the blame on men, however, is not as easy to do in The History of the Nun. Men are often responsible for Isabella's misfortune, but only indirectly. Although Isabella's destiny is controlled by three men, her father, Henault, and Villenoys, they show no malice toward her, only perhaps stupidity and insensitivity. For example, de Vallary's (Isabella's father) initial transgression against his daughter is neglecting his responsibility to her as a father. In de Vallary's defence, however, fathers in Behn's time were not expected to be significant influences in their daughter's lives, except for whether and whom to marry. Although it may have seemed unfair for de Vallary to place Isabella into monastic life at such an early age, his own egocentrism may have insisted that Isabella would desire nothing more than to emulate her only living parent and choose a religious life over marriage and family. Isabella, therefore, unconsciously suppresses her own desires to conform to those of her father's.

Similarly, Henault's love for Isabella places her in an awkward position because she is then torn for her love for him and her vows to the church. Had Henault never confessed his love, Isabella might not have considered a future with him. When Henault returns after being supposed dead for several years, he might have known better than to expect his beautiful and allegedly virtuous wife not to have remarried, but, like Isabella's father, ego demands that Isabella's desires be his own.

Villenoy's pursuit of Isabella after the alleged death of Henault presumes that Isabella would want to remarry and that her desires for him would rekindle after first suppressing them for the convent and then for Henault. Isabella marries Villenoys because she feels she has little choice in availability (what the narrator calls "a bad market" (141)) and because she feels compelled to submit to Henault's wish never to return to the convent.

Ironically, in fact, it is because of these "loving" relationships that Isabella becomes a victim of the desires of the men she loves and they, in turn, become her victims. The nature of love, like that of morality is ambiguous and paradoxical. The love between a father and a daughter and between lovers should be healthy and nurturing to both parties, and, on the surface, Isabella's relationships appear to be so, yet these relationships are ultimately destructive.

What also undermines a feminist message is the fact that Isabella gets into the most trouble when she is "abandoned" by the men in her life: Isabella breaks her holy vows and forsakes the convent after her father dies; she becomes a bigamist and an adulteress with Villenoys after Henault leaves her for the battlefield and supposedly dies; she kills Henault while Villenoys is away on a hunting trip and kills Villenoys when Henault is dead. This series of mistakes suggests that Isabella is incapable of making wise choices without the help of male authority figures.

Although the narrator may challenge the morality codes of Isabella's world, Isabella herself does not. She does what she can to escape discovery and prosecution, but when the truth is revealed, she cooperates with the authorities and accepts her punishment without question or complaint. Pearson notes, "Isabella's capacity for guilt and her willingness to take full moral responsibility for her own actions are signs of her full human subjectivity" (237). To Isabella, there is no such thing as ambiguous morality; there is only right and wrong. Isabella's final acts are not to challenge or resist moral codes, but to reinforce them as she counsels young women never to break their vows as she had done.

The narrator's treatment of Isabella and her circumstances and actions often seems ambivalent. Jacqueline Pearson says, "[Behn's n]arrators are given to Freudian slips, unnoticed and unacknowledged self-contradiction, uncomfortable ambivalences, not fully articulated, about the tales they tell" (42). At times, the narrator seems as unsure about what to say about Isabella as the reader is to make judgments on her.

The narrator praises Isabella, not as one who resist the status quo, but as one who supports it: "She made a speech of half an hour long, so eloquent, so admirable a warning to the vow-breakers, that it was amazing to hear her, as it was to behold her" (190). But even in this praise, there is irony and ambiguity; the fact that the narrator is sure to mention her beauty might suggest that she considers Isabella's virtue, her inner beauty, as shallow as her physical, outer beauty.

Morality as it is characterized by Isabella's culture is put on trial and is often found to be inconsistent and unfair. In The History of the Nun, Isabella's morals are not so much being questioned as the nature of morality itself. Isabella must live up to societal norms, that of good nun or good wife; Isabella attempts to do both, but fails at both. I would dispute some critics' assertion that Isabella is heroic because she flouts a corrupt, male-dominated morality system. I would agree, however, that in many cases, Isabella is given few choices.

The final ambiguity I will consider is the novella's treatment of the Catholic Church. Again, we must consider the ambiguity of genre. Is The History of the Nun a treatise against Catholicism? Catherine Craft would argue that it is: "this story is built upon stereotypes of evil womanhood, particularly evil Roman Catholic womanhood" (822) and that it "joins a number of anti-Catholic works popular in England" (823) during that period.

Whether or not Behn was herself was Catholic is difficult to say as Gerald Duchovnay's essay "Aphra Behn's Religion" illustrates. For example, in the Epistle Dedicatory of the early copies of the 1688 edition of Oroonoko, Behn praises Lord Maitland for being "so great a Champion for the Catholick Church" (qtd in Duchovnay 236). The presses were stopped and these lines were removed by the compositor. Like Craft, Duchovnay cites the anti-Catholic climate in England as the apparent reason for Behn's ambivalence toward her faith.

The History of the Nun is not, however, necessarily an indictment against the Roman Catholic church or against its unrealistically high standards, since even the church shows some flexibility when it grants a dispensation to Isabella and Henault. Many of the Catholics presented in this story, such as Katteriena and the abbess, are "good Christians" who love unconditionally, forgive readily and who live up to the standards they profess to others. But, like everyone else in this story, they are human and are prone to errors in judgement.

Through Isabella, Behn places the reader in a "what would you do?" scenario. Isabella's actions are often unconscionable, even to herself, yet they are extremely pragmatic. Although Isabella earns her "just due" in the end, somehow this ending is not satisfying. On the other hand, if Isabella's guilt had not been discovered, then she would have lived out her days in the comfortable, self-cloistering lifestyle that she preferred. Again, this would have been an unsatisfying resolution because of what we know about Isabella's tendency toward masochistic penance.

The ambiguity and ambivalence in The History of the Nun are what make this a "problematic" tale, but are also what makes this story compelling. This late work of Behn's reflects a maturity not only of her art but of her beliefs as well. Life does not always offer easy choices and even depending on one's faith is sometimes inadequate.

The reader of this tale, however, need not feel frustrated in formulating a response since Behn herself offers a very straightforward approach to the text. Behn challenges her reader to accept that "the story is true" (139) and asks her reader to make a judgement: "if my fair, unfortunate vow-breaker do not deserve the honour of Your Grace's protection, at least she will be found worthy of your pity, which will be a sufficient glory" (139). Only in a work as paradoxically rich as The History of the Nun, would one find glory in pity, which is the reason, as I have stated before, that this story needs so much more attention. I regret that I, myself, could not have devoted more effort to this work!

Works Cited

Ballaster, Ros. "'Pretences of State': Aphra Behn and the Female Plot." Rereading Aphra Behn. History, Theory, and Criticism. Charlottesville: UP of Virginia, 1993.187-211

Behn, Aphra. Aphra Behn: Oroonoko and Other Writings. Ed. Paul Salzman. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1994.

Craft, Catherine. "Reworking Male Models: Aphra Behn's Fair Vow- Breaker, Eliza Haywood's Fantomina, and Charlotte Lennox's Female Quixote. Modern Language Review 86 (1991): 821-38.

Duchovnay, Gerald. "Aphra Behn's Religion." Notes and Queries. 23 (1976): 235-37.

Pearson, Jacqueline. "Gender and Narrative in the Fiction of Aphra Behn" Pt. I. Review of English Studies 42 (1991): 40-56.

-- . "The History of The History of the Nun." Rereading Aphra Behn. 234-52.