50 pages • 1 hour read
Charlotte LennoxThe Female Quixote
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1752A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Essay Topics
Can The Female Quixote be read through a feminist lens? What does the novel have to say about gender, femininity, and masculinity?
Imagine a contemporary version of The Female Quixote. What genre would your protagonist become obsessed with? How would this obsession play out in 21st-century society
Charlotte Lennox was Scottish and grew up in Gibraltar, a British colony in Spain. Is her outsider status reflected in The Female Quixote? How might her experiences growing up outside of England have affected her point of view?
Compare and contrast The Female Quixote with Lennox’s first novel, The Life of Harriet Stuart. How does her craft evolve between the two? Do they share themes?
How does The Female Quixote differ from 18th-century novels that were written by men, like Pamela or Clarissa? What elements does it share?
Jane Austen used The Female Quixote as a model for Northanger Abbey. How do the two novels compare? Written decades apart, how does Austen’s societal critique compare to Lennox’s?
Choose one of the novels that Arabella references and read it or research it. How does it compare to The Female Quixote? What elements does Lennox borrow, and where does her tale differ?
Arabella is enthralled with French romance novels but lives in England. How does this cross-cultural element play out in the text, particularly in the context of the two nations’ wars?
The Female Quixote draws from Cervantes’s Don Quixote. Compare and contrast the two works—where does Lennox deviate from the original?
At the end of the novel, Arabella seems to be cured of her delusions. How do you interpret this ending? Is it happy, or are there other ways of viewing it?
