What does Fantomina’s Desire Display About Her Curiosity?

What does Fantomina’s Desire Display About Her Curiosity?

Quote 1: “Possession naturally abates the Vigour of Desire, and I should have had, at best, but a cold, insipid, husband-like Lover in my Arms; but by these Arts of passing on him as a new Mistress whenever the Ardour, which alone makes Love a Blessing, begins to diminish, for the former one, I have him always raving, wild, impatient, longing, dying” (Fantomina).

Quote 2: “Early modern literature depicts the aggression of curiosity as ambition, the desire for power over others. This desire manifests itself as an ontological transgression that usurps public space, institutions, materials, bodies, and meanings for private use” (Benedict, 5)

The story of Fantomina represents a desire of the leading character to trick a man into being involved with what he thinks are three different woman, when they are actually different disguises of Fantomina.  She explains this desire as a way to escape the cycle of dying passion and interest that comes with things that are no longer new. As she states in the quote above, the very nature of desire is to want, and in order to want something, it cannot be in one’s possession. Thus, Fantomina interestingly finds a way to keep Beauplaisir’s desire for technically the same woman, although he doesn’t believe it to be. By manipulating the truth to Beauplaisir, Fantomina gains a distinct power over him, although he is unaware. As the second quote above explains, one could view her actions as the aggressive aspect of curiosity, with her ambition to manipulate Beauplaisir. The narrator continually indicates that Fantomina does not know exactly what she is doing and what the consequences of her actions may be, and I believe this adds to the nature of curiosity, wherein one wishes to gain knowledge of the unknown, and behaves in unconventional ways to attain that knowledge.