Seductive female villains and rhetoricians in The Monk and Zofloya; or, The Moor

Matthew Lewis's The Monk: A Romance (1796) and Charlotte Dacre's Zofloya; or, The Moor: A Romance of the Fifteenth Century (1806) portray female villains, who deny the value system of patriarchy and religious and social structures of the eighteenth-century society. Although Lewis's purpose of creating Matilda is not to critique the social position of woman, Matilda becomes the symbol of power and a stronger female figure than Dacre's Victoria. Examining the seductive rhetoric, performativity of villainy, and shifting discourse between the protagonists and demonic figures, this article discusses how Matilda establishes and maintains her autonomy over male subjectivity while Victoria's strong feminist traits transform into submissive characteristics.