The Madness of a Seduced Womanndqjicts in minute detail the life and mindnof Agnes Dempster, a Vermont farm girlnwho leaves an unhappy home for life innMontpelier around 1897. Her intensenlove afiair with Frank Holt, a stonecutter,nresults in an abortion and her abandonmentnshortly thereafter. Although shenhas threatened to kill herself and hasnbought a gun, Frank refuses to take hernthreats seriously. In a stupor, she goes tonFrank’s new girlfriend, lures her to a field,nshoots her through the head, and thennturns the gun on herself Agnes, however,nsurvives and faces trial for murder. Duringnthe trial she is forced to hear hernlover initially deny her, deny their love,nand, when confronted with the facts,nadmit that he left her because her desiresnwere “insatiable.” Because her lawyernand a psychiatrist are convinced thatnAgnes was, as she describes herself, “morensinned against than sinning,” she is notncondemned to hang, but instead is committednto life in an insane asylum. Agnes’snlife in the asylum is depicted in lesserndetail, as is her life after her release at thenage of 40. As she dies she dreams onenlast time of the doU, this time with bothnthe head and body attached, whole andnunified. One is left with the overwhelmingnsense of the waste, pain, and sufferingnshe has expended in her pursuit tonunify head and heart, to live with bothnher emotions and reason simultaneously.nThe Madness of a Seduced Woman provides,nthen, a microcosmic portrait of thenextremes in the life of a young womannaround the mm of the century—^from thengenteel needlework to an illegal andngruesomely detailed abortion on a dirtynmattress.n1 his novel must be a feminist attacknon romanticism’s destructive effects onnwomen because it would be difficult tontake it at face value. In feet, one is temptednto read it as high camp, a modem, tonguein-cheeknretelling of the 19th-centurynseduction tales. Schaeffer’s book is a vfrtualncatalog of themes and issues currentlynof concern to feminist writers. Innbooks such as Nancy Chodorow’s ThenReproduction of Mothering and HelennDinnerstein’s The Mermaid and thenMinotaur, women are depicted as indoctrinatednnot primarily by fathers ornmasculine figures, but by mothers, whonare more potently dangerous becausenthey have internalized patriarchal valuesnand attitudes. Such is Agnes’s fate, fornshe is raised primarily by her mothernand grandmother, the three generationsnof women locked in a sort of matricidalncycle. Each woman seeks to escape thenfate of her predecessor while at the samentime fearing that she will be replaced byna younger version of herseff.nSchaeffer’s book also eschews the depictionnof women as victims in favor ofnthe more recent version of women asnpowerful, albeit passively aggressivenshapers of their own destinies. But ironically,nwhen Agnes does act in a directnway to control her life—e.g., the abortionnand the shooting—her actions arenonly setf-destructive and destructive.nWomen can assume power, Schaeffernimplies, only by denying an aspect ofntheir being and becoming like men, violentnand careless of life. To trade thenposition of victim for that of victimizer isnhardly an ennobling one. As Agnes herselfnrecognizes, all human beings arencaught on a wheel, an inescapable webnnnof entanglements and emotions that ensurenIffe’s continuation.nElizabeth Hardwick, in her Seductionnand Betrayal, reminds us that “Sex cannno longer be the germ, the seed t)f fiction.nSex is an episode, most properlynconveyed in an episodic manner, quickly,noften ironically.” Schaeffer’s book isncontemporary fiction aping the sensibilitiesnand attitudes of 19th-century literature,nso it is difficult to determine hownthe book is to be read. If the author intendsnfor us to sympathize with thenheroine, then she has failed, as Agnes isnaltogether too extreme, too willful tonevoke our affection. At the same time,nshe is incredibly vapid. She reads onlynromantic novels and at one point tellsnher lover that she “would not mind beingna cow if [she] could get rid of [her]nmind.” She often has dreams of being anpuppet. And Agnes also wallows in selfpitynand fails as an adult to accept responsibilitynfor her own actioas. She seesnher mother as an “intelligent storm bentnon destroying [my] life,” and thinks thatn”fifty years after firing the shot, I still blamenmy mother.” In order to escape her childhoodnmisery wtuch, one has to conclude,nwas largely self-inflicted, Agnes dreamsnthe fetal dream of ideal love: “Somewhere,nI knew, was the one ideal love for whomnI was intended, the one perfect love whoni^^i23nJune 1984n