London’s Contradictions Transform into the Epicene: Eastward Ho! and The Roaring Girl

My dissertation addresses the archetypal illustrations of London women in urban theatre by comparing Gertrude and Mildred from the play Eastward Ho! (1605) to Moll Cutpurse from The Roaring Girl (1611). More so, I decode the feminization of London in relationship to the dramatization of women in city satire and how the city, often depicted in polarizing terms, merges into a fusion of both depictions: whore and virgin, submissive and defiant, orderly, and chaotic. I argue that women’s sexuality, mobility, and access to commercialism created a sense of fear in London men. Critic Mimi Yiu emphasizes that women and those deemed effeminate were intended to keep ‘Spatial Harmony,’ meaning one must suppress the self and voice. I contend that those who deviated from their desired roles were dramatized negatively through a stereotyped femininity that aimed to alienate and penalize urban women. Still, character Moll Cutpurse demonstrates, like London, that people and societies, including women, can live and thrive in an ambivalent state