ENGL 200 D: Reading Literature: Literature in the Marketplace

Joseph Addison, in “A Vision of Public Credit”, uses the “virgin” as the main character and “dance” to show conflict and resolution. This account represents the strengths and weaknesses of public credits in accordance with stressors and caretakers. Addison makes sure to carefully depict the virgin’s health and her surroundings as time passes, for she is the symbol of public credit. Virgin is usually defined as somebody who has never had sexual intercourse; however the connotations and stereotypes that have collected over the years are important to recognize in order to truly understand the conflict and resolution.

Purity and delicacy are the classically used terms to depict virgins. The qualities of delicacy and timidity lead to being easily influenced by her surroundings. In addition, purity is linked with the term and the idea of value. Purity greatly increases the value of our most cherished items such as gold and diamonds, and gives her the right to sit on the throne because she is uncorrupted by others.

In Addison’s time, virgins were under the control of their fathers. In this case, her father would be the government, trying to protect and find the best suitor for her. This behooves the father to find the best suitor so families can combine and become stronger, but the men are only interested in a pure virgin. Therefore she is only good before she is used. It is in the best interest of the nation not to use her in a tainted way or she could fall into the hands of an immoral idea.

The virgin observes the “dances” of a variety of phantoms. Addison uses “dance” to describe how the incoming spectres and apparitions attempt to court the virgin. The intentions were to show the interaction between the phantoms or different beliefs that could hurt or help the health of public credit; increasing the complexity of the conflict. It is beneficial to the audience to see the direct change in her health as each phantom passes. Dance becomes a term to replace the flow of the economy.

“Virgin” and “dance” refer to the main idea and conflict, which helps the reader understand the action. In this particular text, the action is directly related to the variance of value through the resolution of the virgin’s health. Credit, money, labor and more are all correlated through the rises and falls, or dance, of the economy. Addison utilizes different parts of the community, as an underlying theme, to show the proper use of credit. Understanding these terms helps readers see large effectors on the economy that they come into contact with daily.