The Roaring Girl

The Roaring Girl by Thomas Middleton and Thomas Dekker, is quite an interesting piece of literature. The play portrays Moll Cutpurse, the main character, as a "roaring girl", who dresses in men's clothing and goes about doing all the things that women of the period should not do. She smokes like a man, remains independent, and goes to all the places which are generally taboo for early modern women. I really like this play. The authors portray the character Moll, who is loosely based on a real woman named Mary Frith, as a woman who demonstrates stronger morals and more decent behavior than any of the other characters within the play, which is completely unexpected after everything we've read so far. Most of the characters and the title are ironically or sarcastically named, which I find absolutely delightful. I would really like to learn a bit more about Miss. Cutpurse, and the play in general. I may do some research on this subject as well as infanticide. Speaking of infanticide, I have a lot to write about that as soon as I find time.