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Abstract
The paper aims at questioning the conventionally established sexuality of woman in Emma Donoghue’s The Mask and The Sealed Letter. Plausibly, it lays bare female protagonists subversion of gender roles, her transgression of boundaries for the reclamation of their dreams and dignity, and the demand for reparation from disallowing them. The female characters subvert the identity imposed upon their by patriarchy, which is conflated with capitalism that identifies them as sacrificial, feeble, and acquiescent. Some of the female characters of Emma redefine prostitution as a weapon for acquiring a subject from a treaty of object. To reclaim an autonomous identity, they use their innate intelligence and quick-wittedness, with parody, hysteria, and sexuality to assert their uniqueness and to subvert patriarchy. Reparation is posited with trial and hanging, which uncover the embedded biases and injustices in English society of the Enlightenment. The end enforces upon society the need to restructure itself and make reparations for the unjustness that subjected female characters, as vulnerable women were and still are, to homelessness, sexual assault, poverty, desperation, and murder; all merely for their wish to have a better life.