So too, is the story of every god or goddess. At the beginning of Defoe"s novel, the reader is invited, almost commanded really, to think that Roxana"s beauty will be a kind of passport to good fortune. Any woman who is that perfect, who resembles the ideal so closely, must be pre-destined for everything that is good and desirable in human existence. It is only natural that the reader should believe this deception. A glance even at the title of Defoe"s work lulls one into the complacent conviction that this must be the story of a charmed woman. .

             But this is only "half" the story. The novel is entitled Roxana, or The Fortunate Woman: Roxana and "The Fortunate Woman" are not the same. In principle the two figures could be identical. Yet, as the Ancient Greeks knew, no one – not even a goddess – can match up to the ideal. If Roxana had chosen to be perfect, there would have been no story. The perfect woman – the perfect beauty – is unchanging, and unerring. She leads a wholly passive existence. She remains beautiful because she never changes. at all! However Fortune, who is generally represented as being beautiful, is a ceaselessly changing character, a force that is neither human nor divine. The artists (and the worshipper) make her beautiful because that is how they would like her to be. Everyone wants to enjoy good fortune. Everyone wants to believe that the Fates smile upon them and their endeavors. It would be an aberration for anyone to conceive of Fortune as ugly or repulsive – thus, the reader is forgiven for postulating a "beautiful" life for the heroine of Defoe"s tale. Were human beings – or gods – to conceive of Fortune as something terrible, as something to be avoided, it would be the same as believing that there is no such thing as hope, nor any chance of an improvement in one"s condition.