Why the nameless protagonist of Roxana (post 5) by Daniel Defoe (post 6) does not want to meet her abandoned daughter: shame or multiple personality?

The nameless protagonist—her secret, real name, is Susan; her nickname as a whore, is Roxana—gives a bogus reason for not wanting to meet the daughter she abandoned many years ago.

Her bogus reason is that she is now retired from her life as a whore (her word); she has just married a man who knows nothing about her past; and she fears that her daughter would expose her. Moreover, she wants to shield her daughter from the shame of knowing that her mother was a whore. So now that she is rich, she wants to provide financial support to her daughter as an anonymous benefactor.

However, there is little or nothing in the text to indicate that the daughter—also named Susan—either wants to expose, or would be ashamed of, her mother. From the daughter’s words and behavior, it appears that her motivation for trying to find and meet her mother is purely emotional: She longs to have a mother, and to be loved and recognized by her mother.

So what is the real reason that Nameless fears meeting her daughter? I call the protagonist “Nameless,” because Roxana is not her real name, Susan is, but she never uses her real name. Literary analysis of Roxana must explain its most salient fact: the protagonist is nameless.

One possible explanation is that Nameless has multiple personality. She does not use the name Susan, because that is the name of a personality who has not been in control for many years. Susan may be a depressed, victimized personality, who was last in control at the time her first husband abandoned her and their five young children to dire poverty. The real risk to Nameless of meeting her daughter is that such a meeting could bring out that depressed, victimized personality.

The unnamed personalities who made her rich and happily married want to remain in control. However, that depressed personality, Susan, is always behind-the-scenes and trying to come out. And the presence of the daughter—also named Susan, who was last in her life when the depressed personality was in control, and, especially, would address her by the name Susan—might shift the balance of power in favor of the depressed personality and enable the latter to come out and take over.

If you have a better explanation for both why the protagonist is nameless and why she does not want to see her daughter, please submit your comment.