Roxana demonstrates a narrative that subverts the patriarchal order and the gender roles the English society inequitably oppressed upon women. Infantalized by the legal, social, and economic dependence on their husbands, women in this period were defined merely as wives and as mothers. Defoe, by presenting four plot strategies, reconceptualized and reconfigurated the concept of woman as a mere body that was pervasively held in the society. These are the four strategies the writer used in the text: First, he identified the patriarchy with folly; Second, he disguised Roxana as a mere body by donning her an identity of whore and slipped her into the patriarchal society; Third, he endowed Roxana with a voice and let her throw harsh criticisms upon the patriarchal institutions; Last, by employing a fantastic narrative into the text, he deconstructed the patriarchy and provided freedom to women in the eighteenth century England. As literacy rose rapidly in the eighteenth century England, a great number of printed books and periodicals were published to satisfy the public`s need. Defoe, who knew well enough about the sentiment of the century and the needs of the reading public, as well as the growing number of women readers, incorporated the scenes and spirits of the masquerade into his novel, Roxana, which convey subversive powers that divert and threaten the taxonomy of the society.