While Robinson Crusoe has been dramatized many times, Defoe often expressed suspicion of theatre. In The Family Instructor (1715), Defoe explores theatre-going as a gateway to other sins and a form of frivolity. The Fortunate Mistress (1724) depicts theatricality as part of elite corruption and an expression of the heroine’s deceptive practices. While including such versions of antitheatricality in such narratives, Defoe nevertheless weaves theatrical techniques into his own writing and does not engage in the passionate hostility to the stage that we see in some of the religious moralists of his time.