After Miranda marries Prince Tarquin, the story observes their series of deceptive acts and multiple murder attempts instigated by the passions of love and desire.

The Fair Jilt occupies itself with themes of deceit, infatuation, and impassioned acts of love, common ideas within the amatory fiction genre.

In The Fair Jilt, Miranda outsmarts the male characters by scheming in order to get her way on several occasions, such as convincing Tarquin to kill her sister or accusing Henrick of rape.

Behn allows Miranda to explore her abilities as a strong female character, in contrast to the typical rigid separation of masculinity and femininity under Toryism.

Editor Montague Summers writes in his introduction to The Works of Aphra Behn (1915) that the story is only loosely based on actual events: "With all the nice skill of a born novelist she has so mingled fact and fancy, what did occur and what might have been, that any attempt to disentangle the twain would be idle indeed.

"[1] There was in fact a Prince Francisco de Tarquini who attempted to murder his sister-in-law but was spared death in 1666 after the executioner's initial stroke failed to kill him.

The servant is hanged, and Miranda, due to her position, is only shamed, though a great sum of money is owed to Alcidiana and Tarquin is ordered to pay it by the court.

In the closing lines, it is noted that Miranda eventually repents her sinful past and that Tarquin has since died, though no explanation is offered for his death.

The narrator is distinguished by following a trend of adopting a level of anonymity and secrecy that mirrors the reality in which Aphra Behn was writing her, often perceived as, sordid secret histories.

[9] This ambiguous spectator serves the specific narrational purpose of delving into and exploring what happens in private and making public the secret interpersonal affairs of the characters.

These rhetorical devices distinguish Behn's writing from other writers of her time, and had a distinct influence and inspiration upon other authors such as Eliza Haywood.

In the novella, Tarquin, a prince with dubious royal credentials, is manipulated by Miranda, possibly representative of Behn's interpretation of this marriage and criminal case.

The case of Tarquin illustrates the negative impacts of the power of love: he is deeply infatuated with Miranda, willingly allowing her to use him as a tool in her varying schemes.

[18] Other critics have argued that the female narrator further complicates the depictions of gender dynamics in The Fair Jilt by both moralizing against and empathizing with Miranda’s actions.