Literary Criticism of Wollstonecraft's Maria, or The Wrongs of Woman

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Literary Criticism of Wollstonecraft's Maria, or The Wrongs of Woman

"Contradictory words seem a little crazy to the logic of reason and inaudible for him who listens with ready-made grids, a code prepared in advance . . . One must listen to her (Maria) in order to hear an "other meaning" which is constantly in the process of weaving itself, the same time ceaselessly embracing words and yet casting them off to avoid becoming fixed, immobilized.' (Iragary) Thus Wollstonecraft's conflation of public, symbolic discourse with private, emotional, semiotic language can be viewed as a strength rather than a weakness of her fiction" (45).

This quote from Eleanor Ty's "Female Confinement Literalized," summarizes the main idea of her criticism. Ty argues in favor of Wollstonecraft's style, combating other critics for criticizing her juxtaposition of the linguistic and the semiotic, symbolic representation and liberalization (45), as well as the Gothic, Romanticism, and polar characters.

Ty agrees that there are "contrasting tendencies" within the narrative. She does not feel that t...

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