Vindicating the Suffering Revolutionary Women in Mary Wollstonecraft’s Maria
analytical Essay
1976 words
To force me to give my fortune, I was imprisoned-yes: in a private madhouse…” (Maria 131-32). These lines from Mary Wollstonecraft’s (1759-1797) unfinished novella Maria, or the Wrongs of Woman substantiates the private operation of the madhouse where the protagonist Maria is confined. The importance of private ownership is that this places the madhouse outside the discourse of law. It is illegitimate yet it is legitimized as it is a symbol of male-dominated state oppression. Parallel to this Bastille becomes the direct symbol of the same repression which is used by Wollstonecraft to depict the predicament of dissenting revolutionary women in the late Eighteenth- century England. The language which she is using is evidently from the French Revolution as we know the symbolic importance of the dreaded tower of Bastille where political ‘criminals’ were imprisoned. So, Wollstonecraft’s objective is to politicize the genre of novel as the other Jacobin women writers- novel, for them, is a vehicle of political propaganda.
The objective of this paper is twofold. Firstly, to examine why Wollstonecraft felt this quest into the genre of novel for the politics which she already had discussed at length in A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792)? The second strand of inquiry will be into the domestic ideas of despotism which arise from gender discrimination perpetuated by the state machinery, with the legal system, in particular. This second strand will envelope the prevalent issues like the legally disadvantageous position of married as well as maternal women and how the revolutionary bodies of these mothers are confined along with infliction of mental harassment by both private and state systems. The issue of the imprisonm...
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In this essay, the author
- Compares the vindication of the rights of men and the right of women.
- Cites a forum on fiction, vol. 15, no. 2, winter 1982, pp. 111-126.
- Explains frontiers: a journal of women studies, vol. 5, no. 3, pp. 17-20.
- Opines that humphreys, a. r., “the ‘rights of woman’ in the age of reason.” the modern language.
- Explains law and literature, vol. 16, no. 1 (spring, 2004), pp. 33-63.
- Argues that wollstonecraft's objective is to politicize the genre of novel as the other jacobin women writers- novel is a vehicle of political propaganda.
- Analyzes how wollstonecraft challenged the patriarchal authority by defining the tenets of liberal feminism.
- Analyzes how foucault and anolik chart out the predicament of the maternal body of a dissenting revolutionary woman.
- Describes foucault's essential works of 1954-84, vol-1: ethics, ed. paul rabinow. strommer, diane w. "review: mary, a fiction and the wrongs of woman by gary kelly."
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- English Courseworkanalytical essayThe subjugation of women is a key theme across my three chosen texts, Othello, The Great Gatsby and Wuthering Heights, that is presented both subtly and obviously through forms of physical, sexual and mental denegation. As a subtler example of subjugation, each woman is ultimately controlled and manipulated by a male figure, whether it be through Othello’s suppression of Desdemona upon believing she is unfaithful, Heathcliff’s domination over Isabella or Tom Buchanan’s economic control of Daisy via his financial stability within a class defined society. This confirms Evelyn Cunningham’s perception that, “Women are the only oppressed group in our society that lives in intimate association with their oppressors”, notably in the way that women’s roles are dictated and restricted by the domineering, patriarchal men in their lives, however there are still aspects of female rebellion in each of the texts.
In this essay, the author
- Analyzes how othello's subjugation towards desdemona is linked to the effect of the military life on him, resulting in lack of experience and naivety in love and relationships.
- Analyzes how female characters of each text have to exist in close proximity to male characters that are in themselves flawed resulting in their subjugation of the females.
- Analyzes how gatsby's ingenuousness and lack of cultural-capital is similar to heathcliff in wuthering heights.
- Analyzes how some women in the texts subconsciously accept subjugation and behave in a sub-jugated manner. othello and desdemona go to consummate their marriage.
- Analyzes how myrtle is a shrill and manipulated presence in the buchanan's lavish world.
- Analyzes how fitzgerald portrays the new social and sexual freedom that women enjoyed through the lives of his female characters in the great gatsby.
- Compares the representations of the subjugation of women in othello, the great gatsby and wuthering heights.
- Analyzes how othello, heathcliff, and tom buchanan are the main male characters that exert their control over their female significant other.
1877 wordsRead More - Mary Wollstonecraft: The First Feminismopinionated essayIndisputably, Mary Wollstonecraft was one of the most influential figures of Enlightenment, also considered the ‘first feminist’. It is certain that her works and writing has influenced the lives of many women and altered the outlook of some societies on women, evolving rights of women a great deal from what they used to be in her time. It is clear that Wollstonecraft’s arguments and writing will remain applicable and relevant to societies for many years to come, as although there has been progression, there has not been a complete resolution. Once women receive so easily the freedom, rights and opportunities that men inherently possess, may we be able to say that Wollstonecraft has succeeded in vindicating the rights of women entirely.
In this essay, the author
- Opines that mary wollstonecraft's works and writing have influenced the lives of many women and altered the outlook of some societies on women.
121 wordsRead More - Mary Wollstonecraft Feminist Analysisanalytical essayThe purpose of this paper is to discuss the eighteenth century feminist philosopher, Mary Wollstonecraft. Specifically, it explores her vision and critique of the relationship between the genders by explaining her position and her prescription to remedy the deficiencies she identifies with regards to gender inequality. Additionally, this evaluation asserts that at present, we have partially achieved the realization of Wollstonecraft’s vision of women in society, which dates back two centuries. Finally, it emphasizes the importance of the continued of study of Wollstonecraft’s philosophical ideas in society today.
In this essay, the author
- Analyzes mary wollstonecraft's vision and critique of the relationship between the genders by explaining her position and prescription to remedy the deficiencies she identifies with regards to gender inequality.
- Analyzes how mary wollstonecraft applied the social contract ideology of the popular theorists hobbes, locke, and rousseau to her feminist philosophy.
- Analyzes how wollstonecraft asserts that all humans, not simply men, have the capacity for reason, virtue, and knowledge, yet not all are given the opportunity to display them.
- Argues that wollstonecraft's ambitious endeavor for women to gain an education and be viewed as valuable members of a political society from two hundred years ago may be considered only partially realized.
- Argues that wollstonecraft's vision of gender equality has not been fully realized and remains partially fulfilled with significant room for advancement.
- Concludes that the continued study of wollstonecraft's philosophical writing is essential to modern day academics.
- Analyzes the work of mary wollstonecraft, a feminist philosopher of the age of enlightenment, and argues that we have partially realized her vision of women in society.
1212 wordsRead More - Mary Wollstonecraft's A Vindication Of The Rights Of Womananalytical essayIn the analysis of the issue in question, I have considered Mary Wollstonecraft’s Text, Vindication of the Rights of Woman. As an equivocal for liberties for humanity, Wollstonecraft was a feminist who championed for women rights of her time. Having witnessed devastating results or men’s improvidence, Wollstonecraft embraced an independent life, educated herself, and ultimately earned a living as a writer, teacher, and governess. In her book, “A Vindication of the Rights of Woman,” she created a scandal perhaps to her unconventional lifestyle. The book is a manifesto of women rights arguing passionately for educating women. Sensualist and tyrants appear right in their endeavor to hold women in darkness to serve as slaves and their plaything. Anyone with a keen interest in women rights movement will surely welcome her inexpensive edition, a landmark documen...
In this essay, the author
- Analyzes how the french revolution served as the greatest war of liberation of the human race and decried as bloodthirsty lesson on the working of mob mentality.
- Analyzes mary wollstonecraft's text, vindication of the rights of woman, as an equivocal for liberties for humanity.
- Analyzes how the french revolution served as the greatest war of liberation of the human race and decried as bloodthirsty lesson on the working of mob mentality.
- Analyzes how the status of women changed from 1789 to 1804. they had the right to marry without parental consent, initiate divorce, secure monetary compensation, own property and name an illegitimate child using the name of the father.
- Analyzes how the revolution accentuated political activities of parsian women as they considered the issue of the time as their own. a woman's social class determined which issues she chose to embrace and fight for.
- Explains that the cashiers collected by ity after the summoning of estates general in 1789, represented the wide difference in reforms desired by market women as well as noble and bourgeois women.
- Analyzes how aristocratic women emphasized civil rights such as equality in marriage, representation, the right to vote and initiating divorce, but their demands overlapped on prostitution and education.
- Opines that even though women deserved and had the capability to benefit from an education, their place was, rightly acclaimed at home, and they had to use any acquired knowledge to avoid prostitution, please their husband and rear children in an intelligent way.
- Describes how the parisiennes jumped into action during the october days to demand bread from marie antoinette, the queen and king louis-xvi in person.
- Analyzes how king louis promised to produce bread masses for masses and allowed women to escort himself, his family, and his court back to paris. this put the sovereign monarch within reach of the irate populace.
- Analyzes how the chatelet inquiry promoted a conspiracy theory that women who participated in the versailles had been bribed by men. the parisian playwright olympe de gouges wrote "the declaration of the rights of woman" in 1791.
- Explains that olympe de gouges was a monarchist, not attempting to overthrow the traditional french government, so she was free to concern with the question of women rights.
- Explains that many of the reforms mirrored in de gouges declaration mirror the constitution, ascribing the same rights o women already granted to men.
- Explains the reasoning behind olympe de gouges beliefs, like that of other philosophers like condorcet and wollstonecraft, that if the grounds of universals human right were to be meaningful, then they must apply to all beings without exemption.
- Explains how etta palm established a women's political club in the 1790s, which provided intellectual stimulation and exerted political pressure on national assembly.
- Explains that the society of revolutionary republican was the most radical women club of the french revolution.
- Analyzes how the citoyennes worried less about femaleness as they were determined to safeguard their fatherland via the promotion of revolutionary ideals.
- Analyzes how the society attacked market women in the streets who were seemingly disobeying the law by not wearing the tricolor cockade. the assembly dissolved all women political organizations and refused to grant women the right to speak.
- Opines that women have no place in the public sphere as proven by their extreme actions toward each other. with the turn of events, women could do little as they silently watched national assembly proceedings.
- Describes how women's political activism ended during the french revolution. state supported units were disbanded and bread rations reduced to two ounces a day.
- Compares the views of marquis condorcet and rousseau jean-jacques about women during the revolution.
- Analyzes how rousseau affirmed that young girls needed education provided by a mother at home rather than in school. condorcet asserted that women shared political rights with men.
- Explains that the rights of men result from their sentient capable of obtaining moral ideas and reasoning concerning those ideas. women, have the same qualities, and must possess equal rights.
- Argues that the ideal woman of the revolution was an intelligent wife and mother who could readily converse with her husband and bring her children in a loving way.
- Opines that women enjoyed nearly equal status with men during the revolution, and that the weaker sex had performed for the rational arguments in favor of women rights. they were once again demoted status, with no right to engage in the public sphere.
- Analyzes how the paper argues for the elusive women rights despite their attempts to gain them. women were obviously important contributors to the french revolution.
- Analyzes how mary wollstonecraft and marquis de condorcet supported women's pleas for equality, and how the men in the government managed to overcome their defeat.
- Explains that women were swarming in the streets brandishing weapons at each other, meddling in political affairs, of which they had little knowledge, and generally causing disorder.
3024 wordsRead More - ultimate vindicationanalytical essayMary Wollstonecraft’s work A Vindication of the Rights of Woman received critical reviews that were almost uniformly positive following its publication in 1792. This is surprising because of the extreme level of political conservatism that was present in Britain in the late 18th Century. A Vindication of the Rights of Woman was even shocking to some liberal thinkers of the late 18th century, and because of Britain’s political conservatism, Mary Wollstonecraft was subject to a variety of cruel humiliations during her lifetime. The political reform that she advocated in her work seems quite harmless today, and it is difficult for current readers to empathize with the vitriol that Wollstonecraft received during her lifetime. Political thinkers of the late 18th century would lambast her work, particularly after her husband William Godwin published her memoirs after her death in 1797. The political landscape in the late 18th century was not favorable to the radical ideas that Mary Wollstonecraft put forth in A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, and it would take years to rehabilitate her...
In this essay, the author
- Analyzes how mary wollstonecraft's work a vindication of the rights of woman received critical reviews that were almost uniformly positive following its publication in 1792.
- Opines that mary wollstonecraft was a substantial advocate for women's right to an education that would be equal to their standing in society.
- Analyzes how the american and french revolutions complicated political matters in britain in the late 18th century.
620 wordsRead More - Wollstonecraft's Radicalism During The French Revolutionanalytical essayWollstonecraft’s radicalism can only be appreciated within the time period during which her vindications were written. The French revolution was a great impetus towards Wollstonecraft’s writings calling for the radical reform and transformation of society and the pursuit of the social, political and legal rights of women. The extent to which radicalism was a prominent feature during the enlightenment period was investigated by Falco (1995:126) who discovered that ‘in all forms of discourse throughout the eighteenth century, conservative and radical women alike railed against marriage, love, and education as forms of slavery perpetrated upon women by men’. Wollstonecraft’s contributions, through her vindications were written as a result of
In this essay, the author
- Analyzes how wollstonecraft's radicalism can only be appreciated within the time period during which her vindications were written.
250 wordsRead More - Mary Wollstonecraft's A Vindication Of The Rights Of Womenanalytical essayThroughout history, women have been oppressed and seen as subservient to men. Gender differences denied women the right to education, among many factors that men had. Women lived their lives to be wives and mothers while men went to school, held careers, interests passions and individual lives outside of the homes women so rarely left. Mary Wollstonecraft expressed her abhorrence for this injustice in A Vindication of the Rights of Woman. Later in the same year of 1792, Anna Barbauld responded by attacking Wollstonecraft with her “The Rights of Woman.” Both women present a clear, though opposing argument allowing the reader further insight of the oppression plaguing women in the late eighteenth century.
In this essay, the author
- Analyzes how women have been oppressed and seen as subservient to men. gender differences denied women the right to education, among many factors that men had. mary wollstonecraft expressed her abhorrence for this injustice in a vindication of the rights of woman.
- Analyzes how mary wollstonecraft's a vindication of the rights of woman proved that education for women would not only help them but it would make them better mothers and wives.
- Analyzes how wollstonecraft argues that women and men are fundamentally different, or society has been biased towards the latter. she wanted women to have a proper education they deserved.
- Analyzes how wollstonecraft argued that righteousness was a matter of the soul, opposed to gender.
- Analyzes how wollstonecraft likens women to soldiers, arguing both have inadequate education and are forced into the world prematurely without proprer knowledge of it. both need a more sufficient education to sustain.
- Opines that the faultiness of the current education system is a perpetuating cycle of oppression and prejudices.
- Argues that homeschooling is inadequate because it provides no outlet to society or socialization as each generation is different and requires a different mode of education.
- Argues that better education for women would allow for better lives and educations for their children. wollstonecraft viewed reason highly and demanded that women do anything particularly mothering.
- Explains wollstonecraft's belief that educated women would inevitably lead to intellectual friendships between married men and women. respect and friendship are more stable cornerstones of marriage than irrational affection and mere attachment.
1198 wordsRead More - Alice Paul's Determination in Women's Suffrageopinionated essayKeenan, Sheila. Scholastic Encyclopedia of Women in the United States. New York: Scholastic Reference, 2002. Print.
In this essay, the author
- Describes how alice paul, a rook in the chess game of women's suffrage, was born on january 11, 1885 in moorestown, new jersey.
- Explains how paul's quaker home and supportive parents encouraged her to challenge others' beliefs and act with integrity. she followed her heart with a blind eye, wherever it led her.
- Explains that paul traveled to england on a political apprenticeship, where she befriended radicals, and this set off the spark in paul that grew to ignite the fire when she vowed to bring confrontational feminism to the us
- Analyzes how paul's phd in sociology gave her a key into the minds of her adversaries that allowed her to manipulate the movement through their unavoidable weaknesses.
- Explains that paul was a member of nawsa, but left it for being dissatisfied with its lack of aggression. she formed the national women's party, which proved to be an adequate reinforcement for the association.
- Explains that paul was a vital element in pressuring the ratification of those listed above, but even more important in the fact that she was the one to draft the equal rights amendment.
- Explains that paul was not unscathed through her participation in women's suffrage. she staged hunger strikes, and in turn led others to "eat" for over a month.
- Opines that paul's actions go to show that if there’s a will, there are ways. they can adapt this lesson in their own life to overcome whatever obstacle they may face.
- Opines that paul fought for sixty-five years to gain rights as an american woman, but she only lived to see half of her dream completed.
- Cites scholastic encyclopedia of women in the united states by sheila keenan.
821 wordsRead More - The Fourth Revolution (An Analysis of the more radical idea between Jane Austen and Mary Wollstonecraft)analytical essayThroughout the history of the world, minorities and women have fought for equality, for equal opportunities as white protestant men. Women’s struggle can be seen from the beginning of civilization. It can been seen as early as the ancient Roman Empire, as the web-site, “The Roman Empire In the First Century” states that women received little, if no, education. They were subjects to the authority of man. As time went on, women’s rights did not improve at all. Throughout the entire world, women were treated as second class citizens to their superior male counterparts. This continued on through the ages; up until the Victorian Era in Britain did women try to denounce these thousand year old “rights of women.” Several brave women spoke out against the ways they were treated, these women included, Mary Wollstonecraft and Jane Austen. Both of these women felt the need to write about this situation of equality for women so they may encourage others to take up arms with them and fight for equality. From the two different texts written by Mary Wollstonecraft and Jane Austen, Mary Wollstonecraft’s “A Vindication of the Rights of Women” is the more radical of the two texts of the day due to Wollstonecraft covering a broader range of subject that women dealt with in her day.
In this essay, the author
- Analyzes how women fought for equality, for equal opportunities as white protestant men, from the beginning of civilization. women were treated as second-class citizens to their superior male counterparts.
- Analyzes wollstonecraft's essay about equal rights for women, stating that women were perceived as stay-at-home mothers and were barred from universities.
- Analyzes how wollstonecraft's essay is more radical and rebellious than jane austen’s.
- Analyzes how wollstonecraft tries to rally her fellow women so that they may continue their push for equality.
- Analyzes how wollstonecraft's essay on the rights of women covers more subjects on issues facing women at the time.
- Quotes chaucer, g. (1348), canterbury tales, and radek, k. m.
809 wordsRead More - Mary Wollstonecraft: The Life Of Women And Societyanalytical essayBiography Mary Wollstonecraft was a British feminist writer and intellectual person from the eighteenth century (“Who Is Mary Wollstonecraft?”). Raised by a violent and physically abusive father after her mother's death, Mary eventually left home to pursue a better life (“Who Is Mary Wollstonecraft?”). Though not receiving much education herself, Mary established a school for girls with her sister Eliza and friend Fanny, but it was shut down a year later because of financial issues (“On National Education”). Then taking up a job as a governess, she realized that an existence revolving around domestic labor did not suit her (Tomaselli).
In this essay, the author
- Analyzes how mary wollstonecraft's work focused on attaining education for all women and achieving equality. she favored an unbiased government that would acknowledge women as independent individuals and allow them to vote.
- Explains that wollstonecraft believed that education should be equal for both men and women. she advocated for schools to be mixed regarding sex to "form a just opinion of ourselves."
- Cites powell, jim, "mary wollstonecraft - equal rights for women." fee, foundation for economic education.
- Describes mary wollstonecraft as a british feminist writer and intellectual person from the eighteenth century.
- Analyzes how wollstonecraft analyzed the conditions of women in england's eighteenth century society. she believed women should be considered equivalent to men.
- Analyzes how mary fought to change the standards that women were held to during wollstonecraft's time. she believed that a woman should be able to earn her own living and support herself.
943 wordsRead More