A Vindication of the Rights of Woman By: Mary Wollstonecraft By: Arteen Rasti, Amanda Osman, LeeAnn Evans, & Parker Schlueter

Summary Summary of the excerpt: Wollstonecraft talks about how women are being unfairly treated with their rights and that they should be more equal with men. Her reasoning is that women are not allowed to receive and education, and only focus on their looks and the impression that other men put on them. She believes that women are able to accomplish many different tasks, such as governing a family, taking care of a baby, and taking care of the house. By incorporating this education into women, the women who already govern their husbands will become smarter and in turn society advances as a whole.

Historical Background Wollstonecraft wrote A Vindication of Rights of Woman during the Restoration Period, which occurred in the 17th and 18th century. The main focus of the Restoration Period is the shift of mainly Roman Catholicism to Puritan. It was age of reason, where humans began questioning the church and publishing works about experiments that changed modern theory. Mary Wollstonecraft was one of these “philosophical” thinkers, and challenged the rights for women’s equality. However, by being a woman, even a woman with highly masculine thoughts, her ideas were criticized and insulted. Her daughter, Mary Shelley, wrote similarly to her mother in the masculine form in her gothic novel, Frankenstein.

Tone and Connotation the use of the word feminism (482) Uses words like…(487) misery depressed sighed, neglected wretched weak “...the most melancholy emotions of sorrowful indignation have depressed my spirits..”(487).

Author’s Craft Rhetorical Question- She uses rhetorical questions to allow the reader to pause and think for a minute and then continues with what she has to say. Argument by Analogy- different ranks of society Repetition or Restatement- She repeats over and over how she feels so it is drilled into the reader’s head. Counterargument- She talks about how some people oppose masculine women, but she then explains why women should aspire to be “masculine”. Appeal to Authority- She says that she came to these conclusions by looking into the facts and reading many books on the subject of education. Illustrative Anecdote or Example- She talks about situations in real life and what marriage is all about. Historical Allusion- Religion

Mention of Religion Wollstonecraft uses comparative irony that is inferred throughout the excerpt. For example, Wollstonecraft mentions the equality of women in Islam, which is quite surprising because the Restoration period was heavily focused on the contradiction between Puritans and Roman Catholics. This ironic comparison of the island of Islam in the sea of Christianity, as well as the needle of women’s protests for equality in the haystack of masculine dominance.

Language & Effectiveness Wollstonecraft uses a very complex branch of “middle english” because she uses a very powerful tone of long sentences. This provides a little bit of effectiveness because there is a lot of run-on sentences that kind of distract the reader away from the points that Wollstonecraft is trying to make. An example of one of these paragraphs is listed below. “If then it can be fairly deduced from the present conduct of sex, from the prevalent fondness for pleasure which takes place of ambition and those nobler passions that open and enlarge the soul; that the instruction which women have hitherto received has only tended, with the constitution of civil society, to render them insignificant of objects of desire-mere propagators of fools!-if it can be proved that aiming to accomplish them, without cultivating their understandings, they are taken out of their sphere of duties, and made ridiculous and useless when the short-lived bloom of beauty is over, I presume that rational men will excuse me for endeavoring to persuade them to become more masculine and respectable” (Wollstonecraft 490).

Deeper Meaning Wollstonecraft illustrates the inequality of women’s rights during a huge change in British society. Her works provided with a fundamental basis for the fight for rights of women later. Video of Wollstonecraft’s Philosophy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qjalBmkmkvE

Quiz Time What does Wollstonecraft talk about? What was the main purpose of the Restoration Period? What kinds of literary techniques are utilized in Wollstonecraft’s excerpt? Who was Wollstonecraft’s daughter? What does the video say about someone’s train of thought at a young age?

Answers How women are being unfairly treated with their rights and that they should be more equal with men. The shift of mainly Roman Catholicism to Puritan, as well as a new idea of thinking. Comparative irony, analogies, counter arguments, etc. from the Author’s Craft page. Mary Shelley. That if exposed to a certain train of thoughts, it will have either a negative or positive effect.