For Wednesday: Wollstonecraft, Maria: Or, The Wrongs of Woman (Chs.1-5)

From Dore's London: A Pilgrimage (1872)

For Wednesday, be sure to read at least the first five chapters of Maria: Or, the Wrongs of Woman, which is the second story in the collection (you can skip "Mary," which is similar but a bit shorter). The following questions are designed to help you get into the material and consider some of the big themes and ideas in the work. Answer TWO of the four questions and bring them to class on Wednesday. You can either write by hand or type your answers out. 

You'll get full credit for the questions as long as you (a) turn them in on time, and (b) give me an honest, and thoughtful response. I won't give you credit for one-sentence responses or very vague responses that don't show you read the book. Remember, you don't need to understand the work 100% to answer the questions. Just "think out loud" and try to work through the question on paper. Writing about literature helps you understand it much more than if you just read it and closed the book. 

Q1: In the Author's Preface, Wollstonecraft writes that "In writing this novel, I have rather endeavoured to pourtray passions than manners" (59). In saying this, she is aligning herself with the sensibility movement that was sweeping art and literature (like Goya's famous portraits of women who seemed to have souls and thoughts). How does she attempt to make us feel Maria's character and despair? Why might this have been revolutionary for the time? 

Q2: Reflecting on the screams and howls of the mad men and women all around her, Maria says, "from most of the instances she could investigate, she thought [people went mad] because the judgment was weak and unexercised; and that they gained strength by the decay of reason, as the shadows lengthen during the sun's decline" (73). How might this passage reflect Goya's famous statement, "the sleep of reason produces monsters"? What symptom is she diagnosing her society with her? Why do so many of her countrymen go mad once they reach a certain age? 

Q3: How does Jemima's story reflect many of the Romantic sentiments of Blake's "London" and "The Tyger"? (if you missed class on Friday, you might want to read these poems--easily searchable online). Related to this, why do you think Wollstonecraft derails her narrative to give such a full account of Jemima's life and career? 

Q4: Similarly, how does Darnford's story paint a Blake-like picture of innocence and experience among privileged gentlemen in England? How is he taught to view women in society? And why is he so critical of life in America?