Draft

Earlier this semester, our class examined a poem by William Wordsworth beside a journal entry of corresponding events by Dorothy Wordsworth. The comparison afforded the opportunity to note where the poet strayed from reality and to compare the intentions of each author. Though this showed how one poem was derived from reality—whether a reality in the universe or one in William Wordsworth’s head—it was a portrait of one day in the fairly uneventful lives of the two poets, which possessed no particular import for future events. Indeed, the pieces studied thus far have all been snapshots of individual moments from their authors’ lives; none examines an extended chronology of the events of any one author’s life, how one event affects the next. In the women’s movement, the struggles of individual heroes and heroines serve as illustrations of the complexity of the ideas they champion. Mary Wollstonecraft, one of the most famous feminist thinkers of the time, is no exception. Her Letters to Gilbert Imlay not only give insight into important literary and historical events; the implications about traditional assumptions of womanhood and their effects on the lives of women serve as compelling evidence that the question of female education is a relevant and worthy concern.

As British Literature 1780-1830 says, Mary Wollstonecraft and Gilbert Imlay were lovers from late 1792 to the fall of 1795. Wollstonecraft’s letters to Imlay illustrate various stages of their relationship, from Wollstonecraft’s early infatuation to the birth of Fanny Imlay to the ultimate resolution of the partnership after Wollstonecraft found Imlay living with his mistress for the second time. They enrich the knowledge given in Wollstonecraft’s brief biographical blurb, which provides some context for the reception of the published letters, which the public read with horror, “branding [Wollstonecraft] in the public eye as a whore and an atheist” (369).

The story of the love affair is summed up easily enough in the short biography, but the letters provide Wollstonecraft’s emotional response and discourse on her philosophy in application to her actual life, including instances where it seems not to apply. In Letter II, she sounds submissive and downright conventional, promising Imlay that she “will be good” and that “whilst you love me, I cannot again fall into the miserable state which rendered life a burthen almost too heavy to be borne.” (426) Letter LV, written after Wollstonecraft discovers Imlay’s mistress, expresses her wish to kill herself for love disappointed. Points like these at which she, champion of reason as seen in Vindication of the Rights of Woman, loses her cool head to wild emotion proved, at the time they were published, that even women who claimed to be reasonable were unable to be rational and to abandon their sensibility, discrediting the women’s movement. From a different perspective, however, they show the extent to which popular ideas about femininity distorted the thinking and behavior of all women, even those who worked for their liberation. Consequently, Mary Wollstonecraft’s teachings in Vindication of the Rights of Woman prove more relevant for her weakness.

Even though it was composed before the Letters to Gilbert Imlay were published, the eventual reverting of attitude upon marriage is addressed in Anna Barbauld’s poem “The Rights of Woman” in which she claims that “separate rights are lost in mutual love.” (line 32) Barbauld suggests that the women’s movement is short-lived—“hope not, courted idol of mankind,/On this proud eminence secure to stay” (lines 25-26)—and that women’s rights will become irrelevant for all women, who will eventually fall in love and marry. Letters to Gilbert Imlay opposes this idea. By showing Imlay’s foolishness and financial instability, the letters present an example where a woman’s financial independence is an important asset even in a relationship with a man. Likewise, Wollstonecraft’s falling in love with Imlay is a painful lesson that does less to prove her lack of rationality than it does to emphasize the need to disillusion young women so they do not fall into the same trap, by establishing relationships prematurely or with false expectations of eternal affection. It is real-life evidence, therefore, that the women’s movement is still relevant in the face of the eventuality of marriage.

Besides all of this, Letters to Gilbert Imlay is the only piece thus far that depicts, in detail, a working woman. Even as she falls in love, bears a child, and suffers to the point of suicide, Wollstonecraft often mentions her plans to bring in money. In Letter II she gushes, “you would smile to hear how many plans of employment I have in my head,” (426); in the angry smack-down of Letter XXXV, she writes more lucidly, “I have two or three plans in my head to earn our subsistence; for do not suppose that, neglected by you, I will lie under obligations of a pecuniary kind to you!” (427-428) Indeed, in moments of disillusionment similar to the latter example, Mary Wollstonecraft comes across as extremely progressive, a nod to modern independent womanhood. Though similar examples are mentioned in the work and biographies of other writers in British Literature 1780-1830, none are examined as closely as in Letters to Gilbert Imlay. Nor is any other account as compelling in demonstrating the effects of the subordination of women and the importance of an improved female education.