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Mothers and Daughters 'Reforming Themselves to Reform the World': The Legacy of Feminism in Mary Wollstonecraft and Mary Shelley.

Record Type:	Electronic resources : Monograph/item
Title/Author:	Mothers and Daughters 'Reforming Themselves to Reform the World': The Legacy of Feminism in Mary Wollstonecraft and Mary Shelley./
Author:	Fitzpatrick, Reilly L.
Published:	Ann Arbor : ProQuest Dissertations & Theses, : 2020,
Description:	60 p.
Notes:	Source: Masters Abstracts International, Volume: 82-03.
Contained By:	Masters Abstracts International82-03.
Subject:	Literature. -
Online resource:	http://pqdd.sinica.edu.tw/twdaoapp/servlet/advanced?query=28086081
ISBN:	9798664795134

Mothers and Daughters 'Reforming Themselves to Reform the World': The Legacy of Feminism in Mary Wollstonecraft and Mary Shelley.
Fitzpatrick, Reilly L.

Mothers and Daughters 'Reforming Themselves to Reform the World': The Legacy of Feminism in Mary Wollstonecraft and Mary Shelley. - Ann Arbor : ProQuest Dissertations & Theses, 2020 - 60 p.

Source: Masters Abstracts International, Volume: 82-03.

Thesis (M.A.Eng.)--Azusa Pacific University, 2020.

This item must not be sold to any third party vendors.

Extensive scholarship has been produced about the revolutionary effect that Mary Wollstonecraft's writings had on the proto-feminist movement that was gaining profound momentum during her lifetime. Much has been said about Mary Shelley's treatment of women and their natures and emotions in her novels. However, while the writings of both women are characterized by their profound treatment of feminine reason and sensibility, little has been written on the relationship, familial and topical, of Wollstonecraft and Shelley. In this thesis, I examine the intersection of Wollstonecraft's feminism, as manifested in her advocacy for the cultivation of reason in women through education in A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, and the feminist underpinnings of Shelley's heroines, particularly those of her 1819 novel Mathilda, by contextualizing both in the mother/daughter relationship between the two authors and the implications of that relationship for the legacy of feminism in both.In my first chapter, I outline the argument Wollstonecraft makes in A Vindication of the Rights of Woman regarding the need for feminine education that reaches far beyond the indoctrination of accomplishments young women received in her time, facilitated primarily by mothers. At the heart of her call for education is her belief that women are capable of reason, and I address the nuances of her stance championing the cultivation of reason in women and its implications for her stance on sensibility, both its stereotypes and its potential. I argue that while Wollstonecraft certainly hones her pen on the need for reason as an attribute of female education due to its total absence in her time, she in fact advocates for a mature moderation in the female capacity for both reason and sensibility, as seen in her two novellas. In my second chapter, I relate the themes that characterize Vindication such as education for women, the importance of maternal influence on young girls, the balance ofreason and sensibility, and the vibrant strands of proto-feminism to Wollstonecraft's two novellas, Mary: A Fiction (1788) and Maria; The Wrongs of Woman (1798). In Mary, Wollstonecraft depicts a heroine that is, she believes, first of her kind: a woman with "thinking power," or the capacity for reason. I discuss how Mary's neglect by her own mother makes her susceptible to an excess in sensibility in conjunction with Wollstonecraft's argument from Vindication on that point, and how Wollstonecraftdemonstrates the power of education to incite autonomy in women through Mary's narrative. In my consideration of Maria, I examine the narrative juxtaposition of reasonand sensibility manifested in two mother-figures in the novella, Maria and Jemima, and the further nuance it brings to Wollstonecraft's argument for a balance of both. Finally, I consider the heroine's lament that she will not be able to educate her newborn daughter in order that she grow to be matured in her femininity and balanced in her reason and sensibility, and the striking foreshadowing to Wollstonecraft's own life contained within it.In my third and final chapter, I discuss the maternal influence Mary Wollstonecraft had on Mary Shelley as a child and young woman through her writings, despite her death upon Shelley's birth, and the tangible realization it brings to Wollstonecraft's belief that education, particularly when coupled with a mother's guidance, will prompt the cultivation of reason and sensibility in women. I consider the ways in which Diana, the heroine's mother in Mathilda, represents both Wollstonecraft and the model of femininity and autonomy she champions, and how the devolvement of Shelley's novel following Diana's death indicates her own beliefs about feminism and virtue. Finally, I conclude that in Wollstonecraft's emphasis on reason and Shelley's on sensibility, the writings of mother and daughter coalesce to embody a feminist call for education and autonomy in women that has rung through the centuries following the publications of their works.

ISBN: 9798664795134Subjects--Topical Terms:

537498
Literature.
Subjects--Index Terms:

Feminism

Mothers and Daughters 'Reforming Themselves to Reform the World': The Legacy of Feminism in Mary Wollstonecraft and Mary Shelley.
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