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The Author on Her Work
I was introduced to Mary Wollstonecraft when I was teaching English in an
all-girl, Catholic high school. It was the usual high-school textbook, but
in many ways it was more thorough than any of the survey texts I had in
college. On one page of this high-school book was an excerpt from
Wollstonecraft's A Vindication of the Rights of Woman. On the page
facing it was an excerpt from Virginia Woolf describing Wollstonecraft's
abysmal childhood. The discrepancy between Mary's childhood and her
achievement as a grown woman was telling. I was immediately engaged, but I
had to wait about five years before my children were grown and I was teaching
in a university to have the sufficient time to pursue my interest in her
through travel, research, and writing.
The more I learned of Mary, the more I identified with her, for although we
were separated by several centuries, her fight for a life of the mind and
acceptance as a thinking person was in many ways similar to my own. I, too,
came from a difficult family situation, was not financially secure, had a
piecemeal education, and coped with emotional struggles at the same time I
tried to establish myself as a writer. We were a match.
I made this book fiction because I relish the freedom to create scene through
historical detail and the rise and fall of passion, do tart dialogue, speak
for and through my characters, and most of all, enter into the dance and
play we call storytelling. I wanted my Mary to address all women of all time.
However, it should be noted that the more sensational aspects of
Vindication are "true." Mary did have a child without a husband, did
rescue her sister, did try to kill herself several times, was often not the
best mother, and did die of childbed fever. I like to think my work
understands and appreciates Mary Wollstonecraft in all her contraries, that
I have, for the most part, united the war between her head and heart, mind
and body. I would hope that if this venerable lady were suddenly to appear
here and now, she would approve of my effort, give me a little kiss on the
forehead, say "well done, my dear," and wend her way down the path of history
with a lighter step.
Discussion
Questions
1. Describe how Mary's circumstances in life resulted in her revolutionary
thinking. What role did fortune and coincidence play in her professional
success?
2. Describe the development of Mary's sexuality over the course of her life.
How does her own understanding of it evolve? How does it change in the eyes
of others?
3. In writing Vindication, Frances Sherwood takes imaginative
liberties with the known historical facts of Mary Wollstonecraft's life. How
can the fictionalization of real events and characters enhance our
understanding of history? Are there dangers in such an enterprise?
4. In Sherwood's telling, Wollstonecraft's public and private lives are
riddled with contradictions. Is it fair to call her a hypocrite?
5. What are the deep insecurities that drive Mary to Bedlam and later to
attempt suicide? Why would such a creative and productive woman fall prone
to depression?
6. What does Mary's choice of lovers reveal about her strengths and
weaknesses?
7. Does Mary rely on her male lovers to complete her?
8. How is Mary's intimate friendship with Fanny distinct from her romantic
relationships with men?
9. What is Mary's unique contribution to Joseph Johnson's Thursday-night
dinner discussions? How is her participation received by her male
counterparts?
10. How do Mary's responsibilities as a mother conflict with her ambitions?
Is her lack of affection toward Fanny indicative of her problematic
personality or her resentment at larger sociohistoric forces?
11. Describe the different cultural and social ideals represented by England,
France, and America in Vindication.
12. From the gallows to the guillotine, execution is a recurrent motif in
Vindication. How does it relate to the larger themes of the novel?
13. In the late eighteenth century, Western European intellectuals considered
themselves to have entered into an age of enlightenment. The French
Revolution proved that ideals produced by reason can still be misused in the
hands of irrational violence and terror. How does Vindication
illustrate the complex interplay of reason and passion on both the epic
scale and the personal?
14. Sherwood's rendering of the life of Wollstonecraft highlights many of
the basic rights and freedoms that modern women take for granted. Do modern
women enjoy the full legacy of Wollstonecraft's radical philosophy? What
progress has yet to be made?
15. Given that Wollstonecraft's novels already offered fictionalized
accounts of much of her life, why might Sherwood have felt compelled to
offer another account? What fresh insight does Sherwood's modern perspective
offer?
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