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Maria, or the Wrongs of Woman
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THE PUBLIC are here presented with the last literary attempt of an author whose fame has been uncommonly extensive and whose talents have probably been most admired by the persons by whom talents are estimated with the greatest accuracy and discrimination.
--This text refers to an alternate
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
21 of 22 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This unfinished story is the product of a fierce feminist and a profound socially-minded author.
It is a biting aggressive work: 'Was not the world a vast prison and women born slaves?'. 'Women, the out-laws of the world'. 'Born a woman - and born to suffer ... I feel more acutely the various ills my sex are fated to bear. I feel that the evils they are subject to endure, degrade them so far below their oppressors, as almost to justify their tyranny.'
One of the author's targets is marriage, 'matrimonial despotism of heart and conduct'.
'But a wife being as much a man's property as his horse, or his ass, she has nothing she can call her own.'
Marriage laws are absurd 'leading to the most insufferable bondage and to a false morality ... which makes that all the virtue of woman consist in chastity, submission, and the forgiveness of injuries'.
Another scandal for the author is 'the enslaved state of the labouring majority ... condemned to labour, like a machine, only to earn bread, and scarcely that'; and 'the evils which arise in society from the despotism of rank and riches.'
This hard hitting story is an outcry for greater freedom (also sexual) for women and for social justice.
It didn't loose its important message and is still very actual in a major part of the world.
Highly recommended.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
Once you get past the infuriating, opaque, archaic almost theoretical writing style, the book literally blows the door off its hingers. Conveying ideas and attitudes way ahead of its time and strikingly modern whilst at the same time combining traditional themes of the gothic with a foreshadowing fragmented style, the books serves as a lament for the injustices committed against oppressed women of the era by giving certain female characters a chance to tell their tragic stories, which all sound very familiar if you study the history and society of the time. Lacking the nonsense concern over morals and correct behaviour that is forever present in other major works of the era, this text blows those attitudes apart by standing up and simply saying how it is: that women were oppressed by enforced marriage, inconsiderate husbands and a total lack of social power which took their lives beyond their control. This work does have the feeling of a theorist attempting to write fiction, which is often incredibly frustrating, as the writing often veers off in points inconnected to the plot, but this is still an incredibly brave, desparing and modern book. Well worth a read. Definately check out 'the yellow wallpaper' by charlottle perkins gilman, another short fiction written by a feminist theorist but which I find more powerful and readable x
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
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2 reviews
28 of 29 people found the following review helpful
Maria - The Female Caleb Williams
19 July 2000
Format:Paperback
"Maria" is an unfinished novel which Wollstonecraft intended to display the cruelty, injustice, and utter lack of personal freedom of women in the late 18th century. Drawing on sources from Rousseau, to her husband William Godwin's "Political Justice" and "Caleb Williams," to her own "Vindication of the Rights of Woman," Wollstonecraft sets up a scenario in which a woman falls prey to the maddening strictures of law. Although it may not initially appear so, "Maria" is very much in the strain of gothic literature. Wollstonecraft takes pains to illustrate that the gothic need not be enacted in castles or by demons, but can be just as horrifying, if not more so, when 'normal' society proves to be an intractable villain itself.
The novel reads like a philosophical treatise, the main action being life stories told by the primary characters, Maria, her mad-house warden Jemima, and her unlikely lover, Henry Darnford, including their digressive running commentaries. As the novel begins, Maria is in the mad-house, deprived of her infant daughter by her greedy husband, George Venables, whom she despises.
As in Godwin's "Caleb Williams," Wollstonecraft does not scruple to pile severe mental anguish upon clear injustices to drive home her points regarding society's treatment of women. Her most vicious attacks are reserved for the law and surprisingly, for women. The law preserves a basis for treating women as perpetual minors, and unfortunately, women, realizing their powerlessness, too often resign themselves to their lot.
Though fragmentary and incomplete, "Maria" has the same kind of power as "Caleb Williams," and the two should be read together for maximum effect. The force of Wollstonecraft's writing comes from the fact that her observations were just, and that she dared to voice them on behalf of all women.
ANOTHER EXCELLENT WORK BY THE AUTHOR OF THE "VINDICATION"
7 Sep 2011
Format:Paperback
Mary Wollstonecraft (1759-1797) was an eighteenth-century British writer, philosopher, and advocate of women's rights, best known for Vindication of the Rights of Woman and The Wrongs of Woman, or Maria (Longman Cultural Editions). She married the anarchist philosopher William Godwin, with whom they had a daughter, Mary Shelley (i.e., of "Frankenstein" fame).
The earlier review by "mp" gives an excellent summary of the book; I would just like to give some quotations from the book itself:
"And to what purpose did she rally all her energy?--Was not the world a vast prison, and women born slaves?" (Pg. 27)
"Such indeed is the force of prejudice, that what was called spirit and wit in him, was cruelly repressed as forwardness in me." (Pg. 76)
"By allowing women but one way of rising in the world, the fostering the libertinism of men, society makes monsters of them, and then their ignoble vices are brought forward as a proof of inferiority of intellect." (Pg. 88)
"Men who are inferior to their fellow men, are always most anxious to establish their superiority over women." (Pg. 95)
"She had abilities sufficient to have shone in any profession, had there been any professions for women..." (Pg. 96)
"Truth is the only basis of virtue; and we cannot, without depraving our minds, endeavour to please a lover or husband, but in proportion as he pleases us." (Pg. 102)
"But, born a woman---and born to suffer, in endeavouring to repress my own emotions, I feel more acutely the various ills my sex are fated to bear---I feel that the evils they are subject to endure, degrade them so far below their oppressors, as almost to justify their tyranny; leading at the same time superficial reasons to term that weakness the cause, which is only the consequence of short-sighted despotism." (Pg. 131)
The earlier review by "mp" gives an excellent summary of the book; I would just like to give some quotations from the book itself:
"And to what purpose did she rally all her energy?--Was not the world a vast prison, and women born slaves?" (Pg. 27)
"Such indeed is the force of prejudice, that what was called spirit and wit in him, was cruelly repressed as forwardness in me." (Pg. 76)
"By allowing women but one way of rising in the world, the fostering the libertinism of men, society makes monsters of them, and then their ignoble vices are brought forward as a proof of inferiority of intellect." (Pg. 88)
"Men who are inferior to their fellow men, are always most anxious to establish their superiority over women." (Pg. 95)
"She had abilities sufficient to have shone in any profession, had there been any professions for women..." (Pg. 96)
"Truth is the only basis of virtue; and we cannot, without depraving our minds, endeavour to please a lover or husband, but in proportion as he pleases us." (Pg. 102)
"But, born a woman---and born to suffer, in endeavouring to repress my own emotions, I feel more acutely the various ills my sex are fated to bear---I feel that the evils they are subject to endure, degrade them so far below their oppressors, as almost to justify their tyranny; leading at the same time superficial reasons to term that weakness the cause, which is only the consequence of short-sighted despotism." (Pg. 131)
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