Home
The defense of English women in the 18th century is of a complicated nature, especially when considering the state in which women lived. Such defenses make attempts to shed light on the state of women who seemed to lack agency within their lives. Women such as Mary Wollstonecraft, in her Vindication of the Rights of Woman, began a spearheading effect that allowed for the population to see the nature of their status in their rigidly gendered society; later, Jane Austen was able to borrow and build upon Vindication through her storytelling. Readers of both authors can see Wollstonecraft’s influence in Austen’s novel, Sense and Sensibility with the world of the Dashwood women. Readers are able to glean what sensibility in the character of Marianne; they are able to see the tense dynamic between Fanny Dashwood and the Dashwood women, and finally, readers are allowed to see the viciousness of marriages of sensibility with the characters of Mr. and Mrs. Palmer.
Although Mary Wollstonecraft believed that a woman’s position in society was akin to slavery, she firmly established that the main reason for this condition was the way in which women carried a notion of sensibility. And even though women were forced into this position, Wollstonecraft eagerly tries to explain that women of sensibility lack the ability to reason, and that this cycle of sensibility must be controlled and changed before the status of “woman” can change. Wollstonecraft writes that a sensible woman’s “senses are inflamed, and their understandings neglected, consequently they become prey of their senses…and are blown about by every gust of feeling” (Wollstonecraft 82-83). The sensible woman is one who neglects to check her emotion, so much so that her overwhelming senses become an impediment that inhibits understanding. Wollstonecraft goes on to say that their “conduct is unstable, and their opinions are wavering—not the wavering produced by deliberation or progressive views, but by contradictory emotions” (Wollstonecraft 83).
Although Mary Wollstonecraft believed that a woman’s position in society was akin to slavery, she firmly established that the main reason for this condition was the way in which women carried a notion of sensibility. And even though women were forced into this position, Wollstonecraft eagerly tries to explain that women of sensibility lack the ability to reason, and that this cycle of sensibility must be controlled and changed before the status of “woman” can change. Wollstonecraft writes that a sensible woman’s “senses are inflamed, and their understandings neglected, consequently they become prey of their senses…and are blown about by every gust of feeling” (Wollstonecraft 82-83). The sensible woman is one who neglects to check her emotion, so much so that her overwhelming senses become an impediment that inhibits understanding. Wollstonecraft goes on to say that their “conduct is unstable, and their opinions are wavering—not the wavering produced by deliberation or progressive views, but by contradictory emotions” (Wollstonecraft 83).
