On Mary Wollstonecraft's Quest In Vindication Of The Rights Of Woman

The story of a gallant hero’s quest in which he overcomes obstacles to save a princess or find the holy grail is a timeless example of one of literature’s most recognizable plots. During the Enlightenment, male scholars were successfully fulfilling their quest to end the tyranny of the monarchy, yet they ignored the similar enslavement of their wives and daughters, who were submissive and powerless to men. In Vindication of the Rights of Woman, Mary Wollstonecraft embarks on a revolutionary quest to persuade women that they have the potential to rise above society’s conventional view of women as dependent and inferior creatures. Mary Wollstonecraft tells her readers that her quest will be as difficult as finding the legendary “philosopher’s stone” (29). Historically, the philosopher’s stone was a mythical yet highly sought-after substance with the power to turn lead into gold and to produce immortality. This historical allusion is a metaphor for Wollstonecraft’s quest to encourage women to break free from the societal conventions that keep them in perpetual states of dependence. Wollstonecraft is an example of a woman who is an exception to the long-established assumption that women are intellectually inferior, yet she still must now convince the world of the potential of her fellow
. . deeply rooted prejudices have clouded reason” (11). Mary Wollstonecraft’s quest to encourage women to understand the irrationality of their continual dependence on men persisted years after her death. Since writing this account of her quest to enact change in her society, the obstacles of the eighteenth-century were slowly defeated with the realization of both men and women that curiosity and thirst for knowledge are universal characteristics of all humanity. With an increase in the availability for education, women united and shared Wollstonecraft’s quest that women should not “have power over men; but over themselves”