Women in a Mans World in Eliza Fenwicks Secresy :: literature eliza fenwick secresy gothic fiction

Women in a Mans WorldEliza Fenwicks SecresyIn examining how women fit into the mens ground of the late eighteenth century, I studied Eliza Fenwicks novel Secresy and its treatment of women, hitticularly in terms of education. What I found to be most striking in the novel is the clash between two very different approaches to the education of women. One of these, the traditional view, is amply expressed by works much(prenominal) as Jean-Jaques Rousseaus Emile, which states that women have a natural tendency toward obedience and therefore education should be geared to enhance these qualities (Rousseau, pp. 370, 382, 366). Dr. John Gregorys A Fathers Legacy to His Daughters also belongs to this tame of thought, stating that wit is a womans most dangerous talent and is best kept a well-guarded secret so as not to excite the jealousy of others (Gregory, p. 15). This view, which sees women as morally and intellectually inferior, is expressed in the novel in the character of Mr. Valmont, who incarcerates his orphaned niece in a remote part of his castle. He asserts that he has stubborn her lot in life and that her only duty is to obey him without reserve or discussion (Fenwick, p.55). This oppressive view of education served to keep women subservient by keeping them in an ignorant, child-like state. By denying them access to true wisdom and the right to think, women were reduced to the position of a timid, docile slave, whose thoughts, will, passions, wishes, should have no standard of their own, save rise, or change or die as the will of the master should require (Fenwick, 156).Opposing this view is the radical, or feminist, version of education, echoed in the works of such authors as Mary Wollstonecraft and Hester Chapone. Chapone, a member of the feminist bluestockings, writes in her Letters on the Improvement of the Mind, Addressed to a Young Lady that young girls should stamp down every opportunity of improvement through the study of those persons, and thos e books, from which you can learn true wisdom. In her Vindication of the Rights of Woman, Mary Wollstonecraft presents the idea that women could be on par with men if they were given an equal education. This idea is clearly expressed in the character of Sibella Valmont, Mr. Valmonts niece, who at one point tells her learned friend, Caroline Ashburn I touch within the vivifying principle of intellectual life.