In her pieces for the Analytical Review, Wollstonecraft developed a set of criteria for what constitutes a good novel:
A good tragedy or novel, if the criterion be the effect which it has on the reader, is not always the most moral work, for it is not the reveries of sentiment, but the struggles of passion — of those human passions, that too frequently cloud the reason, and lead mortals into dangerous errors ... which raise the most lively emotions, and leave the most lasting impression on the memory; an impression rather made by the heart than the understanding: for our affections are not quite voluntary as the suffrages of reason. (emphasis Wollstonecraft's)[7]
Wollstonecraft believed that novels should be "probable" and depict "moderation, reason, and contentment".[8] Thus it is surprising that The Wrongs of Woman draws inspiration from works such as Ann Radcliffe's A Sicilian Romance (1790) and relies on gothic conventions such as the literal and figurative "mansion of despair" to which Maria is consigned. But it does so to demonstrate that gothic horrors are a reality for the average Englishwoman. Using elements of the gothic, Wollstonecraft portrays Maria's husband as tyrannical and married life as wretched.[9] As Wollstonecraft herself writes in the "Preface" to The Wrongs of Woman:
In many instances I could have made the incidents more dramatic, would I have sacrificed my main object, the desire of exhibiting the misery and oppression, peculiar to women, that arise out of the partial laws and customs of society.[10]
One model for Wollstonecraft's novel was Godwin's Caleb Williams (1794), which demonstrated how an adventurous and gothic novel could offer a social critique.[11]
Title page from the first edition of Mary Hays's Memoirs of Emma Courtney (1796)Narrator
The Wrongs of Woman usually uses third-person narration, although large sections of Maria's and Jemima's tales are in first-person narrative. The narrator often relates Maria's feelings to the reader through the new technique of free indirect discourse, which blurs the line between the third-person narrator and the first-person dialogue of a text. Wollstonecraft juxtaposes the events of the novel with both Maria's own retelling of them and her innermost feelings. The first-person stories allow Maria and Jemima to address each other as equals: their stories of suffering, while still allowing each character to retain an individualized sense of self, are a levelling and bonding force between the two.[12]
Jacobin novel
The Wrongs of Woman is a Jacobin novel, a philosophical novel that advocated the ideals of the French Revolution. Wollstonecraft's novel argues along with others, such as Mary Hays's Memoirs of Emma Courtney (1796), that women are the victims of constant and systematic injustice. Wollstonecraft uses the philosophical dialogues in her novel to demonstrate women's powerlessness.
Like other Jacobin novels, The Wrongs of Woman relies on a web of suggestive character names to convey its message: Jemima is named for Job's daughter; Henry Darnford's name resembles that of Henry Darnley, the second husband of Mary, Queen of Scots; and George Venables shares a name with the notorious womanizer George, Prince of Wales. Wollstonecraft added to the reality of her philosophical text by quoting from familiar literature, such as Shakespeare, alluding to important historical events, and referencing relevant facts. The Wrongs of Woman comments on the state of women in society by rewriting earlier texts with a feminist slant, such as Henry Fielding's Tom Jones; Fielding's Mrs. Fitzpatrick becomes Wollstonecraft's Maria. These rhetorical strategies made the philosophical elements of the novel more palatable to the public.[13]
