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

Wo workforce in a Mans WorldEliza Fenwicks SecresyIn examining how women fit into the mens world of the late eighteenth century, I canvass Eliza Fenwicks novel Secresy and its treatment of women, particularly in terms of education. What I be to be most striking in the novel is the clash surrounded by two very different approaches to the education of women. One of these, the traditional view, is fully expressed by works such as Jean-Jaques Rousseaus Emile, which states that women deliver a natural tendency toward obe fadence 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 school of thought, stating that scorecard 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 causa of Mr . Valmont, who incarcerates his orphaned niece in a remote part of his castle. He asserts that he has determined her lot in life and that her only duty is to ensue him without reserve or discussion (Fenwick, p.55). This oppressive view of education served to life women subservient by keeping them in an ignorant, child-like state. By denying them access to current 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, but 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, communicate to a Young Lady that young girls should seize every opportunity of improvement through the study of those per sons, and those 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 lineament of Sibella Valmont, Mr. Valmonts niece, who at one point tells her learned friend, Caroline Ashburn I looking at within the vivifying principle of intellectual life.