Influential Women's Rights

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Comparison of Three Influential Women 's Rights Authors and Their Pieces

Mary Wollstonecraft, Jane Austen, and Virginia Woolf were three female writers who published their opinions on the societal view of women 's rights during the 1700s, 1800s, and early 1900s. Respectively, a few of their most famed pieces were A Vindication of the Rights of Women, Pride and Prejudice, and A Room Of One 's Own. Wollstonecraft 's A Vindication of the Rights of Women contains her personal opinions about women 's rights directed to a politically active revered located nearby herself. Austen 's Pride and Prejudice is a fictional novel centered around a family by the name of the Bennets, and more specifically around the second eldest daughter Elizabeth. Elizabeth
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The overall topic of the book is not hard to discern. It is, of course, women’s rights. Wollstonecraft immediately writes, “Contending for the rights of woman, my main argument is built on this simple principle, that if she be not prepared by education to become the companion of man, she will stop the progress of knowledge and virtue; for truth must be common to all.” Her means of advertising her opinions is explicit. She creates no confusion about her intentions when she directly states her opinions on the matter. She also uses direct delivery of the subject by writing to a local politically active man: Mr. Talleyrand-Perigord. She writes with conviction, “It is then an affection for the whole human race that makes my pen dart rapidly along to support what I believe to be the cause of virtue,” as she explains to Perigord about women’s education being of utmost importance to husbands and families. Wollstonecraft explains her opinions outright, while another author uses a more subtle …show more content…
All of the arguments posed are very effective in convincing others that women’s rights should be increased. However, they are all very different in their ways of doing this. Mary Wollstonecraft directly states her opinion and likely got a lot of backlash from it. Hers was a little too direct. Jane Austen’s piece was not explicit enough in stating her opinions. It’s likely that not a lot people understood the deeper meaning of the novel. Virginia Woolf’s piece was perfectly in the middle. She wasn’t too direct or too indirect. Her piece was honest and convincing. Using a narrator to point out facts and create hypothetical anecdotes makes Woolf’s piece all the more effective. In short, the three novels are interesting reads that each hold a deep

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