Jane Austen and Mary Wollstonecraft were seemingly writers with two distinctly different styles of writing who created a furor with their controversial styles of presentation. Though each wrote in different ways they were similar in conceptions of theme. Both Feminist writers, Austen and Wollstonecraft underlined the constrictions placed on women in society and the oppression they faced as their individuality was objectified in terms of beauty and societal class.
Consider that critics of Austen's stories contend that she gained popularity not because she offered escape through her fictitious depictions but rather because her protagonists were so "realistic" and presented in real terms the restrictive social conditions in which people, especially women, have had to live. Austen's stories are then based on strong women who struggle with the expectations society places on their actions. Though they may not always prove successful the strength is shown through the attempt rather than the final result. However, she did not openly oppose society. She created fiction that on the surface approved society and its 'values' and yet, all the while her characters rebelled in small ways that seemed inconsequential.
Mary Wollstonecraft, a contemporary of Austen's wrote "A Vindication Of the rights of women" when Austen was twenty-one. Wollstonecraft's writing is a direct contrast to Austen's subtlety. Wollstonecraft was educated in philosophy and held a great insight to the European Enlightenment...
Clearly pro-feminist she does not restrict her writing within the domestic and social circle but encompasses a wider area of debate. At a time when women writers were marginalized by the male worldview she presented her work targeted at women in society and attempted to create a political consciousness, unafraid of the controversy that she would raise with words like, "Men complain, and with reason, of the follies and caprices of our sex, when they do not keenly satirize our headstrong passions and groveling vices..."
Similarly, Austen is accepted as being a defender of late eighteenth-early nineteenth century English society and may seen as a reactionary yet, Austens characters become subtle rebels against the standards of morality. Austen underlined through her characters the importance of the individual rather than the values of the community. She was against the characterization of women, which restricted their roles in society within a masculine paradigm. However, she did not have the courage and determination that marked Wollstonecraft's "A Vindication Of the Rights of women." Vindication created an analogy between women and political colonization and slavery was compared to marriage. This rebellious attitude suggested that hers was a discourse that would create the feminist revolution later in time.
Austen's opposition to gender typecasting is best represented in the novel Mansfield Park…
