Karan Arakelyan

9/14/2020

ENG 1121

Word Count: 572

1) While reading Mary Wollstonecraft ā€œDedicatory Letterā€ to A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, Wollstonecraft explains her ideologies with the equality between man and woman. In her letter she explains how their is a lot of injustice and inequality between men and women and the rights should be based on human rights not by gender. Her main goal towards the recipient of this letter is too change that person’s mind and too see things in a more open minded manner. Wollstonecraft’s letter is also persuading the readers to understand that a woman must educate herself in order to be able to have dominion.

2) While reading the letter, Wollstonecraft’s details that she uses would most likely put her in the feminist discourse community. In her letter she explains that the rights that women and men share must be equal and women are not inferior towards men but instead do not have the proper education to persuade otherwise. I believe Wollstonecraft fits into this discourse community mainly because her ideologies fit in with the agenda of what feminists try to achieve. Since feminism is based around the advocacy for the rights of women and the equality for all the sexes, Wollstonecraft belongs right in the middle of both. As for the recipient of the letter, I strongly believe that the receiver of the letter appears to be outside of the community mainly because Wollstonecraft’s letter focuses on persuading anyone who reads it to understand her research and maybe even change their mind.

3)

Quote 1:ā€œThere must be more equality established in society, or morality will never gain ground, and this virtuous equality will not rest firmly even when founded on a rock, if one half of mankind be chained to its bottom by fate, for they will be continually undermining it through ignorance or prideā€ (Wollstonecraft 85)

Writing Strategy: Persuasive

In this quote, I believe that Wollstonecraft is persuasive in her statement since she wants readers too understand that between man and woman must be equality amongst both sexes. Wollstonecraft then proceeds to elaborate stating mankind cannot live in harmony if both sexes are not able to find common ground and act equal based on basic human rights. Personally, Wollstonecraft appeals to persuasion with good points that she makes in her statement about sexism that is centered around ignorance and pride of man.

Quote 2: ” The conduct and manners of women, in fact, show clearly that their minds are not in a healthy state; as with flowers planted in soil that is too rich, strength and usefulness are sacrificed to beauty; and the flamboyant leaves, after giving pleasure to viewers, fade on the stalk, disregarded, long before it was the time for them to reach maturity” (Wollstonecraft 4)

Writing Strategy: Descriptive

Wollstonecraft in this quote uses imagery and description to compare women similarly towards flowers. This imagery that she uses is effective in this case since she describes how women who are not properly planted in the “soil”, will not be able to reach their full potential in education. She mentions that the “strength and usefulness” will be wasted on the beauty of the women instead of the potential to reach maturity and be educated within themselves. The imagery she describes fits perfectly with the message she is trying to convey about women and their ability to go beyond what people view them as beautiful beings such as the flowers she mentions in her quote.