In Chapter 1 of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, Wollstonecraft begins to address the system of patriarchy and misogyny that subordinates women by improperly educating them. She uses a simile to characterize how egotistical men have become, through adhering to systems of government that elevate men because of riches or heredity instead of ability. Their belief that they deserve the riches and providence that has come their way is, in Wollstonecraft’s opinion, evidence of their overreaching their circumstances. Her simile allows her to suggest the usurping of a greater power:
Man has been held out as independent of his power who made him, or as a lawless planet darting from its orbit to steal the celestial fire of reason; and the vengeance of heaven, lurking in the subtile flame, sufficiently punished his temerity, by introducing evil into the world.
In this simile, Wollstonecraft compares mankind to a planet that has abandoned its proper path in favor of a more profitable route. She suggests that by stepping outside the natural order, mankind has stolen "the fire of reason," becoming unreasonable and ungovernable in their desire for power and greatness. Her simile therefore allows her to describe her view of the depravity of mankind’s ego—that man could ignore the right path and let greed falsely inflate his confidence. Such egotism, she will go on to argue, perpetuates unjust social systems like the monarchy—or patriarchy.
Wollstonecraft’s simile might also be a subtle reference to the Greek myth of Prometheus, a man who was bold enough to steal fire from the gods. His ego, and his lack of humility and understanding of order, led to great punishment. In her reference to this story, the stolen flame represents the ego of mankind and man's nerve to overturn order and reason.
In Chapter 1, Wollstonecraft dives into her critique of what her society claims to value, and uses personification to enhance the reader’s engagement with her ideas. She attacks the emphasis that society places on rank and wealth, and explains that despite purportedly valuing reason and virtue, men too frequently take power only to misuse it and elevate themselves. Her use of personification near the beginning of the chapter helps her characterize the relationship between genius and wealth. She says:
For whilst rank and titles are held of the utmost importance, before which Genius ‘must hide its diminished head’, it is, with a few exceptions, very unfortunate for a nation when a man of abilities, without rank or property, pushes himself forward to notice.
In this section, Wollstonecraft personifies the attribute of genius in order to explain that it is often undervalued in favor of other attributes like social rank. She says that genius must hang its head, giving it the human attribute of a head, and using a common gesture that indicates shame or unhappiness. Her use of personification is also a reference to a line from Paradise Lost, one of the texts that she criticizes elsewhere in her piece. The original line calls to a figure whose presence makes the stars themselves hang their "diminished heads," indicating that this godly figure has precedence over all the heavens. Because Wollstonecraft criticizes Paradise Lost for its failure to properly represent complex female characters, she alludes to it here as a way to emphasize Milton’s overestimation of men. Wollstonecraft’s clever recycling of this line characterizes the relationship between genius and title by giving genius the attributes of a human capable of shame.
In Chapter Two, Wollstonecraft makes an allusion to Rousseau. He is one of a series of male authors that Wollstonecraft references; she uses works by these authors as examples of female characters being represented poorly. This can be for any number of reasons, and in Rousseau’s case, she focuses on a character from his book Emile, or Treatise on Education, published in 1762. Rousseau’s book is a treatise on the ideal education; it centers around a boy named Emile, and follows him through his process of becoming educated. Because Wollstonecraft’s argument is centered around the issue of education, Rousseau’s book is relevant to her task. Regarding Rousseau's take on Emile's wife Sophia's education, Wollstonecraft writes,
I now principally allude to Rousseau, for his character of Sophia is, undoubtedly, a captivating one, though it appears to me grossly unnatural; however it is not the superstructure, but the foundation of her character, the principles on which her education was built, that I mean to attack.
Wollstonecraft brings Rousseau up because his failure to narrate Sophia’s education in a complex and realistic manner opens up a larger conversation about the cultural failure surrounding women’s education. Rousseau, who emphasizes obedience overall in the education of women, is a good target for Wollstonecraft because she means to prove that the condition of women in the world is not an innate, biological inferiority, but rather a product of how they are educated. Patriarchy’s role in the miseducation of women is central to Wollstonecraft’s argument, and allusions to women within the canonical literature help her illustrate how these failures manifest on both real and fictional women.
In Chapter Two, Wollstonecraft begins to address some of the female stereotypes that are used to justify patriarchy and male dominance. She makes an allusion to Milton, and his poem Paradise Lost, as an example of this simplification in literature. Paradise Lost, she explains, is a work in which the patriarchy’s "ideal woman" is represented. She brings up her critique of Milton’s work several times in order to refute his presentation of femininity. Near the beginning of the chapter, she says:
Thus Milton describes our first frail mother; though when he tells us that women are formed for softness and sweet attentive grace, I cannot comprehend his meaning, unless, in the true Mahometan strain, he means to deprive us of souls, and insinuate that we were beings only designed by sweet attentive grace, and docile blind obedience, to gratify the senses of men when he can no longer soar on the wing of contemplation.
Wollstonecraft uses Paradise Lost because it is, at the time of her writing, a part of the literary canon that she has inherited. She means to prove his failings as an author writing female characters by unpacking how his representation of women characterizes their position in society. According to Milton, Wollstonecraft insists, women exist to gratify and attend to men and these functions render them useless as individuals. Wollstonecraft mentions Milton, and Paradise Lost specifically, numerous times; he is therefore one of the authors that Wollstonecraft is writing against. She uses his work because she can clearly explicate his shortcomings and use them to contrast with her own view of women's potential.
In Chapter Two, Wollstonecraft alludes to the Spanish author Miguel de Cervantes to contextualize a point about love and idealism. Wollstonecraft intends to clarify her position, because she anticipates backlash from her reader. She opens a passage acknowledging that a reader might interpret her argument as absurd because it may seem "anti-love." As she defends herself, and clarifies that she doesn’t actually intend to take this tactic, she references Don Quixote, Cervantes’s Spanish epic. She says:
To endeavor to reason love out of the world, would be to out Quixote Cervantes, and equally offend against common sense; but an endeavor to restrain this tumultuous passion, and to prove that it should not be allowed to dethrone superior powers, or to usurp the sceptre which the understanding should ever coolly wield, appears less wild.
In the above quote, Wollstonecraft says that arguing against love would be to take the tactic that Cervantes does in Don Quixote. She does not intend to critique the passions of love as harshly as Cervantes does in his treatment of his wildly optimistic protagonist. In hailing Cervantes as the ultimate pessimist regarding love, she makes it clear that she intends to take a less extreme tactic. She does not have to strive for Cervantes’s point of view; instead, she means to ensure that she does not let the overvaluing of love cloud more important, or "superior powers," such as reason. Her clarification in this section depends on her allusion to Cervantes as an extreme critic of love, and her disavowal of his philosophy makes her own seem less severe.
In Chapter Three, Wollstonecraft alludes to Shakespeare as she continues to discuss the mistreatment of women and the conditions of their intellectual development. In Chapters Two and Three, she builds her argument through the dissection of other literature, referencing literary masters and disputing the way that they write female characters. In this section, however, she mentions Shakespeare alongside Milton in order to clarify the conditions of their writing. Their imaginations were unfettered; that is, because they were men, they were given the freedom to create works of great literature. She says:
Shakespeare never grasped the airy dagger with a nerveless hand, nor did Milton tremble when he led Satan far from the confines of his dreary prison. These were not the ravings of imbecility, the sickly effusions of distempered brains; but the exuberance of fancy, that ‘in a fine phrenzy’ wandering, was not continually reminded of its material shackles.
Wollstonecraft’s allusion to Shakespeare references a symbol from the play Macbeth. During a frightening soliloquy, Macbeth begins to hallucinate, and wonders, “is this a dagger which I see before me / The handle toward my hand?” Wollstonecraft insists that Shakespeare’s imagination allowed him to embrace the non-literal, and extend beyond his actual circumstances. No one assumed that he was mad because of the caliber of his imagination. These two allusions to great authors help her insist that men’s freedom to use their imagination is the factor that allows them to create works of great importance. She means to point out a difference in creative credit given to men and women. Instead of being confined to the domestic sphere, and having their imagination restricted by material hardship, Shakespeare was able to write powerful soliloquies.
