A Vindication of the Rights of Woman: Allusions 6 key examples

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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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