In Chapter Two, Wollstonecraft addresses the myriad of false theories for what makes women subordinate to men, and discusses the nature of male-female relationships. Near the end of the chapter, she uses a simile to talk about the value of a woman’s imagination, and how it might be misused. Her language lays bare both the material conditions of women’s lives and the misogynistic distortions that affect their ability to function reasonably in the world:
And this would almost always be the consequence, if the female mind was more enlarged; for, it seems to be the common dispensation of Providence, that what we gain in present enjoyment should be deducted from the treasure of life, experience; and that when we are gathering the flowers of the day and reveling in pleasure, the solid fruit of toil and wisdom should not be caught at the same time.
Wollstonecraft uses a series of similes here; first she calls experience a treasure, and then shifts into natural imagery. Pleasure in experiences is like flowers, ornamental and useless when compared to the more solid attributes gained through work and hard thought. Wollstonecraft’s similes allow her to characterize what is valuable about life. Were women more educated, she argues, they would be able to focus on building lasting attributes instead of seeking pleasure—which, like flowers, is beautiful but less valuable and sustaining than the permanence of fruit (the results of hard work). She uses imagery to emphasize how it would be impossible to prize both, and is therefore able to succinctly explain one of the failures of the current system of education.
