In the introduction, Wollstonecraft uses pathos, or appeal to emotion, to ensure that her reader understands the gravity of her subject matter. She wants to create a sense of urgency in her writing, and must therefore encourage her reader to favor immediate and decisive action. Her tactic in the introduction is to make the reader feel the effects of the problem she identifies. The ineptitude of the system that educates women is causing widespread suffering, and her revelation of this suffering makes the rest of her argument seem necessary and significant. She says:
A profound conviction, that the neglected education of my fellow creatures is the grand source of the misery I deplore; and that women in particular, are rendered weak and wretched by a variety of concurring causes, originating from one hasty solution. The conduct and manners of women, in fact, evidently prove, that their minds are not in a healthy state.
Wollstonecraft’s use of pathos in this section is dependent on her description of the ill health and suffering that women are forced to experience. When confronted with that reality, the reader has no choice but to understand why Wollstonecraft is writing toward a solution to this problem. The reader perceives the distress and widespread pain caused by not educating women properly, and has to, as a result, become more critical of the system that has created these problems. Wollstonecraft’s appeal to the emotions of the reader makes them feel the urgency of the problem in a new way, and binds them further to her task of finding a solution. Their level of investment is part of what will make them engage with her coming critique of their society and suggestions for the improvement of the material conditions of women.
