Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Blazing World, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Fiction, Fancy, and Utopia
Gender Hierarchy and Women’s Freedom
Monarchy and Government
Philosophy, Science, and Religion
Love and Friendship
Summary
Analysis
Margaret Cavendish writes that she wants “not only to be Empress, but Authoress of a whole world.” Her Blazing World is made of pure rational thought, and she built it faster than Alexander or Caesar could conquer the known world. She also caused much less turmoil and death in the process, and she enjoyed it far more than these great men did. Her Blazing World is peaceful and unified, but she could just as easily create any other kind of world. Cavendish made herself the hero of her world, and she wouldn’t trade this for any amount of power in the physical world. She encourages her readers to imagine worlds of their own—just not to usurp hers. And she concludes by pledging her undying love and loyalty to her “dear Platonic friend,” the Empress of the Blazing World.
Cavendish sums up the moral of her story. The Empress chose to give up absolute power over the Blazing World in order to build a fantasy world instead. This shows that being an “Authoress” is even better than being an “Empress”—that imagination is better than power, or that an intellectual life is better than a life of worldly success. Of course, this is doubly true for women, who lacked the same political, economic, and social opportunities as men, but have always been men’s intellectual equals. In fact, Cavendish even challenges the idea that fantasy is unreal at all. Specifically, she does this by emphasizing how her book’s plot is circular, and her appearance in the book (as the Duchess) is no different from her creation of the book (as the writer Margaret Cavendish). When she appeared to the Empress in the Blazing World, Cavendish decided to imagine a fantasy (or “celestial”) world—which is likely the Blazing World itself. Thus, the book describes its own creation, and it gives readers a blueprint for creating fictional worlds of their own (whether through writing or just idle fantasizing).
Themes
Literary Devices
