The Compelling Letters of Mary Wollstonecraft to Gilbert Imlay

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The Compelling Letters of Mary Wollstonecraft to
Gilbert Imlay

• By Katie Merriam

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What makes these letters so compelling to readers?

• Generations of readers from William Godwin to
  Lyndall Gordon have felt the evocative power of
  the letters
• It is the distinctive rhetoric of the love
  letters that makes them so compelling

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Versions of the Letters

• The edited version of the actual letters that
  Wollstonecraft sent to Imlay
• Wollstonecrafts Letters Written during a Short
  Residence in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark which
  were written solely for publication, not to be
  sent to Imlay

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Rhetorical Strategy Intimate Details

• Gives the reader the sense of being in close
  proximity to Wollstonecraft and Imlays
  relationship
• Affectionate Diction
• My dear Love, my dearest, your own dear
  girl
• God bless you kiss
• Uses some of the same expressions in her letters
  to Godwin but far less frequently and for a
  different purpose
• Sexual Insinuations
• I hope to tell you soon (on your lips) how glad
  I shall be to see you
• Reminds Imlay of their sexual relationship and
  bond as lovers
• Used in a flirtatious way to entice reader

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Intimate Details Continued

• Domestic Imagery
• Wollstonecraft uses to convince Imlay to return
  home brings readers beyond the content of the
  letters
• Routine domesticity
• Imlays slippers
• Fireside
• Walks and reading
• Fanny
• Used to waken Imlays parental attachment to his
  daughter
• Daily events in Fannys life that Imlay must miss
• Wollstonecraft also references Fanny in her
  letters to Godwin, but these references are less
  compelling because Fanny is not his biological
  child

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Rhetorical Strategy Tension between
Vulnerability and Independence

• Vulnerability used to appeal to Imlays pity and
  instinct to care for his lover
• References to illness, falling on rocks,
  emotional weakness
• Parasite plant imagery
• Rousseaus Solitary Walker
• Independence to entice Imlay by showing him that
  she does not need him
• Other men, threats to leave him
• Images of flight and ascension
• Refuses Imlays pecuniary offerings, resolves to
  find works
• I part with you in peace

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Rhetorical Strategy Tension between
Vulnerability and Independence Continued

• Tension between vulnerability and independence
  draws reader into Wollstonecrafts internal
  struggle to both express and regulate her
  affections for her lover
• It also makes the reader sympathize with
  Wollstonecraft because she has changing human
  emotions that the reader understands

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Rhetorical Strategy Changing Moods

• Ebb and flow of intensity and mood from light and
  happy to agitated to morose
• Frequently breaks off in passion and frustration
• Wollstonecrafts use of punctuation is an
  indication of her state of mind

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People Influenced by the Letters

• William Godwin
• Letters calculated to make a man fall in love
  with the author
• Mary Shelley
• History of a Six Weeks Tour1817
• Similar characteristics of letters
• Percy Shelley
• Became enamored with Wollstonecraft after reading
  the letters
• Eloped with Mary Shelley- Godwin and
  Wollstonecrafts child of love and light
• Claire Claremont
• Free Love
• Illegitimate child and remaking of herself in
  Russia

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Importance of the Letters for Modern Readers

• Are the letters compelling to modern readers, and
  if so, what makes them compelling?
• Do the letters teach the reader anything about
  how rhetoric should be used to express emotion?
• Do the letters teach the modern reader anything
  about the nature of love or about
  Wollstonecrafts definition of love?