“I Could Almost Wish for the Madman’s Happiness”: Escape, Escapism, and Madness in Wollstonecraft’s Novels

Abstract

ABSTRACT In Mary Wollstonecraft’s two novels, Mary, A Fiction (1788) and The Wrongs of Woman, or Maria (1798), women are continually on the run, moving from one form of imprisonment to another whether it be physical, mental, or symbolic. In this article, I examine this perpetual motion in both novels, focusing on the futility, cyclicity, and social implications of the characters’ movements. In Mary and Maria, Wollstonecraft presents only two options for women in contemporary society—subjugation or perpetual attempts at escape—neither of which grant them freedom or true mobility. During instances of Mary’s and Maria’s greatest distress, both characters express a longing for one provocative form of release: madness. Wollstonecraft shows how a movement away from reason is the only option for total mental liberation afforded to the heroines in the cultural moment in which she is writing. Ultimately, I propose a feminist perspective on women’s insanity as a form of escape and a reading of this madness as an assertion of agency.