Mary Wollstonecraft as Anti- Manic Pixie Dream Girl: Sexuality, Melancholia, and the Death Sequence in Godwin’s Memoirs
Jamie Watson University of North Carolina Wilmington Faculty Mentor: Katherine Montwieler University of North Carolina Wilmington
ABSTRACT During the nineteenth century, William Godwin’s contemporaries criticized his Memoirs of the Author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, a biography chronicling the life of his late wife Mary Wollstonecraft, as an insult to Wollstonecraft’s memory. Godwin’s biography, illustrating Wollstonecraft’s scandalous affairs, suicide attempts, and brutal death, caused some readers to question why Godwin would release such disreputable information. However, Godwin’s in- clusion of these events in Wollstonecraft’s life serves a purpose. Eighteenth-century women’s conduct books portray the “proper lady” as a sexually subdued, weak, and subservient woman, a description that anticipates a modern trope critic that Nathan Rabin calls the “Manic Pixie Dream Girl.” Both the “proper lady” and “Manic Pixie Dream Girl” emphasize a lack of sexual power and agency, asserting that the ideal woman must strive to satisfy her male coun- terpart rather than pursue independent goals. Yet, by emphasizing Wollstonecraft’s sexual lib- eration, emotional instability, and imperfection, Godwin subverts the unattainable feminine ideal—constructed in eighteenth-century conduct books—that continues to haunt even modern interpretations.
n the 1798 Memoirs of the Author of development. In spite of Godwin’s critique, IA Vindication of the Rights of Woman, the ideal woman of eighteenth-century con- William Godwin describes the unsettling duct books continued to thrive in alternate details of Mary Wollstonecraft’s life, includ- uses through the nineteenth and into the ing her suspected affair with Henry Fuseli, twenty-first centuries; her most recent incar- illegitimate child with Gilbert Imlay, suicide nation is the modern Manic Pixie Dream Girl attempts, and agonizing death. As a result, of contemporary independent film fame. The Godwin’s biography subverts the female Manic Pixie Dream Girl—a trope defined by archetype in eighteenth-century women’s critic Nathan Rabin—is a quirky, sexually conduct books that portray the ideal woman subdued love interest meant to bring hap- as sexually inhibited and subservient to her piness to her male counterpart. In the pages husband. Godwin’s Memoirs argues that this that follow, I discuss the similarities between eighteenth-century archetype suppressed the ideal woman of eighteenth-century con- socially unacceptable emotions and experi- duct books and the Manic Pixie Dream Girl, ences, thus inhibiting a woman’s potential and then I show how Godwin’s biography
1 Explorations |Humanities and Fine Arts seeks to combat this surprisingly perennial, Defoe, the eighteenth-century ideal woman eighteenth-century trope. I focus on these lacks individuality, sexual desires, and qual- two constructions of femininity to show that, ities that might evoke controversy, which are despite the feminist movement and the rise expectations realized in the modern Manic in women’s rights during the past three cen- Pixie Dream Girl trope. turies, seemingly antiquated tropes of ideal Film critic Nathan Rabin coined the term femininity still influence modern culture. “Manic Pixie Dream Girl” (MPDG) in his During Godwin’s time, portrayals of 2007 review of Elizabethtown: “The Manic women in conduct books encouraged women Pixie Dream Girl exists solely in the fevered to be “self-regulating by recognizing their imaginations of sensitive writer-directors to ‘natural’ predispositions for both good and teach broodingly soulful young men to em- evil”—nurturing goodness and suppress- brace life and its infinite mysteries and- ad ing evil. The virtuous, proper woman was ventures.” Elizabethtown’s MPDG is Claire, expected to hide flaws (Darby 336). Mary who exhibits her complete devotion to Poovey explains that these conduct books Drew—the brooding male lead—by “keep- urged women to relinquish “appetites of ing [him] awake and giddy during an all- any kind” and possess “no vanity, no pas- night cell-phone verbal duet” and “sending sion, [and] no assertive ‘self’ at all” (21). If him on an intricately mapped-out road trip” ideal women were supposed to be passive (Rabin 4). The model Manic Pixie Dream and unseen, prostitutes merited an altogether Girl, Claire is a stock female character whose different femininity as Daniel Defoe’s Some sole purpose is to help the male protagonist Considerations Upon Street-Walkers. With A find himself. Throughout the film, Claire tries Proposal for Lessening the Present Number to assist Drew with platitudes like “You want of Them indicates. Published in 1726, to be really great? Then have the courage to Defoe’s work emphasizes the difference be- fail big and stick around. Make ‘em wonder tween “good” women and prostitutes: why you’re still smiling. That’s true greatness to me. But don’t listen to me, I’m a Claire.” The great Use of Women in a Community, is Vaguely self-deprecating, charismatic, and to supply it with Members that may be ser- concerned with helping her brooding male, viceable, and keep up a Succession. They Claire lacks personal identity, goals, and sex- are also useful in another Degree, to wit, in ual desires the Labour they make take for themselves, or the Assistance which they may afford An earlier example of the Manic Pixie their Husbands or Parents. It will readily Dream Girl is Holly Golightly from the film be allowed that a Street-walking Whore can Breakfast at Tiffany’s (1961). According never answer either of these Ends; Riot and to film critics Rabin, Noel Murray, Amelie Diseases prevent one, and the Idleness which Gillette, Donna Bowman, Steven Hyden, and directs her to this Course of Life incapaci- Leonard Pierce, in Truman Capote’s 1958 tates her for the other. (6) novel, Holly Golightly is a “sexually adven- turous woman who jumps from man to man, Defoe describes the proper woman and living off the gifts she extorts from them, streetwalker as polar opposites: the lady up- and changing casually with the seasons.” holding the community through her devotion The film adaptation, unlike Capote’s novel, to service and family, and the streetwalker captures the Manic Pixie ideal. Film Holly is plaguing the community with her supposed “a chaste party girl who shares her opinions disease and idleness. Defoe asserts that femi- easily, but keeps her affections to herself (and nine sexuality outside the confines of service her cat).” Holly’s virginal innocence “charms to the husband is akin to the streetwalker writer George Peppard to such an extent that tainting civilized society. The ideal woman he’s able to give up the rich older woman who lives for others rather than for herself. For helps subsidize his work, and instead offer
2 Jamie Watson his devotion to his erratic dream woman…” and criticism of such patriarchal standards (Rabin et al.). The fictional, romantic -suc of femininity. As demonstrated by the eigh- cess of Hepburn’s Holly Golightly suggests teenth-century proper lady, the idealization the Manic Pixie is endearing. Although the of submissive women did not begin with the Manic Pixie Dream Girl may seem to be a Manic Pixie, and its increased prevalence in harmless, fictional model, feminist critics cultural discussion is not an indulgence in the Michelle Orange and Laurie Penny fear that trope. Indeed, one should look to and at the she is destructive to real women. stereotype, its history, and its implications. In This is Running for Your Life, Orange Laurie Penny suggests another answer to devotes a chapter solely to analyzing the the question about the trope’s enduring pop- MPDG, which she calls “the banal absence— ularity, calling for the “opening of space in of stability, of ambition, of selfhood, of sex- the collective imagination for women who ual threat, of skirts that pass midthigh” and have not been permitted such space before, a “fun-house reflection of millennial - mas for women who don’t exist to please, to de- culinity in crisis” (Orange 50). The Manic light, to attract men, for women who have Pixie Dream Girl suppresses feminine power more on our minds” (Penny). Her solution by glorifying the overly-simplistic woman to the Manic Pixie trope recalls Godwin’s meant to help the brooding male discover his portrayal of Wollstonecraft, which focuses identity. The trope deprives the woman of on his wife’s “sexual relationships, sui- self-perpetuating motivations and reinforces cide attempts, and other unorthodox life compulsory, conventional femininity à la choices” (Monsam 127). However, critics Holly Golightly. I concur with Orange that of Memoirs, at the time it was published, the MPDG is more than a whimsical, recur- viewed Godwin’s biography as offensive to ring trope and is actually a reductive model Wollstonecraft’s memory. of femininity. Early critics of Godwin’s Memoirs ques- In her article “I Was a Manic Pixie Dream tioned the writer’s motivation for portraying Girl,” Laurie Penny claims the ideal has his wife as sexually deviant and depressed. practical consequences because “fiction cre- Mitzi Myers writes, ates real life,” and “[w]omen behave in ways that they find sanctioned in stories written Many who admired Wollstonecraft were also by men” (Penny). If the Manic Pixie Dream offended and, like some modern biographers, Girl continues as an ideal female archetype, puzzled at Godwin’s motivation for such can- Penny fears young girls will be driven to en- dor. [Robert] Southey expressed his disgust at Godwin’s “want of all feeling in stripping act the trope—suppressing identity, sexuality, his dead wife naked,” and another friend and personal objectives. jotted verses which conclude, “mourn’d by Recently, Rabin apologized for “coining Godwin with a heart of stone.” (Myers 302) the phrase ‘Manic Pixie Dream Girl,’” say- ing he “created the phrase to call out cultural Critics like Southey rejected Godwin’s ac- sexism and to make it harder for male writers count of Wollstonecraft’s personal trau- to posit reductive, condescending male fanta- mas and failings. But, Godwin emphasizes sies of ideal women as realistic characters.” Wollstonecraft’s sexuality and intimate re- Rabin challenges writers to “create better, lationships, illustrates her melancholia, and more nuanced and multidimensional female depicts her death in great detail to portray characters” with “complicated emotions and his wife as a woman who transcends the re- total autonomy”(“I’m sorry for coining the ductive and anti-feminist ideals of the eigh- phrase ‘Manic Pixie Dream Girl.’”). Rabin’s teenth-century equivalent of the Manic Pixie solution—that the trope should be eliminated Dream Girl. from discourse—fails to acknowledge that discussion of the term has created awareness
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Wollstonecraft’s Intimate Relationships presence. Godwin also lingers on this aspect of Fuseli and Wollstonecraft’s relationship, Godwin’s intention for including his rather than on their romantic relationship, to wife’s scandalous sexual history while re- show Wollstonecraft’s prioritizing of intellec- laying little of his own intimate relations tualism and artistic sensibility over mere af- with Wollstonecraft warrants suspicion. Yet fection, though she gained both from Fuseli. Godwin’s articulation of Wollstonecraft’s Godwin interrupts his telling of relationships demonstrates how he views Wollstonecraft’s relations with Fuseli to ac- her suspected affair with the married Henry knowledge the first time that he, her future Fuseli and conception of an illegitimate husband, meets Wollstonecraft. At a din- child as vital to her self-defined identity. ner party with Thomas Paine, Godwin and These experiences foster intellectualism, Wollstonecraft leave “mutually displeased sensibility, and one of her greatest obstacles: with each other” (81). This non-romantic melancholia. encounter helps to legitimize Godwin as an In Memoirs, one of Wollstonecraft’s first unbiased writer of Wollstonecraft’s biog- romantic interests is Henry Fuseli, the cel- raphy. One might assume Wollstonecraft’s ebrated painter. Wollstonecraft, being a future husband would hyper-romanticize “person perhaps more susceptible of the this moment between them, implying their emotions painting is calculated to excite,” love is pre-destined. However, Godwin does indulges in an emotionally complex relation- the opposite. He writes about this instance ship with Fuseli, a married man. Godwin frankly, revealing his initial disinterest in notes, “It cannot be doubted, but that this Wollstonecraft and his annoyance with her. was the species of exercise very conducive By conveying their first encounter with- al to the improvement of Mary’s mind” (77). most brutal honesty, Godwin establishes Godwin’s most obvious goal in underscoring himself as a reliable narrator rather than as Wollstonecraft’s relationship with Fuseli is a man acknowledging the wrongs that other demonstrating her need for self-improvement men do to his beloved wife. Additionally, and self-education. But Wollstonecraft and Godwin’s rational rather than romantic views Fuseli’s relationship, according to Godwin, toward his Wollstonecraft’s love interests re- degrades as it moves transitions from pla- flect his equally rational view of marriage. In tonic to romantic. Political Justice, Godwin describes marriage Godwin concedes that Fuseli and as a “legal institution and social practice” Wollstonecraft’s initial companionship that “presupposes mutual understanding be- is platonic and, rather than defending tween husband and wife for life, and is en- Wollstonecraft from accusations of promiscu- tered following a romantic, usually decep- ity, reaffirms Wollstonecraft’s self-perpetuat- tive, decision based on inexperience” (Pérez ing motive to improve her mind and appreci- 219). This analytical opinion of marriage ation of the aesthetic. Godwin writes that “if permeates Godwin’s biography as he dissects Mr. Fuseli had been disengaged at the period events with candid storytelling. of their acquaintance, he would have been the Godwin explains that Wollstonecraft’s man of her choice” and that Wollstonecraft return to France to visit Fuseli is not due to “conceived it both practicable and eligible, to “a Platonic affection” but to enjoy “pleasure cultivate a distinguishing affection for him… in his society” and Wollstonecraft’s “ardent without departing in the smallest degree from imagination was continually conjuring up the rules she prescribed to herself” (79). pictures of the happiness she should have Godwin reiterates Wollstonecraft’s motiva- found.” Her relationship with Fuseli then be- tion to improve herself and her situation by comes a “perpetual torment to her” (81). By cultivating a relationship with Fuseli, taking writing of Wollstonecraft’s desire for Fuseli, the initiative to educate herself by way of his Godwin acknowledges the whole woman as
4 Jamie Watson an adult with complex feelings. Emphasizing is then not a one-dimensional and needy Wollstonecraft’s ability to overcome her de- woman. Instead, Wollstonecraft’s residual sire, Godwin demonstrates how she acquires feelings of unrequited love for Fuseli and agency from her failed pursuit of Fuseli. Imlay build and are released in the form of However, Wollstonecraft only grows melan- melancholia. cholic following her next relationship with Gilbert Imlay. Another controversy addressed by G- Wollstonecraft’s Melancholia odwin is Wollstonecraft’s cohabitation with Imlay and illegitimate child. A skeptical In Memoirs, William Godwin continues his reader might question Godwin’s intent for seemingly unflattering portrayal of his late emphasizing this relationship. But I believe wife by illustrating Wollstonecraft’s battle that Godwin, by including Wollstonecraft’s with melancholia and her subsequent suicide relationship with Imlay, reiterates how her attempts. Instead of perceiving this depressive sexuality, motherly capabilities, and melan- state as tarnishing her reputation or as an un- cholia result from her lived experiences. veiling of precious, personal issues, Godwin Because both the eighteenth-century utilizes the melancholia to illustrate why he proper lady and the Manic Pixie Dream fell in love with Wollstonecraft; he reads her Girl ideal are defined by their virginal qual- prose and is inspired by the intellectualism ities—encapsulated by the virtuous and pure and sensibility she displays in her relation- Holly Golightly from the film Breakfast at ships with Fuseli and Imlay. Wollstonecraft’s Tiffany’s—Wollstonecraft’s sexual activ- experiences with melancholia and her abil- ity still may surprise some readers expect- ity to learn from them distinguish her from ing a conventional heroine. For Godwin, the eighteenth-century conduct books’ ideal Wollstonecraft is a woman, not a dream girl. woman and the contemporary Manic Pixie Her very identity, strength, and wisdom de- Dream Girl. mand sexual experience. Godwin chooses to In Letters Written during a Short acknowledge Wollstonecraft’s sexuality and Residence in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark, romantic partners in terms of how they help Wollstonecraft describes the landscape as the her discover and better herself. Wollstonecraft cure for depression: grows as an intellectual as a result of failed romances, one of the most prominent being I was alone, till some involuntary sympa- her permanent separation from Gilbert Imlay. thetic emotion…made me feel that I was The end of Wollstonecraft’s intimate rela- still a part of a mighty whole, from which I tionship with Imlay catalyzes her “desper- could not sever myself—not, perhaps, for the reflection has been carried very far, by snap- ate purpose to die”—beginning her battle ping the thread of an existence which loses with melancholia, which the Oxford English its charms in proportion as the cruel experi- Dictionary (OED) defines as “severe endog- ence of life stops or poisons the current of the enous depression, with loss of interest and heart. (17) pleasure in normal activities, disturbance of sleep and appetite, feelings of worthlessness The “beauty of the northern summer’s eve- and guilt, and thoughts of death or suicide” ning and night” evoke in her an “involuntary (“melancholia”). But, Godwin notes, this sympathetic emotion,” suggesting travel and is not due to Wollstonecraft’s dependence the landscape help heal her melancholic, sui- on Imlay. He writes, “While she was ab- cidal tendencies (16). Wollstonecraft articu- sent from Mr. Imlay, she could talk of pur- lates that it is not other people who ultimately poses of separation and independence” (93). heal her; instead, she is saved by the absence Overwhelmed by his presence, her ideas of of others, the powers of the picturesque land- independence are suppressed. Wollstonecraft scape, and the pursuit of self-identification.
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It is Letters that finally attracts Godwin to disturbance of the nervous system…usually Wollstonecraft, showing his affinity for attended with emotional disturbances and the independent, sensitive, and intelligent enfeeblement or perversion of the moral and female. intellectual faculties” (“hysteria”). Hysteria Godwin explains that he falls in love with is characterized by compromised intelligence Wollstonecraft, not because she is virginal and overwhelming sensibility; Godwin as- or manic but rather because she is mel- serts that Wollstonecraft’s strength is her ancholic. In Memoirs, Godwin describes ability to overcome such obstacles and to at- Wollstonecraft’s Letters Written during a tain both intelligence and sensibility. Short Residence in Sweden, Norway, and Explaining his intentions for including Denmark: Wollstonecraft’s melancholic travels in Memoirs, Godwin writes, “Depicting her If ever there was a book calculated to make intelligent and perceptive interactions with a man in love with its author, this appears to the landscape is one way about making her me to be the book. She speaks of her sorrows, mind’s functioning visible.” He also under- in a way that fills us with melancholy, and scores the “great emotive and mental capa- dissolves us in tenderness, at the same time bilities that [Wollstonecraft] possessed” (39). that she displays a genius which commands By continuing to note Wollstonecraft’s intel- all our admiration. (95) ligence and sensibility, Godwin establishes Godwin stresses Wollstonecraft’s sensibility, Wollstonecraft as exceeding the confines of power, and intelligence—“a genius which traditional gender stereotypes. commands all our admiration.” Instead of Godwin’s candid portrayal of Mary criticizing her melancholic experience, he Wollstonecraft’s melancholia and suicidal describes it as a commendable trait and a sign tendencies proved abusive to her reputation. of intelligence. It is also surprising that, in According to Ildiko Csengei, “After the pub- Memoirs, Godwin does not characterize tra- lication of the Memoirs, Wollstonecraft’s ditional expectations of eighteenth-century work was largely ignored and her name only women as solely feminine, as medical ex- invoked as a warning until the end of the fol- perts of Godwin’s time believed that possess- lowing century. Her reputation suffered in- ing sensibility and intellectualism resulted in tensely from what the public saw as tasteless male melancholia (95). exposure” (492).Yet Godwin was trying to In eighteenth-century Britain, medical ex- liberate Wollstonecraft; in Memoirs, he em- perts believed melancholia resulted from the phasizes intellectualism and the female ca- “coexistence of great rational intelligence and pability to experience melancholia instead of refined sensibility”—rationality being innate hysteria to challenge the reductive perception to men and sensibility naturally instilled in of female intellect. Godwin’s Wollstonecraft women. Even success in the literary field was is capable of both stereotypical feminine “associated with male melancholia” (Kautz sensibility and male intellectualism, though 38). Godwin elaborates on Wollstonecraft’s admittedly, he romanticizes the notion of the melancholia and intelligence, expressing empowered woman of influence and educa- her power to transcend the arbitrary con- tion who is still tender-hearted. Godwin also fines of gender and medical categorization stresses Wollstonecraft’s depression to show established by physician and writer William how she overcomes such severe emotions Buchan. through her observations and writings. Buchan, in his 1769 health guide Domestic Throughout Memoirs, Godwin empha- Medicine, “associates melancholia with men sizes Wollstonecraft’s ability to conquer and masculine activities, and hysteria with obstacles. Unlike her “timid and irreso- women and feminine activities” (38). The lute” friend Fanny Blood, Godwin says OED defines “hysteria” as “a functional Wollstonecraft has a “firmness of mind, an
6 Jamie Watson unconquerable greatness of soul, by which, after a short internal struggle, she was accus- This performance of Manic Pixie Dream tomed to rise above difficulties and suffer- Girl characteristics by a mentally-impaired ing” (58). Acknowledging Wollstonecraft’s woman exhibits the possible real-life conse- ability to overcome melancholia as a sign of quences of the trope. As Penny asserts, the strength, Godwin strives to deter criticism of trope exists in the real world because “fic- Wollstonecraft for her suicidal tendencies and tion creates real life.” Vivian’s decision to depression—qualities considered undignified perform the role of the Manic Pixie Dream and irresponsible for a mother. Much like his Girl demonstrates her need to be socially ac- detailed description of Wollstonecraft’s rela- ceptable by resembling the feminine ideal. tionships, Godwin utilizes the controversial Just as nineteenth-century critics viewed to emphasize Wollstonecraft’s growth as a Godwin’s portrayal of Wollstonecraft’s own result of her lived experiences. struggles with mental illness as insulting, Wollstonecraft’s melancholic representa- Vivian fears the same kind of critical judg- tion contrasts with the Manic Pixie Dream ment. The Manic Pixie Dream Girl trope be- Girl because the Manic Pixie Dream Girl is comes a coping mechanism to hide Vivian’s first and foremost characterized as “manic.” Asperger’s. As Jack reveals with this study, The OED defines “mania” as “madness, the mania of the Manic Pixie Dream Girl that particularly of a kind characterized by un- Vivian adopts works to reinforce the tradi- controlled, excited, or aggressive behavior tional gender expectations that Godwin’s por- [frequently] contrasted with melancholia” trayal of Wollstonecraft attempts to subvert. (“mania”). Just as Buchan establishes hys- Because she rejects feminized hysteria teria as feminine, Jordynn Jack emphasizes and opts for bouts of melancholia and hap- how mania is innately feminine in her analy- piness, Wollstonecraft becomess more than a sis of the Manic Pixie Dream Girl. one-dimensional woman defined by her men- Jack’s 2012 study explores how women tal state; she transitions between sadness and with autism adopt non-normative gender happiness, but she does so with good reason. identities to cope with mental illness. In She suffers trauma and pain. She contem- the study, one woman in particular, Vivian, plates death, and the extended death sequence adopts the characteristics of the Manic Pixie William Godwin describes in Memoirs is his Dream Girl as a coping mechanism for her final attempt at humanizing Wollstonecraft. Asperger’s syndrome. Jack’s study exempli- fies how the Manic Pixie Dream Girl exists outside of fiction. Wollstonecraft’s Death
This role does not seem like one Vivian has Godwin’s final section of Memoirs chron- “made up” out of nowhere; instead, it seems icles Wollstonecraft’s prolonged death se- to be an amalgam of her observations of oth- quence after the birth of Mary Godwin—later ers (in life and in film), and of the expecta- to become Frankenstein author Mary Shelley. tions required of women in different social situations. Her language shows that she does Angela Monsam compares Godwin’s bi- not view her chosen role fully as embodied, ographical approach to Wollstonecraft to a a product of repeated stylized acts that she dissection, arguing that Godwin highlights has imbibed since childhood. Instead, she the deterioration of Wollstonecraft’s health to views Manic Pixie Dream Girl much more preserve her in an act of “literary embalm- as a performance, a rhetorical device and a ing” (117). coping mechanism: Manic Pixie Dream Girl While Godwin uses unaffected language to offers “the only acceptable way for a girl to describe Wollstonecraft, mimicking medical be weird” and “the only way of synthesizing analysis, he also uses this language to situate my AS [Asperger’s syndrome] into a reason- ably acceptable personality. (11) his late wife on a plane of reality where she
7 Explorations |Humanities and Fine Arts is not idolized or pristine. In effect, Godwin can not save Wollstonecraft because she is not lays out Wollstonecraft’s death factually fictional, it must also be remembered that his much like the open casket at a wake—open gruesome depiction of her death contradicts to viewers in its morbidity—to solidify her the trope of the proper lady and the Manic existence, to humanize her, and to dispel the Pixie. The ultimate failing of the Manic Pixie idea of Wollstonecraft as a damsel in distress Dream Girl is that she cannot live without a who can be saved by her dominant, mascu- strong male. Evidenced by Wollstonecraft’s line counterpart. ability to move from one unfortunate rela- Observing the deterioration of tionship to the next and die despite Godwin’s Wollstonecraft’s condition after giving birth, desire for her to live, Wollstonecraft both ex- Godwin writes, “Every muscle of the body ists without the first object of her affection trembled, the teeth chattered, and the bed and dies in the presence of her great love; shook under her…She told me, after it was severance and death act as consequences of over, that it had been a struggle between life being a real woman. and death, and that she had been more than The Manic Pixie Dream Girl—a child- once…at the point of expiring.” His obser- like, male-oriented fantasy—contrasts with vation of Wollstonecraft may seem cold and Godwin’s portrayal of his late wife, Mary unfeeling due to the wording of “the body” Wollstonecraft. His controversial choices to and “the teeth,” instead of “[her] body” and illustrate her life underscore these important “[her] teeth,” but Godwin’s description also differences, though Godwin suffered harsh emphasizes how Wollstonecraft’s mind is in criticism and backlash for these authorial competition with her body (115). In this in- decisions. As evidenced by Godwin’s love stance, Wollstonecraft’s existence is not de- of Wollstonecraft’s melancholic writings and pendent on her body and her health. his acceptance of her various affairs, what Wollstonecraft’s body “tremble[s],” and most observers considered as abusive and because trembling has feminine connotations, cruel toward his dead wife, Godwin sees as one could consider Godwin’s description as liberating and progressive. Godwin discusses indicative of the stereotypical feeble female. Mary’s relationships with Fuseli and Imlay However, Godwin counters his depiction to express her adult sexuality and to provide when he adds, “I intreated her to recover; I context for her melancholia. Then, Godwin dwelt with trembled fondness on every fa- reveals the extent of Wollstonecraft’s mel- vourable circumstance; and, as far as it was ancholia to reinforce her role as a depressed possible in so dreadful a situation, she, by her intellectual transcending the gender binaries smiles and kind speeches, rewarded my af- of eighteenth-century medicine. Finally, fection” (116). Godwin trembles too, and he Godwin refutes the idea that Wollstonecraft suffers as Wollstonecraft does. If trembling is his dream—that she can exist as long as is feminine, Godwin projects this femininity he wishes. Instead, he chronicles her death in on himself, which demonstrates his views of detail, noting her role in reality and his in- fluctuating gender roles. ability to rescue her. Wollstonecraft’s extended death sequence What can be derived from the con- contrasts with the Manic Pixie Dream Girl trast between Godwin’s portrayal of Mary because the Manic Pixie Dream Girl does not Wollstonecraft and the female standards ide- exist outside of the troubled male’s fantasy, alized by eighteenth-century conduct books and she exists only as long as he desires. The and the Manic Pixie Dream Girl trope is that male chooses to prolong the life of the Manic liberation is not synonymous with the preser- Pixie Dream Girl, and in Memoirs, that is the vation of an untarnished reputation. Hiding one thing Godwin cannot do—save Mary sexual deviances, depressive states, and per- Wollstonecraft from a death caused by medi- haps mortifying experiences condones unre- cal malpractice. While it is true that Godwin alistic expectations of women, thus echoing
8 Jamie Watson the sentiments of eighteenth-century conduct lasting quality of this ideal of the perfect, books and modern portrayals of femininity. overly-simplified woman must be addressed. Encouraging a woman to be perfect deprives One does so by following Godwin’s exam- her of identity, as she suppresses the char- ple—examining the entirety of the individ- acteristics which distinguish her from the ual, rather than hiding the aspects and actions “proper” woman. that are not societally palatable or acceptable. The Manic Pixie Dream Girl trope is with- As William Godwin adds to the complexity out dimension; the effects of this idealiza- of his late wife, Mary Wollstonecraft, it is im- tion for modern women are potentially dev- portant to interpret the actions of others and astating. Because the similarities between contemplate their so-called faults to combat the eighteenth-century proper lady and the the over-simplification of women in both re- Manic Pixie Dream Girl are so striking, the ality and fiction.
Works Cited
Csengei, Ildiko. “Godwin’s Case: Melancholy Mourning in the ‘Empire of Feeling.’” Studies in Romanticism. 48.3 (2009). Print. Darby, Barbara. “The More Things Change...The Rules and Late Eighteenth-Century Conduct Books for Women.” Women’s Studies 29.3 (2000): 333. Academic Search Complete. Web. 25 Nov. 2013. Defoe, Daniel. Some Considerations upon Street-walkers. With a Proposal for Lessening the Present Number of Them. London: Printed for A. Moore, 1726. Print. Elizabethtown. Dir. Cameron Crowe. Paramount Pictures, 2005. Film. Godwin, William. Memoirs of the Author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman. Ed. Pamela Clemit and Gina Luria Walker. Toronto: Broadview, 2001. Print. “hysteria.” Def. 1. OED Online. Oxford University Press, September 2014. Web. 15 October 2014. Jack, Jordynn. “Gender Copia: Feminist Rhetorical Perspectives on an Autistic Concept of Sex/Gender.” Women’s Studies in Communication 35.1 (2012): 1-17. Taylor & Francis Online. Routledge, 16 May 2012.Web. 26 Nov. 2013.
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3 Nov. 2013. Orange, Michelle. This Is Running for Your Life: Essays. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2013. Print. Penny, Laurie. “I Was a Manic Pixie Dream Girl.” NewStatesman. NewStatesman, 30 June 2013. Web. 23 Nov. 2013. Pérez, Eva M. “The Trials Of Sincerity: William Godwin’s Political Justice V. His Memoirs Of Mary Wollstonecraft.” Connotations: A Journal For Critical Debate 13.3 (2003): 213- 229. MLA International Bibliography. Web. 2 July 2014. Poovey, Mary. The Proper Lady and the Woman Writer: Ideology as Style in the Works of Mary Wollstonecraft, Mary Shelley, and Jane Austen. Chicago: University of Chicago, 1984. Print. Rabin, Nathan. “I’m sorry for coining the phrase ‘Manic Pixie Dream Girl.’” SALON. Salon Media Group, Inc., 15 July 2014. Web. 18 July 2014. Rabin, Nathan. My Year of Flops: The A.V Club Presents One Man’s Journey Deep into the Heart of Cinematic Failure. New York: Scribner, 2010. Print. Rabin, Nathan, Noel Murray, Amelie Gillette, Donna Bowman, Steven Hyden, and Leonard Pierce. “Wild Things: 16 Films Featuring Manic Pixie Dream Girls · The A.V. Club.”A.V. Club. Onion Inc., 4 Aug. 2008. Web. 04 Dec. 2013.
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