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The story of Mary Wollstonecraft is a fascinating one, particularly for the psychoanalyst. She has been a nodal point in the feminist movement, inspiring many other women to bring out essential reforms, inducing men to think fairly about the other half of the human race, and setting into motion a train of events that was to lead, 200 years later, to an amendment to the Constitution of the United States. What is the cause of the impelling nature of her work and her personality? What has given her the quality of leadership? From where does her effective creativity derive?
In a sense she was one of those fortunate beings whose troubles occurred at a confluence of history when remedial action was likely to be sparked and to ignite into a conflagration. The Enlightenment had been conducive to the consideration of measures for the betterment of all people. Soon Europe was to see women developing their salons for the fructification of the intellectual elite. The American and French Revolutions taught the overthrow of established authorities and of some conservative principles. The world was ready for beneficial changes although they were not to come in rapid fire succession.
But Wollstonecraft's efforts were not initiated simply because the times were ripe. Inner emotional forces also induced her to act as she did, and they found fertile soil in the social life of her age. She had the neurotic conflicts best calculated to produce an embittered adult women, bent on destroying men and leading to a wasted life. Despite her intense suffering, she strove to master her difficulties, and her remedial efforts had a germinative influence that was beneficial not only to herself. While her early difficulties were in relation to men, her corrective actions were valuable to men as well as women. While neurosis is not a conditio sine qua non of creativity, it can be employed to foster new solutions, and to generate the energies necessary for large exertion.
Her neurosis is a familiar pictu