Analysis
There are many transcendentalist ideas expressed in the essay based on Fuller’s strong dedication to transcendentalism. One of the main ideas is the cultivation of the individual, which to Fuller included women as well as men. The essay applies the idea of the individual to the enlightenment of all mankind: allowing women as individuals to have greater spiritual and intellectual freedom will advance the enlightenment of both men and women and, therefore, all of mankind.
“The Great Lawsuit” also makes reference to the abolitionist movement. Women’s lack of freedom is paralleled to that of the slaves, one that was actively fought against by many people in the North, men as well as women. In doing this, Fuller is calling upon men’s compassion for the slave to be applied to women as well, and for women to expand their energy fighting for slaves’ freedom to their own.
The essay includes many allusions to other works in literature, history, politics, religion, and philosophy in order to demonstrate to the reader that she was qualified to write the work in an age when women were not allowed a college education. The work reflects her life, for she was very active in politics when women were still expected to devote themselves entirely to their family. Fuller identified with the Lithuanian nationalist Emilia Plater, a woman who raised a regiment against the Russians.
Read more about this topic: Woman In The Nineteenth Century
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