“Tender string”
Wollstonecraft expounds, “EARNESTLY as Maria endeavoured to soothe, by reading, the anguish of her wounded mind, her thoughts would often wander from the subject she was led to discuss, and tears of maternal tenderness obscured the reasoning page. She descanted on “the ills which flesh is heir to,” with bitterness, when the recollection of her babe was revived by a tale of fictitious woe, that bore any resemblance to her own; and her imagination was continually employed, to conjure up and embody the various phantoms of misery…The loss of her babe was the tender string; against other cruel remembrances she laboured to steel her bosom.” The allegorical ‘ tender string’ underscores the emotive outcome of Maria’s estrangement from her daughter. Reading a narrative which is analogous to her situation rouses her maternal predispositions and recollections of her daughter.
Dungeon
Wollstonecraft writes, “Sometimes, with a strict injunction of silence, Jemima would allow Maria, at the close of evening, to stray along the narrow avenues that separated the dungeon-like apartments, leaning on her arm. What a change of scene! Maria wished to pass the threshold of her prison, yet, when by chance she met the eye of rage glaring on her, yet unfaithful to its office, she shrunk back with more horror and affright, than if she had stumbled over a mangled corpse...What a task, to watch the light of reason quivering in the eye, or with agonizing expectation to catch the beam of recollection.” The emblematic ‘dungeon’ portrays the restraining nature of the asylum. The dungeon-like setting guarantees optimal captivity of individuals. Consequently, Maria is undeniably trapped and her liberty of association is utterly constrained.
“Mine of treasure”
Wollstonecraft explicates, “Maria took up the books with emotion…Dryden’s Fables, Milton’s Paradise Lost, with several modern productions, composed the collection. It was a mine of treasure. Some marginal notes, in Dryden’s Fables, caught her attention: they were written with force and taste; and, in one of the modern pamphlets, there was a fragment left, containing various observations on the present state of society and government, with a comparative view of the politics of Europe and America. These remarks were written with a degree of generous warmth, when alluding to the enslaved state of the labouring majority, perfectly in unison with Maria’s mode of thinking.” The books are an unqualified treasure, for they favorably liberate Maria from contemplations which could elicit her psychosis. Moreover, the materiality of the books is amplified by the annotations which smooths the encounter between Darnford and Maria.
