Hannah Foster's seduction novel, The Coquette and Mary Wollstonecraft's feminist novel, A Vindication of the Rights of Women, both described and compared. (6 pages)

In Hannah Foster's The Coquette and Mary Wollstonecraft's A Vindication of the Rights of Women, both authors deal with the rivalry of reason versus passion in the 18th century. These books assess major issues of reformation at the time including the fall of aristocracy and sociability to the rise of the enlightment and democracy, all leading up to a modification of women's roles in society. Through The Coquette, Hannah Foster demonstrates the sexist ideologies that …

…was deemed a martyr in her death was because since she died, her friends did not have to suffer public consequence for an individual action. Subsequently, this was exactly what Wollstonecraft in terms, was trying to teach women like Eliza - if women remain distracted by men, sexuality and the falseness of aristocracy, never will society as a whole reach a democracy, an enlightment where women contribute to the world on educated and virtuous levels.