How are the attitudes that Margaret's family holds toward her at the beginning of the novel indicative of how society views her throughout her life?

Danielle Dutton's Margaret the First details the life of Margaret Cavendish, who broke the molds of 17th-century English society by crafting various literary works as a woman. Set during the English Civil War, Margaret serves as a lady on the queen's court, where she meets her future husband William Cavendish, who ends up serving as a large supporter of his wife's writing endeavors. Throughout the novel, Margaret is seen as odd compared to the rest of society. Margaret's description at the novel's beginning indicates how people perceive her throughout the novel, which is as someone different.

At the novel's beginning, when the reader meets Margaret, her siblings find her odd and constantly tease her. In an interaction between Margaret and her sisters, they tease her for not liking grown-up things. Margaret thinks to herself, "[i]t seemed impossible to make myself be any way but wrong" (Dutton 17). Throughout Margaret's childhood, she felt like an outsider and different from those around her, mainly because of how her siblings treated her. 

People's attitudes towards Margaret later in her life mirror those she experienced in her youth. People would increasingly critique Margaret's work, mainly because she was a female author. After her first work was published, Margaret states, "[s]ome readers were cross a lady had published at all, others that she had written of vacuums and war, rather than poems of love" (Dutton 69). Margaret constantly faced being considered inadequate; throughout her writing experience, people found issues with the way she wrote or the fact that she was writing at all. 

However, a shift in society's attitudes towards Margaret in the second half of the novel displays the success of her later work. Acclamation for her new book Blazing World was becoming widespread, and Margaret states that "[t]here was first that letter praising the sharpness of her wit. Then one about divine fury, enthusiasm, raptures" (135 Dutton). People's attitudes toward her work seem to shift, yet she is still considered odd. As Margaret visits a local shop, a crowd forms and yells at her. Margaret recalls, "[t]hey point and call, 'Mad Madge! Mad Madge!'" (144 Dutton). While she had gained some acclaim, Margaret was still different.

Margaret, as a character, was unafraid to break the mold of who society deemed she should have been, often ridiculed for being different or crazy for thinking the things that she did. Throughout Margaret's life, she is deemed as unusual, as displayed at the beginning of the novel with her siblings and at the end with the crowd of people calling her a mocking name. Although Margaret did gain some popularity and praise for her writing, overall, people still viewed her as unique and different.

References: 

Grammarly. Grammarly, www.grammarly.com. Accessed 19 Nov. 2024.