The Statue

Mary Wollstonecraft’s eyes fluttered open to burnished leaves crackling in the breeze. As she filled her lungs with sweet, musky-smelling air, she could almost taste its caramel flavor. Beyond the elm tree’s skeletal branches, clouds scudded across a blue, sunlit sky. She sat up and shielded her eyes to survey her surroundings. Had she been here before? The area looked different, yet she sensed a familiarity.

The Green. Her heart raced. Yes, she was sure of it. She leaped to her feet. On the corner stood the Unitarian Church. Rows of terrace houses surrounding the large expanse of grass on which she found herself were another telltale sign. Several houses looked just as they did then. But there were more now, and a wrought-iron fence framed the perimeter. Sheep no longer grazed in the open; people crisscrossed the grass on which Mary and her dear friend Fanny Blood had once strolled barefoot.

A blaring sound from the road nearby startled her. Colorful carriages zipped past. They weren’t carriages exactly, and there wasn’t a horse in sight. But they were transporting people. She froze, then remembered the words of her death guide. “Expect to see things that disorient you,” he’d warned. “Go with the sights and sounds as if you have experienced them every day of your life. It is 2020. The world has changed.”

Mary died in 1797.

Before returning to Earth, she had told herself she should be content despite death having snatched her when she was only thirty-eight years old.

Her husband, William Godwin, had joined her in Eternity in 1836. “What more could you want?” the erudite philosopher had asked. “We’re finally together. Our daughters, Fanny and Mary, are always within superterrestrial reach. Does leaving behind your writings not suffice?”

“You can never really know yourself completely until you die. Only then can you sum it up,” Mary said. “I’ve done that, but how have women fared since I wrote A Vindication of the Rights of Woman? Now that my ideas have had time to ferment, I want to know, did I make a difference?”

“You mattered to us,” he said.

“Of course, darling. You know that’s not what I mean. I beg to know, did I leave behind a true legacy?”

Such existential questions haunted Mary. When her number came up, she was ready to go.

Around her on The Green, people seemed to be of a mind to walk in one of two directions. She dusted off her dress and marched headlong into the larger throng of people. They seemed to know where they were going as compared to wandering aimlessly, which she herself would be wont to do if she didn’t have a specific mission in mind. But she only had twenty-four hours. That was all Death gave anyone to visit Earth to find out whether they had released good into the world, whether they had planted seeds of hope. One might also find out if their efforts had been in vain, or worse, had given shape to evil. Knowing was a gamble not everyone wished to take.  

Though how she wished Godwin was by her side as she took in earthly pleasures once taken for granted. She’d savor holding his hand, to walk with him under the trees. In Eternity, touch was no longer a sensation. Her death guide, however, had insisted it wasn’t his time, even if he had wanted to go. Each must undertake the journey alone.

Accustomed to traveling solo, Mary didn’t mind. Hadn’t she gone off to Bath and Ireland by herself? Hadn’t she moved to France to escape her miserable existence after the wretched Fuseli affair? What about her sojourn to Scandinavia in 1795 with only baby Fanny and her nurse in tow?

But she was used to Godwin’s presence. To experience one more earthly day with him produced a longing for intimacy she didn’t think about in Eternity. They didn’t need it. They were always present in each other’s beings. But here the closeness of humans stirred feelings long dormant.   

She picked up her pace and fell into stride alongside a woman with streaks of green and purple wending their way through hair the color of fresh straw, the way a ribbon might have adorned a woman’s coif in Mary’s day. When she noticed tattoos covered the young woman’s arms and that she had a pierced nose, Mary almost tripped. She wasn’t one to judge people by their appearance, but this was something altogether new. She observed those around her and encountered a wide range of unusual styles. Any type of dress seemed acceptable. Men in smart-looking brown twill, women wearing skirts or dresses—a mix of long and short—in a palette of vibrant colors. A segment of the younger set looked casual in their chemises and nightshirts hanging over baggy pants tucked into boots laced to the shin. How refreshing. This alone was a sign of human progress. People looked comfortable, natural. Mary’s beaver hat (she knew autumn would be chilly) and black worsted stockings fit in nicely along with her cerulean blue muslin dress, austere though it was by comparison to modern standards. Mary had never cared much about her outward appearance; what mattered was what was on the inside of a person. She smoothed her own reddish-brown waves and forged on. To those around her, her death guide had explained, she would look as she did when she died.  

The woman with the pierced nose glanced sideways at her and smiled. “Good day,” she said. “I see you’ve dressed in costume.”

So, it was a costume party. That explained people’s dress. “Good day as well,” Mary said, eager to share in discourse. Her voice caught her off guard, it being the first time she’d used it in over two hundred years. She bit down a smile. “May I ask, where are all the people going?”

A curious look grazed the woman’s face. Mary found her quite pretty. She couldn’t have been a day over twenty. “To see the new statue, of course.”

“I’m new here.” Mary hesitated. “I don’t mean to sound daft, but what statue?”  

The woman pointed. “That one.”

Mary turned. Several feet away, a silver statue ten feet high rose above a black granite plinth. Sunlight glinted off the head of a naked woman rising like a phoenix from a flowing swirl. Mary drew close and read the inscription on the base:

For

Mary Wollstonecraft

1759 - 1797

Mary's hand flew to her mouth. She gasped. Her gaze traveled upward again, slower this time. The nude had an overzealous bush—how else could one politely refer to how the artist had portrayed the private area between the woman’s legs? The statue’s breasts projected like spears. How was this her? William Roscoe had called her an intellectual Amazon. She hoped this wasn’t what he meant. Though at the time it was preferable to Horace Walpole describing her as a hyena in petticoats.

“It’s perfect,” the young woman with the pierced nose whispered under her breath.

Two middle-aged women on the other side of the statue gazed at it with reverence, as if they had reached the end of a long pilgrimage. But not everyone seemed enamored. Several onlookers circling the base twisted their faces in disgust and shook their heads. Others gaped, uncertain, it seemed, as to what to make of it.

The young woman must have noticed Mary’s perplexment. “The statue has received quite a lot of bashing,” she said.  

Mary ran her hand along the smooth shiny plinth. It felt cool. On the side, a second inscription read, I do not wish women to have power over men but over themselves. She fell to her knees. Those were her words, alright, straight from A Vindication of the Rights of Woman. A thrill ran through her. Her treatise had stood the test of time. She traced the letters with her finger. She wanted to put her cheek against the granite, to feel its luster.    

The young woman kneeled beside her. “She’s considered the mother of feminism.”

Mary had never heard the word. “What makes people think of her as the mother of, what did you call it? Feminism?”

The young woman’s eyes grew wide, and her mouth fell open. “Surely you must know of her. I thought since you were dressed like her …”

Mary looked away. Had the young woman recognized her?

“Mary Wollstonecraft was the first to write about women’s rights and equality,” the young woman said.

That she was. The two of them stood, then stepped back to admire the statue in its entirety. Mary remembered feeling the isolation that comes from speaking against convention. When she entered the world of political commentary, her bold ideas were easy prey for critics. They couldn’t resist the temptation to skewer her with whatever sharp object was within reach. She had the scars to prove it.

“The statue doesn’t look like Mary Wollstonecraft,” Mary said. Again, she suppressed a smile. What would the people gathered round the statue say if they knew who she really was?

An older woman next to her responded. “It’s not meant to be Mary Wollstonecraft per se.” Her voice was formal, authoritative as any academic Mary had ever met. She looked like a bluestocking in her conservative though smart gray dress. A short strand of pearls circled the folds of her neck. “It’s to symbolize the birth of a movement, to depict Mary’s legacy in a way that adds meaning and context today.”

At the word legacy, Mary was certain she felt the earth below her tremble, as if Godwin had sent a cheer through time. That her ideas resonated across centuries pleased her more than she thought possible. Inside she swelled with pride.

“You call this Mary Wollstonecraft’s legacy?” asked a woman from a trio of ladies to Mary’s left, all three of them standing with their arms crossed. “You don’t see naked statues of John Locke or Edmund Burke. No one thought to strut their penises around London. Surely Mary Wollstonecraft deserves the same respect.”

Mary giggled inside. She didn’t think stuffy old Edmund Burke, the politician to whom she had responded in A Vindication of the Rights of Men, would much like to being commemorated in such a vulgar manner. Besides, he didn’t have much of a sense of humor.

“Does it matter what the statue looks like?” asked the young woman with the pierced nose. “After all,” she said with an air of calm, sweeping her arm toward the growing crowd, “the park is full of people here to celebrate Wollstonecraft’s contribution to history. Viewing the statue returns her to our full consciousness. Her vision endures. Is that not more important than whether she is properly clothed?”

The crowd pressed closer to listen.

“Just think,” the young woman continued, “Wollstonecraft was the first real advocate for women. If she were here, I’d like to think she’d be pleased.” A smile twitched at her lips as she glanced at Mary. “If she could only know the revolutions she spawned. Education is finally open equally to both sexes. Without her, women may never have gained the right to vote. Because of her, women can now enter any career so long as we have the aptitude and are willing to work hard.”

Mary’s heart skipped. Revolutions? Educational equality? Women could vote, could work in any trade or profession? She wanted to pull the young woman aside and speak alone with her. She had so many questions!    

“But why must she be naked?” asked one of the women with crossed arms. “What message does it really provoke? Haven’t women been sexualized enough? I dare say, there was more to Mary Wollstonecraft—more to women—than their breasts and, well … that!” The woman tipped her head in sharp rebuke toward the bush between the statue’s legs. Several men behind the woman cast the same disapproving glare, then turned and walked away, mumbling something about the statue’s “utter lack of decency.” 

Mary couldn’t deny the statue gave her pause. It was not what she might have imagined. Godwin would be apoplectic. But she’d been friends with the artist Henry Fuseli, had been his muse for a time. Nothing in the art world shocked her anymore. And she’d never been one to censure those willing to live in a manner ahead of their time. Whoever commissioned the statue was forward-thinking.  

Mary studied the image before her. She didn’t oppose the nudity; she was open to it. The rendering appealed to her artistic sensibilities and ignited her curiosity. However, it also made her wonder. She had left behind a legacy, that was clear. But what did her legacy really mean?