Evolution of Margaret Fuller: From a Bright and Ugly Woman to an American Woman Scholar

Abstract

This paper traces Margaret Fuller’s evolution from a self-described “bright and ugly” girl, grappling with anxiety over her femininity, to a pioneering American woman scholar who articulated a proto-feminist discourse of gender fluidity. Employing Judith Butler’s theory of gender performativity, it examines Fuller’s journals, letters, and writings, with particular attention to her personal experiences of gender trouble, including her rigorous, boyish education, and unsettling adolescent experiences. This paper, then, turns to her troubled friendship with Ralph Waldo Emerson, analyzing how she gradually moved beyond the need for his intellectual mentorship to fashion herself as an independent ‘Woman Thinking.’ It further explores Fuller’s two short stories and Woman in the Nineteenth Century, illustrating her radical assertion that “there is no wholly masculine man, no purely feminine woman.” Ultimately, this paper argues that Fuller’s intellectual independence, honed through persistent struggles with gender norms, enabled her to launch a groundbreaking critique of gender essentialism of her time and advocate for women’s human rights to self-culture and personal development.