The Great Lawsuit

Fuller writes in a style that reflects her highly-educated status and the discursive trends of her time. In addition to showing her intellectual brawn, Fuller adds force to her arguments by demonstrating that she has considered opposing points of view. She sometimes uses literary devices such as made-up dialogue to do so. She uses this dialogue to hint at her opponents’ frustration and waning composure and present herself as cool, calm, and collected. While women are often stereotyped as being too emotional to think clearly or act rationally under pressure, Fuller illustrates that she is just the opposite; it is, instead, her male interlocutor who is the one who struggles to manage his feelings.

Fuller also uses examples to support many of her points, which adds strength to her argument at some points but often raises additional questions. In many cases, Fuller seems to assume that her examples are representative and therefore illustrate a great truth about the relationship between men and women. For instance, when describing the four the types of marriage she has observed in western society, she says the husband and wife who collaborate in a marriage of intellectual companionship pursue common goals.