The Blazing World: Epilogue Summary & Analysis

Cavendish sums up the moral of her story. The Empress chose to give up absolute power over the Blazing World in order to build a fantasy world instead. This shows that being an “Authoress” is even better than being an “Empress”—that imagination is better than power, or that an intellectual life is better than a life of worldly success. Of course, this is doubly true for women, who lacked the same political, economic, and social opportunities as men, but have always been men’s intellectual equals. In fact, Cavendish even challenges the idea that fantasy is unreal at all. Specifically, she does this by emphasizing how her book’s plot is circular, and her appearance in the book (as the Duchess) is no different from her creation of the book (as the writer Margaret Cavendish). When she appeared to the Empress in the Blazing World, Cavendish decided to imagine a fantasy (or “celestial”) world—which is likely the Blazing World itself. Thus, the book describes its own creation, and it gives readers a blueprint for creating fictional worlds of their own (whether through writing or just idle fantasizing).