Fear of Pregnancy in Mary Shelley's Frankenstein Essay

Frankenstein, a novel first published in the year 1818, stands as the most talked about work of Mary Shelley’s literary career. She was just nineteen years old when she penned this novel, and throughout her lifetime she could not produce any other work that surpasses this novel in terms of creativity and vision. In this novel, Shelley found an outlet for her own intense sense of victimization, and her desperate struggle for love. Traumatized by her failed childbirth incidents, troubled childhood, and scandalous courtship, many of Shelley’s life experiences can be seen reflected in the novel. When discussing the character and development of the monster, Shelley launches an extensive discussion on the

This novel reflects Shelley’s own childhood, which consisted of her feeling obligated to rebel against her own father’s wishes and his choice for her marriage. Frankenstein is a way for Shelley to tell her own experiences with parental conflict and how she feels she was affected by her demanding father and the environment she grew up in, by comparing herself to Victor’s monster. Shelley analyzed her own characteristics, and the characteristics of her father, and placed them within Victor and the

Frankenstein, a novel by Mary Shelley, tells the story of Victor Frankenstein’s pursuit of creation and the monster he unintentionally brought to life. Horrified with his own creation, Victor escaped his responsibilities, leaving him to fend for himself. The story follows the monster’s futile attempts to assimilate into humanity, his hatred finally leading him to killing his creator’s family one by one until Frankenstein committed himself to vengeance. The theme of humanity was prevalent throughout the novel as the monster’s existence blurred the line between what was “human” and “inhuman.” The question of whether nurture, or nature, mattered more to one’s identity was explored throughout the story. In Frankenstein, nurture rather than

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley is a gothic novel that was wrote during the 1800s, or other known as the enlightenment era. During this era, the ideas of discovering the natural law of the universe and the thirst for scientific knowledge were being spread all across Europe. Mary Shelley incorporates these ideas with Victor Frankenstein's thirst for dangerous knowledge, and through allusions of Prometheus and the Genesis story. Shelley not only incorporates other supplementary readings into Frankenstein, but uses feminist literary theory as a way to put to life the idea of women’s inferiority to men.

Mary Shelley’s book Frankenstein is about a young scientist named Victor Frankenstein who creates a creature through the studies of science, where Victor abandons the creature leaving him helpless. The creature then realizes that he will never belong within society and curses Victor. Wanting revenge against Victor, he becomes the source of Victor’s misery and sorrow. Nathaniel Hawthorne’s short story “The Birthmark” is about a scientist named Aylmer who aims to remove his wife Georgiana's birthmark so that she can be perfect. He labors for days making a perfect antidote for her and ends up killing her because it was too strong. In Mary Shelley’s book Frankenstein and Nathaniel Hawthorne’s short story “The Birthmark”, the characters Elizabeth and Georgina represent the women’s roles motif expressing this theme that women’s only purpose is to serve others leading to this interpretation that women are disposable.

A predominant theme in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein is that of child-rearing and/or parenting techniques.  Specifically, the novel presents a theory concerning the negative impact on children from the absence of nurturing and motherly love.  To demonstrate this theory, Shelly focuses on Victor Frankenstein’s experimenting with nature, which results in the life of his creature, or “child”.  Because Frankenstein is displeased with the appearance of his offspring, he abandons him and disclaims all of his “parental” responsibility.  Frankenstein’s poor “mothering” and abandonment of his “child” leads to the creation’s

Mary Shelley discusses the themes of birth and creation, appearance and the necessity of companionship, love and acceptance in her novel Frankenstein. The themes that are explored in Frankenstein are relevant to today’s modern world. Shelley challenges readers by endorsing and confronting attitudes and values in her text through the events, circumstances and outcomes that take place in the novel, thus causing the reader to reflect upon their own lives and in turn the society around them.

By the novel, Mary discusses several issues related to relationships which terrorize aspects of her personal life, including birth and childhood, the death of her mother, her miscarriage and new child and her coming across with the events which occurred in the summer of 1816 (see notes).

It didn’t get any easier when two more of Mary and Percy’s children passed away at a young age. Only one of their infants lived past their childhood and into adulthood. Years later, Mary was impacted with another heartache when her husband drowned in 1822. Leaving Mary a widow at 24 to care for her son and herself. She continued to write and eventually passed away at the age of 53 in 1851.

Mary Shelley's Frankenstein Mary Shelley is an author who wrote the novel of Frankenstein. Mary Shelley herself in her life, experienced many deaths of close friends and family. When she was first born her mother died, furthermore Mary had a baby, who died 12 days later and her husband Percy Shelly drowned. Maybe it was these experiences, which led Mary Shelley to write such a novel of great horror published in 1818. Frankenstein itself is called 'the modern Prometheus'.

Written by Mary Shelley, Frankenstein tells the story of Victor Frankenstein, a scientist who creates a monster and spends the remainder of his life trying to kill it.  According to psychologist, Barbara R. Almond’s article The monster within: Mary Shelley 's "Frankenstein" and a patient 's fears of childbirth and mothering, she argues that “the ‘monster’ is an impossible child, the issue of a failed dream… and must therefore be denied, rejected and ultimately made monstrous” (Almond, 776). While I do agree with her, Almond relied heavily on Shelley’s personal life, and didn’t go into depth when it came to the characters in Frankenstein. Almond also uses her own clinical material to “explore the fantasy, widespread among women, of giving birth to a monster, particularly a psychological monster” (Almond 775).

Reproductive control can be described as a woman's ability to make independent decisions regarding her reproduction. However, there might be interference with such autonomy of reproductive control from partners, medical establishment, peers, and parents, thereby leaving women with psychological and physical trauma basically because they have no control over their reproductive organs. Mary Shelley's Frankenstein experienced fear of childbirth. Following his birth that made his mother die in the process, Frankenstein remains to ask several questions about childbirth. This paper will covers the psychological and physical traumas faced by women who had no control over their reproductive organs and describes in what way is Mary Shelley's Frankenstein a psychological representation of her fear of childbirth.

The novel Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, is a story about how important having a family is to some, but also judging someone based on their appearance. Victor Frankenstein starts the novel by describing his childhood with his loving and supportive family. Family is very important to him because he did not have many friends growing up. While Frankenstein is away at school he starts to become very depressed and you see his attitude towards his family and his life change. Being away at school, he creates a “monster” by using different pieces of corpses and that becomes the only thing that matters to him until he sees how hideous it is. He immediately hates his creation just because of how he looks. Frankenstein begins to abandon everyone and thing in his life because of his obsession with the idea of glory and science, causing the novel to go from Romanticism to Gothic. The “monster” finds a family living in a cottage, by watching all winter he learns how a family should love and accept others. By seeing this, Frankenstein’s creations understand what was taken from him, and will do whatever he has to do to have a family of his own.

Women throughout the world have experienced psychological trauma over the lack of control over their reproductive organs and whether this trauma has been associated with giving birth when they did not desire to do so or being disallowed to conceive when they desired to conceive, this trauma is very real and evidence in Mary Shelly's 'Frankenstein'.

Her era was of scientific exploration and biological experimentation and she was eager to learn about it. Also, there had been many deaths in her family and these shaped her mind to see more through the traumatic side of life and escapism. For Moers, Frankenstein is a "birth myth" that reveals the "revulsion against newborn life, and the drama of guilt, dread, and flight surrounding birth and its consequences" (Hoeveler, 46). Mary was feeling guilty because she believed she had caused her mother's death and failed to produce healthy children for