Female Gothic The Monster's Mother 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

One such aspect of Shelley’s life portrayed in the novel was the role of women in society. In general, the predominant contenders in literature in the Romantic era were men. Mary Shelley, who was tutored by her father, had to publish her novel anonymously because it would not have been accepted otherwise. In Romantic literature, women were depicted as passive with a sense for nature and intuition. This can be seen in Frankenstein during Victor’s description of Elizabeth Lavenza: “While I admired...pretension” (Volume I, Chapter I, p 39). This quote can be viewed as an oppression of women due to the patriarchal structure of the language, as well as an emphasis on the nature of women. Mary Shelley also criticizes this oppression, but does not criticize overtly. This may be due to the fact that Shelley read her mother’s works as a child, and was influenced by the pro-feminist ideals that her mother advocated for. In addition, Frankenstein, at its core, is an expression of Shelley’s political viewpoints. The years 1811 to 1817 were ones of severe deprivation and hardship for the new working class created by the Industrial

In Mary Shelley’s gothic novel, Frankenstein, three different positions are portrayed in the story of Victor Frankenstein’s creation. Shelley presents the story through letters that Robert Walton writes to his sister as he is hearing the retelling of the story from Frankenstein himself. While discovering Frankenstein’s and the Creature’s backstories, the reader witnesses the inevitable nature of man and the crucial effects of one’s environment; nurture is a problematic component in the Creature’s life while Victor’s inevitable nature overrides his upbringing.

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, the author of Frankenstein seems to focus on the characterization of men yet what is ironic is the fact that she is a woman. After the birth of Shelley, her mother Mary Wollstonecraft who was one of the first and most important feminist advocates had died, leaving Shelley to continue in her footsteps (“Feminism & Women in Frankenstein”). Growing up, she was exposed to the work done by her mother and this led her to become exposed to feminist ideals at a very early age (“Feminism & Women in Frankenstein”). In Shelley’s novel Frankenstein, it is controversial of why she chose to characterize both sexes in the way she did and this controversy on women’s roles held of one the central themes in the text. Some critics argue that

Introduction: Mary Shelly inquires into many issues using the Gothic genre. Shelly explores the theme of religion according to the society that she had lived in. Shelly also explores loneliness through Victor Frankenstein and the creation of Victor, the monster. Mary explores the taboo issues of Victorian society through her novel and looks deeply into the idea of 'playing God' using Victor; she investigates through her novel human anatomy and science which were great discoveries and issues in the Victorian era.

Ever since Eve was created out of Adam’s rib in the Garden of Eden, women have been often viewed as second to men. “She will be named ‘woman,’ for she was taken out of man” (Genesis 2.23). This idea of men being superior to women is one that has been around for awhile and is clearly shown in the popular gothic horror novel, Frankenstein. Mary Shelley juxtaposed the females of the story to the female stereotype of the 1800s, which in turn shows modern society how women should be taken seriously. In Frankenstein, the women of the novel are the unsung heroes that portray: the themes of society in the 1800s, unfair gender roles and how Shelley defied social norms as a woman. Shelley’s famous novel shines a light on women as a whole in a time that women were seen as weak and powerless bringing light to issues that needed to be resolved.

     Romantic writer Mary Shelley’s gothic novel Frankenstein does indeed do a lot more than simply tell story, and in this case, horrify and frighten the reader. Through her careful and deliberate construction of characters as representations of certain dominant beliefs, Shelley supports a value system and way of life that challenges those that prevailed in the late eighteenth century during the ‘Age of Reason’. Thus the novel can be said to be challenging prevailant ideologies, of which the dominant society was constructed, and endorsing many of the alternative views and thoughts of the society. Shelley can be said to be influenced by her mothers early feminist views, her father’s

Mary Shelley, the author of Frankenstein, had been raised by strong women’s rights advocates, which makes her characterization of the women in her story a wildly controversial discussion topic even all these years later. Mary Shelley’s philosopher father paid for her high education, and her mother wrote several works about equality for women. She lived a substantially progressive lifestyle, considering the time period in which she lived. This has raised many questions regarding the weak female characters in her story, due to her own very contrasting beliefs.

Writing a paper on the topic of Frankenstein days before Halloween might give you the wrong idea- lets clear something up straight away Frankenstein is the doctor not the monster and the monster doesn’t have a name (which we later learn is mildly important to the story). You see, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein is arguably a story of creation, murder, love, and learning amongst many other sad and depressing themes that perhaps root from Mary Shelley’s life. Mary Shelley’s mother, Mary Wollstonecraft was a well-known feminist author, that may have influenced her daughter’s work despite passing away a mere eleven days after

Moreover, not only did Shelley struggle as a female writer, she also experienced a turbulent upbringing. After her mother dies, her father William Godwin was doting to his little Mary. “The Concise Dictionary of British Literary Biography,” expresses that Shelley’s attachment to her father was “intense and long lasting”. The bond Shelly formed with her father early in her life remained, despite the family dysfunction that began once her father remarried. The biography claims that “the new Mrs. Godwin resented Mary 's intense affection for her father and was jealous of the special interest visitors showed in the product of the union between the two most radical thinkers of the day (web).” Her step-mother purposefully distanced Godwin from his daughter. She did nothing to encourage “Shelley’s intellectual development or love of reading (web).” However, Shelley’s passions could not be distinguished rather her circumstances ignited her imagination.

Mary Shelley invokes myriad questions about the origins of life and ethical considerations when creating life in Frankenstein. In a time of social unrest, the novel challenges the reader to contemplate the boundaries of justice, equality and value of life. Peculiar to the period, Mary Shelley was a woman of intellect and inquisition. She was born into a family of academia; her mother was a feminist and writer and her father was a philosopher. In 1814, seventeen-year-old Shelley and other talented friends competed to each write a ghost story after discussing the nature of life.

As the first recognizable, female novelist in western history, Mary Godwin Shelley engraves her name on the figurative monument of accomplishment formerly reserved exclusively for men, and paves the course for future female greatness, leading the crusade for the respect and credibility of women as equal members of society. In her most famous work, Frankenstein, Shelley reflects on the issue of the degradation and repression of women, as well as the neglect of their education, the nonexistence of their political voice, and their inability to showcase the fullest extent of feminine practical and intellectual skill during the Romantic era. Shelley indirectly reflects on the societal obstacles which deter women from achieving accomplishments worthy

The horror classic novel Frankenstein has gathered a great deal of critical and commercial attention since first being introduced in 1818, and naturally there has been many academics who have analyzed many of the novel’s biggest themes, symbols, and motifs. This also includes in analyzing the author herself, Mary Shelley. Marcia Aldrich, who has her Ph.D. in English from the University of Washington, is one of the academics to underline the role of being a female writer in the 19th century and what importance this plays on the novel Frankenstein. In her article, co-written by Richard Isomaki, “The Woman Writer as Frankenstein” analyzes the significance of Mary Shelley being the daughter of a writer and how this contributed to her writing Frankenstein, which they speculate as her, Mary Shelley, envisioning herself as the Monster. Aldrich and Isomaki’s “The Woman Writer as Frankenstein” makes valid and persuasive points, which effectively argues that the novel is semi-autobiographical in the sense that Mary Shelley pictured her as the Frankenstein Monster, for many of the concerns that the authors bring up in their article highlight the insecurities, doubts, and inexorable frustrations of a young woman writing in the 19th century.

Determining the primary role women play in the gothic novel “Frankenstein” creates many ways of thinking. For example, Vanessa D. Dickerson author of “The Ghost of a Self: Female Identity in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein” argues that “the females in the novel are quintessentially ambiguous figures: present but absent, morally animate angels, but physically and politically inanimate mortals.” Dickerson discusses exceptional character traits of each woman in the story and provides a very agreeable assertion that the men in the story look to the female characters for help when they are sick at heart or down the drain (Dickerson 80+). Therefore, the primary role of women in the book is acting as a sanctuary for the male characters when the men desire to release their affections and worries.