Feminism And Symbolism Of Mary Shelley 's ' Frankenstein '

This idea of the female role is reinforced by the fact that as the novel progresses, the women are slowly being removed- first his Mother, then Justine and then Elizabeth- “I saw Elizabeth…held the corpse of my dead mother”. This presents Frankenstein’s mental degregation and ultimately, the ctalyst for the mosntrous act- so Shelley presents the idea of a dichotomy between man and women- Darwin supported this by suggesting the hierachy of reproducion- man and woman is better than man alone.

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

137) Like Elizabeth, Victor already decides the female monster’s fate. This is a reoccurring theme or a motif in Shelly’s novel. Men repeatedly decide women’s fates and the women are left to accept these decisions without any objection. In conclusion, the female characters fulfill the object role in this novel.

The next significant female character in Shelley’s novel, “Frankenstein”, is the character, Justine. Justine is the most pivotal female character in “Frankenstein”, as she is basically framed and executed for a murder that she didn't commit. This drives the novel along because Victor realizes that Justine is innocent and because of this, he starts to have anger and hate towards the creature who really

Throughout history, women have been represented as inferior and subordinate to men. Mary Shelley lived in a society that viewed women as submissive, so in her novel Frankenstein, almost all of the female characters play passive roles. She portrays them as victims because they are unable to protect themselves. They endure pain and eventually die because they are powerless and dependent on men to rescue them from life’s challenges; however, women are the central driving force. In Frankenstein, men treated women as property; they have the right to own them and do with them as they please.

Over the years, the monster in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein has become universally portrayed in one way: a tall, green-skinned, dumb brute with no language or reasoning abilities. Society has turned the story of Frankenstein into a mere horror story, dehumanizing the monster more than was intended in Shelley’s novel. However, the message of Frankenstein is a far cry from the freak show displayed by the media. While many people may only see Frankenstein as a grotesque story meant to thrill its audience, its purpose goes much deeper as it advocates for the equal rights of women in society.

The fight for domination amongst the sexes is a battle as old as civilization, where the ideas of gender hierarchies first began. These conflicts often manifest themselves unwittingly through literature, showing subtle signs of deeper tension that has ensued for centuries. The struggle between masculine and feminine becomes apparent through Frankenstein, a battle that results in the death of the potentially most powerful figure in the book. Frankenstein yields characters motivated by complicated thinking, specifically the title character, Victor Frankenstein. Victor is a brilliant 19th century Swiss scientist who succeeds in generating life with electricity, creating a creature that

As well as a horrific way of creating life, Mary Shelley brought a new subject to the table in Frankenstein-- Feminism. Throughout the novel, the author characterizes each female as passive, disposable, and serving as a utilizing function for the male character. The events that happen to them are generally minor and are used to teach the male characters some sort of lesson or spark an emotion with them. During the period that Shelley wrote Frankenstein, it was very common to see women discarded, objectified, and abused. It is clear that this is reflected in her novel, given the use of her female characters.

In Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, Shelley characterizes the female characters as passive, disposable and serving an utilitarian function. Women such as Safie, Elizabeth, Justine, Margaret and Agatha provide nothing more but a channel of action for the male characters throughout the novel. Meaning, the events and actions acted by them or happen to them are usually for the sake of the male character gaining new knowledge or sparking an emotion. But, at the same time, the main male character, Victor Frankenstein, only adds to the the gendered construction of Shelley’s world instead of dismantling it. Fueled by their primary use of plot progression, otherwise meaningless characters are put to good use in Shelley’s Frankenstein.

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.

The female characters in Frankenstein represent the treatment of women in the early 1800’s. Women who are deprived of their female roles and are enclosed in a feminine sphere of domesticity. In the novel, Frankenstein, the women characters are treated as property and have little privileges in relationship to the male characters, the women suffer and are eventually destroyed showing how unimportant they are in the book’s society, and when it comes to reproduction of human’s, man thinks it pointless to have women play that role. These attacks on the innocent prove that women are second-rate in the novel.

Sometimes considered one of the first science fiction novels of supernatural terror, Frankenstein proved itself an instant success when released anonymously in 1818. The mad scientist Victor Frankenstein and his creation provoke readers with the fear of the unknown and the power of natures forces. A deeper look into the character of Victor Frankenstein, the role of scientific experimentation and the intricate settings of nature in which the story evolves, prove Mary Shelley's novel, Frankenstein , a worthy example of both Romantic and Gothic representation in nineteenth century British Literature.

As Devin Hodges asserts, “Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein has long been labelled a “woman’s book””(155). Additionally, Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar argue that the text describes a “woman’s helpless alienation in a male society” (ref). Vine references Margaret Homans in his work who “examines the ways in which femininity in Frankenstein is constructed in terms of masculine self-reflection. Specifically, she shows that this self-reflection takes the form of a ‘circumvention’ of maternity: the attempt of the masculine self (Victor) to obviate the mother in the name of patriarchal autonomy, constructing a selfhood which is self-grounding and self-duplicating”

Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein demonstrates a variety of women from distinct backgrounds where the majority faces a doomed fate due to the patriarchal society. Furthermore, the overall representation of women in Frankenstein is passiveness and submissiveness towards the decision and actions of men; they are portrayed as absent due to their minor roles. The “absence” of women could have been the very reason why there are so many downfalls throughout the novel. The death of Victor’s mother due to scarlet fever, the innocent Justine executed, Elizabeth (the beautiful wife) killed by the creature, proves the powerlessness and the passive nature of women that led to their unfortunate death even though, the only woman, Safie broke the chains of the

Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley’s novel Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus is often credited as the first science-fiction novel, with many film and textual adaptations. Over the years, horror movies have taken to using the novel to comment on the fallacies in scientific study and the tempering of nature’s ways. However, it would be erroneous to exclude the feminist narrative, as Shelley’s mother wrote one of the leading modern feminist texts, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman. This book, along with other feminist literature, was read by Shelley, and outlined that women only appear inferior to men because they lack an equal, formal education. Wollstonecraft advocated for a new social order based on equality and logic between men and women. These ideas can be seen in Shelley’s novel using the vehicle of a critique of masculine-focused science to provide a commentary on how society treated, and continues to treat, women as the inferior sex. Many feminist critics have analyzed and written essays over the topic of feminist influence both in Shelley’s life and her novel. Some such areas of interest include the scientific treatment of nature, the role of women in childcare and upbringing, and the isolation created by the pursuit of masculinity. Shelley’s life itself is also pertinent to the discussion of influence, as critics again have analyzed the influence of her biographical experiences. A main point made is that the characteristics of the male figures in her