Feminist Criticism Of Frankenstein

Can you imagine Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley's Frankenstein, the great work of literature, without, for example, such female characters as Mrs. Margaret Saville, Elizabeth Lavenza, and Justine Moritz? In this case the novel will have no meaning. All the women help to develop the plot, and without them Frankenstein will lose its spirit. Although these heroines have a lot in common in their characters: they are all strong-willed, kind, careful, and selfless, at the same time, each of them is unique, and each plays her own role in the novel. Mrs. Margaret Saville is the woman to whom the narrator tells the story. Elizabeth Lavenza is the beloved of Victor Frankenstein. Justine Moritz is the heroine who is accused by mistake of murdering

Frankenstein is a book written by Mary Shelley in 1818, that is revolved around a under privileged scientist named Victor Frankenstein who manages to create a unnatural human-like being. The story was written when Shelley was in her late teen age years, and was published when she was just twenty years old. Frankenstein is filled with several different elements of the Gothic and Romantic Movement of British literature, and is considered to be one of the earliest forms of science fiction. Frankenstein is a very complicated and complex story that challenges different ethics and morals on the apparent theme of dangerous knowledge. With the mysterious experiment that Dr. Victor Frankenstein conducted, Shelly causes her reader to ultimately ask

Frankenstein, Or the Modern Prometheus written by Mary Wolfenstein Shelley(1797-1851), is a classical novel that is nothing short of legendary. Born out of a leisurely cabin visit, Mary Shelley crafted one of the hallmark novels of the English Romantic period. Set in the gothic, science fiction genre, Frankenstein tells the tale of scientist Victor Frankenstein creating a monster that wreaks havoc over his world. What is on the surface just a spooky book, actually delves in the time tested narrative of creator vs creation. In this particular situation, it begs the question; Is Frankenstein(creator) good or bad? The answer is straight-forward and absolute. Frankenstein is bad due to his various displays of foolishness, selfishness and irresponsibility.

For centauries, women have been forced to live life in the outskirts of a male dominated society. During the 1800’s, the opportunities for women were extremely limited and Mary Shelly does an excellent job in portraying this in her gothic novel, Frankenstein. Furthermore, in this novel, Mary Shelly shows how society considers women to be possessions rather than independent human beings. In addition, the female characters rely heavily on men for support and survival, thus proving their inability to do it on their own. Lastly, the female characters in this novel are in many ways victimized by the male characters. In conclusion, in Mary Shelly’s novel Frankenstein, the female characters always fulfill the limited and archetypical roles that

Throughout the book, Frankenstein, the reader can see that there is a prominent gender bias throughout the entire text. Although this doesn’t jump out to all, it is easy to see when conducting an analysis of the text. The reader can see this through the creation of life without a female partner, and the fact that Victor fails to protect his spouse on the night of their wedding as well as the fact that Victor ends up destroying the female partner that he has created for the creature.

Frankenstein, Or the Modern Prometheus, by Mary Shelley, tells the story of a bright and ambitious scientist that wishes to discover the secrets of life. After several years of research, he achieves his goal and brings to life a creature fashioned from old body parts. Horrified by his creation, Victor flees and spends the rest of his life hiding from and witnessing horrendous acts by the creature he so desperately wanted to create.

Written in 1817 by Mary Shelley, Frankenstein is a novel about the "modern Prometheus", the Roman Titian who stole fire from the gods and gave it to man. The story takes place in several European countries during the late 1700's. It is the recollection of Victor Frankenstein to a ship captain about his life. Victor is a student of science and medicine who discovers a way to reanimate dead flesh. In a desire to create the perfect race he constructs a man more powerful than any normal human, but the creation is so deformed and hideous that Victor shuns it. The creation then spends a year wandering searching for companionship, but everywhere he goes he is shunned and feared. Hating life

My the reason I am convinced that victor Frankenstein made the right judgement is that the female monster could be evil/kill or destroy. Just like the male monster she didn't ask to be created so she could go on a killing rampage. Since the monster is female there are different hormones in the female body, then the male; so she could again go on a killing spree killing him and his family. Just like the male monster he isn't very ecstatic that he was created by victor and the female could have the same feeling and try to kill victor.

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.

Upon further probing, there is perhaps a deeper terror rooted in Frankenstein, which subtly appears to stem his hesitancy at creating not just another monster, but specifically a female monster. Because Victor Frankenstein fears the existence of a female free of restrictions that he cannot impose, he destroys her, thus eliminating the female’s options of becoming either completely feminine through becoming a mother and mate, or totally unfeminine by opting to leave her partner and face the world alone.

Feminism in literature has existed as early as the 16th century, the belief that men and women should have equal rights and opportunities (Shneir, Miram). Throughout history, women have portrayed the idea of feminism in literature, with one of the most famous feminist writers being Mary Shelley. Shelley was born in 1797 into a notable family, with her mother, Mary Wollstonecraft, being a renowned feminist writer herself (Biogram). Her novel Frankenstein was published in 1818, a time when most women were extremely conservative, and were deprived of the rights and opportunities that men held. In the novel, Shelley portrays feminism by essentially mocking women and giving them a lack of power -- showing how women "should not" be.

In Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley’s novel, Frankenstein, one major critical theory revolves around PsychoAnalytic criticism. The novel revolves around this critical theory because in Frankenstein, Victor Frankenstein, a scientist, rejecting old-fashioned theories and credulity, begins to research and makes a gigantic human structure monster and gives him life. However, his invention goes wrong as the monster behaves uncontrollably and bringing deaths and destroying Victor and his family and many other people. As a result, Victor faces core issues, great anxiety, and deaths of his beloved ones. This critical theory will be expressed throughout the literary analysis paper, specifically in the Novel summary section, and Literary criticism sections. PsychoAnalytic criticism relates to the novel because Victor faces a lot of depression and feels guilty of himself after the monster brings deaths and devastation in his life because he was the one to create the monster.

In the novel Frankenstein, the author Mary Shelley reinforced the role of female nature in a book that is predominantly male-oriented. The female character is an underlying feature throughout the whole novel. For example, when Victor Frankenstein created his Monster from dead body parts, he disregarded the laws of female reproduction. Both Anne K. Mellor and Jonathon Bate argue that Victor defiled the feminine nature when he created his Monster from unnatural means. Mellor argued in her essay, “Possessing Nature: The Female in Frankenstein,” that Victor eliminated the necessity to have females at all (355). There will not be a need for females if new beings are created in a laboratory. The disruption of mother nature is one of the novel’s original sins (479). In Bate’s essay, “Frankenstein and the State of Nature,” he argued that Victor Frankenstein broke the balance between female principles of maternity and mother nature (477). Frankenstein broke nature and undermined the role of females. The argument of Mellor was more persuasive than the discussion of Bate because she was able to provide more evidence that Victor Frankenstein dishonored the role of female nature.

Cixous claim that “the phallic tradition of writing was at once too great for [women]” and is only “reserved for “great men”’ is undermined through Shelley’s use of the male voice (Cixous 243). Shelley uses flawed male morals and their elimination of women to draw attention to Victor and the monster’s obsessive and destructive behaviour, thus using their own “marked writing” against themselves to “dislocate [anti-feminist ideas] from within [and] explode them, turn it around, and make it” feminist (Cixous 251). The women are viewed for what they have to offer men, but male selfishness and mistreatment leaves them to die. In turn, Frankenstein shows how the lack proper representation and equality of the sexes is disruptive to society, and

Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, is odd in that in spite of being written by a woman, the women of the story are subjected to the same treatment as the women of the other novels mentioned. One would think that as a woman, Shelly would want to empower her female characters in a way that is possible in fiction that may not be in real life. Both female characters, Elizabeth and Justine, are forgettable at best and the way they are introduced to us is rather telling.