Feminist Feminism In Frankenstein

In “Possessing Nature: The Female Frankenstein”, Anne K. Mellor argues that Victor Frankenstein, an anti-feminist, competes with nature when he attempts to make females obsolete by creating a creature outside of natural birth, thus dooming him to endure nature’s vengeance. To exemplify that Frankenstein intends to strip women of their “cultural power”, Mellor establishes the social division between sexes, then goes on to analyze Frankenstein's fear of women, which leads her to note his favor for male relationships, and lastly cover nature’s revenge (1).

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

The novel Frankenstein by Mary Shelly was published in 1818. Her parent had undoubtedly influenced her ways of writing. Her father, William Godwin is famous with his piece “An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice while her mother, Mary Wollstonecraft wrote “A Vindication of the Rights of Woman” is two prominent radical writers who call for reform during French Revolution. Bringing both feminism and radical views from her parents, Shelley critiques women’s weak, docile and uneducated character. She also shows how women are often degraded and treated unjustly. The reason she brought the issues forward is to make women realize that they should improve their position and women should not conform to the dogma that they are always weak.

The novel “Frankenstein” by Mary Shelley, and the article “Of the Pernicious Effects” by Mary Wollstonecraft, both have relations when regarding the importance of feminism during their time periods. Throughout Shelley’s novel feminism is addressed because she uses female characters to further her plot and display her viewpoints. If Wollstonecraft evaluated the female characters in Shelley’s novel, she would realize that Elizabeth, Justine, and Safie all show an importance to the flow of the novel and the purpose of equality that Shelley is sending about feminism through these characters.

In the 18th century, a woman by the name of Mary Wollstonecraft became one of the first great proponents of feminism, a movement that promoted the rights and abilities of women. During the 1960’s and 1970’s, feminism was still on the rise. The movement spawned a generation of great women, and thus, many interesting sayings. In Frankenstein, a book written by Mary Shelley, who happens to be Wollstonecraft’s daughter, the main character Victor creates a monster that would come to rip his family apart and destroy his life. But if one key thing had changed, his downfall would have never happened. When thinking of this book, one specific saying from this era of feminism comes to mind; “behind every great man is a great women”. The lack of prominent and influential women in Victor Frankenstein 's life is what ultimately leads to his undoing.

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 brings attention to feminist issues simply by exposing the speaking limitations, the level of control men have, and suppressed decision making.

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

In Anne Mellor’s article “Possessing Nature: The Female in Frankenstein,” she focuses on the role that women play in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. Mellor explores the patriarchal society by providing evidence for the claim that Frankenstein is a feminist work. Mellor argues that Victor Frankenstein’s downfall is due to his fear of femininity and his need to become the creator of a human being. She begins the article with the argument that the division of spheres (public and private) within the book caused the destruction of many women. Mellor then explored the spheres that men and women occupied. Men would “work outside of the home” while women were “confined to the home”. This division of spheres had negative consequences as much for men as they did for

     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

Perhaps the strongest evidence of feminism in Frankenstein stems from what happens when Victor Frankenstein tries to create life without the help of a

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

The novel Frankenstein, by Mary Shelley, was a piece written in 1817 during a time when women weren’t considered to be adequate authors. Shelley’s work is both intriguing as it is thought provoking. She brings to light the true nature of society and life altogether when tested. She factors in how the outside world can influence our choices in writing. George Levine from “The Ambiguous Heritage of Frankenstein” and Benjamin Truitt from “Frankenstein Critical Analysis and Literary Criticism” both share their opinions about Shelley’s piece of written work.

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.

Frankenstein or The Modern Prometheus is a gothic horror novel that it has been written by Mary Shelley and was published in 1818. “Is one of the most influential literary text in English. It is a novel which is embedded in the cultural and political period we call Romantic” (Allen, 1). It also encompasses the nature, monstrosity, secrecy and demonstrates what the consequences are if someone uses dangerously his knowledges and attempts to exceed his limits. In this essay some parts of the novel will be critically analyzed and also the novel will be seen through a feminist perspective.