Feminist Perspective In 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

Mary Shelley’s novel Frankenstein primarily focuses on Victor and his monster, but women also play a part. There are three major female figures in the novel; the housekeeper for the Frankenstein family: Justine, Victor’s “adopted cousin” and later wife: Elizabeth, and the never completed female monster. To both Victor and the monster woman are desired objects that offer comfort and companionship, but as the novel goes on, women become targets for revenge. This goes to show that the women in Frankenstein prove to be both powerless and powerful when it comes to dealing with the men that surround them.

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.

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.

The article relates to the character of Elizabeth in the novel, “Frankenstein” in many ways. First, Elizabeth is depicted as Victor’s property and unable of being independent without him. This is relatable to an evaluation that Wollstonecraft has in her article that says, “It is vain to expect virtue from women till they are in some degree independent of men” (….). Wollstonecraft expresses how important it is for women to have freedom and independence because it is the only way that they will truly be themselves. Through Wollstonecraft’s eye’s, Elizabeth appears to fall to her example of a woman dependent on her husband. However, Elizabeth also is relatable to the Wollstonecraft article because she shows a desire for wanting to be able to do what Victor can. Wollstonecraft commends the women in society that crave for becoming something more, she believes that women should be able to be doctors and politicians. So, in Wollstonecraft’s view, it is honorable that Elizabeth expresses her concern for desiring more from her life.

Men lead intellectually satisfying lives with little emotion while women lived the opposite. They had emotionally exciting lives with little intellectual fulfillment. Victor excelled in the public sphere but could not perform in the private sphere because according to Mellor the “sexual division of labor” does not allow women or men to have both. Mellor then points out the absence of a strong willed female character. The De Lacey family was seen as an alternative to the Frankenstein family, but even they, a family based on “justice, gender equality, and mutual affection” lack a mother figure. The monster goes to Victor longing for this strong female companion but it does not exist. Mellor also explores the idea that Victor’s most passionate relationships are with men. He saw Clerval as “his former self” and Mellor describes Walton’s responses to Victor as “homoerotic.” Finally Mellor claims that Victor “rapes” nature in the destruction of an equal companion for Frankenstein and is punished “with the very electricity he has stolen.” Also with the death of Elizabeth taking away Victors ability to reproduce Mellor claims that Marry Shelley’s novel portrays the “penalty of raping

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 presents Victor engaging with Elizabeth in all social female roles: wife, mother, and sister.  He is also presented as engaging with her body in all possible variations, creating her body through

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 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.

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.

Mary Shelley's characters in Frankenstein depict 18th century women as supporting characters that are weak and subservient. Firstly, women are portrayed as supporting characters in Frankenstein. Women are often not very involved in this novel and if they are somehow participating, it is to serve a specific function related to a man by some means. For example, Margaret Saville, Robert Walton’s sister, is only mentioned because of her connection to her brother and his letters. The reader never actually gains information about Margaret’s life.

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