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Frankenstein By Mary Woolstonecraft: A Literary Analysis

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From the moment of creation, creatures have rebelled against their creators spitting blasphemy toward the very hands that forged them. Mary Shelley, daughter of A Vindication on the Rights of Women author, Mary Woolstonecraft, and one of the first female novelists of her time, expresses this ideal through her novel, Frankenstein. The novel follows the story of a young doctor named Victor Frankenstein who harbors an insatiable desire for exploration and science. After much trial and error, the doctor ultimately manages to bring life to a conglomerate of stolen body parts and organs. The doctor is unable to bear the consequences of his actions and allows his creation to run lose, wreaking havoc on all that is dear to him. Arguably one of the greatest gothic novels to date, Frankenstein, was ironically brought into existence by a ghost story competition between Shelley and her friends. In stark contrast to the seemingly frivolous competition, Frankenstein pushed boundaries of its time period subliminally confronting arguments of creation, philosophy, theology, science, women, and society. The novel draws parallels between theology and the relationship between man and his maker through the interaction of Dr. Frankenstein and his monster, showing the direct effects of what happens when man challenges the power of God. In Mary Shelley's Frankenstein the reader gets a binocular view, being God and Victor along with Victor and the monster, of the tension between creator and creation. In the novel, fueled by metaphysical arguments of theology in the Romantic period as well as her belief in creation as a privilege reserved for God, Mary …show more content…

Elements of science, theology, and the quest for dicovery shine through Shelley's writing as a byproduct of ideology of this period. The idea of creating life from lifeless matter is discussed in Metaphysical Intersection in Frankenstein as Hogsette

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