Role Of Female Nature In Frankenstein

Mary Shelley, the author of Frankenstein, had been raised by strong women’s rights advocates, which makes her characterization of the women in her story a wildly controversial discussion topic even all these years later. Mary Shelley’s philosopher father paid for her high education, and her mother wrote several works about equality for women. She lived a substantially progressive lifestyle, considering the time period in which she lived. This has raised many questions regarding the weak female characters in her story, due to her own very contrasting beliefs.

Mary Shelley’s story of internal turmoil, the cruelty of altering the laws of nature, and the consequences of redefining the laws of nature is a harrowing one, known widely by many audiences, yet it is never the nature of the characters that is discussed, only the outcome. Shelley’s deliberate use of different character foils portrays the deeper connections and themes in her 1818 novel, Frankenstein. The creation and presence of Frankenstein’s monster directly foils the character of Victor Frankenstein himself, illustrating overarching themes of self inflicted isolation and internal conflict, exposing the dangers and consequences of complete and total narcissism, and revealing a truth many still refuse to accept: we, as humans, are capable

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.

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.

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

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

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 utility for the male characters. The situations they find themselves in are generally minor and are used to teach the male characters a lesson, or spark an emotion in them. During the period that Shelley wrote Frankenstein, it was very common to see women discarded, objectified, and abused. It is clear that feminism and misogyny are reflected in her novel, given the use of her female characters.

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.

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

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

     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 views women’s roles and values in society with a comprehensive perspective, entailing both positive and negative aspects. She exposes the patriarchal society that is oppressive to women in a subtle but powerful manner. This paper will discuss her opinions on women in her current society and their relevance in today’s world.

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).

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

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.