Lindsey Blakley
Laura Cline
English 102
11 October 2011
Creation
“Frankenstein,” written by Mary Shelley, was a great novel of its time. There were many different themes present on the surface of this great tale but the underlying objective was much stronger and gave the novel its great success. Femininity played a key part in a non direct way in this novel. During a time where femininity was present but not acknowledged all to often, Mary Shelley produced a novel that was written to invoke her readers with fear; with an idea that is both impossible and turns out to be a catastrophe for two characters in the book by producing the un-natural idea of a man creating life and struggle with motherhood itself.
Mary Shelley life was all too often filled with sadness and death. Her mother dying shortly after the birth of Mary was a very well known feminist writer. It is partly due to her that Mary incorporates the idea of femininity into her novel. The theme is established early on by a main role character named Victor Frankenstein. A young man intrigued by natural science decides he will do the impossible and give life to a human like creator. The reader can quickly identify that Victor is succeeds in this task to reproduce an act that only a women can do and give birth, “I succeeded in discovering the cause of generation and life; nay, more, I became myself capable of bestowing animation upon lifeless matter.” (Shelley 30) Victor’s excitement is quickly overtaken by disgust and fear as he realizes he has created a hideous monster. This being the first example of Shelley stating that only women can fulfill such a duty that Victor has attempted to take on.
Victor Frankenstein quickly rejects his creation as soon as it comes to life. He finds his creator not what he had expected at all. Previously expecting to feel accomplished and proud Victor finds himself sickened by the idea of what he has done. Just minutes after the monsters animation Victor ran and states, “…catching and fearing each sound as if it were to announce the approach of the demoniacal corpse to which I had so miserably given life.” (Shelley 35) One could compare Victor’s feelings and reaction to the same feelings a mother has soon after giving birth to an unwanted baby. Quickly abandoning it and fleeing with fear of the question: what is next? Men are not physically or mentally capable of giving birth to a child and therefore this situation can only result in failure as it is not natural.
Ellen Mores, literary critic who is a most famous for being a feminist critic, wrote a modern criticism about the novel Frankenstein. She as well feels that there are many examples of the use of femininity in this novel. She states, “Here, I think, is where Mary Shelly’s book is most interesting, most powerful, and most feminine: in the motif of revulsion against newborn life, and the drama of guilt, dread, and flight surrounding birth and its consequence.”(Mores 218) I completely agree with Mores. Mores writes about how Mary’s life can be compared to the novel with great similarities. Obvious to any reader familiar with the novel and Mary’s life can agree with her when she says, “Here her intention to underline the birth myth in Frankenstein becomes most evident, quite apart from biographical evidence about its author.” (Mores 224)
The monster continually addresses Victor Frankenstein as his creator and often speaks of feelings of anger and abandonment. This represents the same sort of relationship that a mother and child have. During the first real meeting between the two the monster says, “I learned from your papers that you were my father, my creator; to whom could I apply more fitness than to him who had given me life?” (Shelley 94) Him addressing Victor in this way, as an actual parent that gave birth to him is a mockery of creation. In Victors success in bring life to a lifeless object he has left a lonely unwanted thing that not even his creator can bare to look at.
Barbara Johnson, who is an American literary critic, wrote a very interesting response to the novel Frankenstein. Similar to Mores she too feels there is femininity present in the novel in terms of creation and life. She states, “On the other hand, the story of Frankenstein is, after all, the story of a man who usurps the female role by physically giving birth to a child.” (Johnson 248) Shelley gives Victor the ability to “give birth” to a living person, which in real life is completely unrealistic and impossible. Johnson states, “…should have fictively transposed her own frustrated female pen envy into a tale of catastrophic male womb envy.” (Johnson 248) This is an interesting interpretation of what is going on with Shelley. She was at the time closely working on ghost stories with her husband Percy Shelley and other great writers. Mary being surrounded with great writers always in her life, starting with her parents, made her a great writer. Maybe she did feel feelings of being inadequate thought compared to the others and that was one of her reasons of giving a man abilities that only a women could fulfill.
When Victor is faced with the proposition of creating another monster, a female companion for his monster, Victor agrees with the promise the Monster and his mate will never come around again. Shelley once again gives Victor the ability to do the impossible. But at the last moment Victor comes to the realization that this could potentially be another huge mistake that will haunt him forever. This whole section can be compared with the idea of abortion. Ending a life that doesn’t have a chance to exist which again is something that can only be done by women. Indirectly it is as if Mary is pointing out all the very important roles that women play in the creation of mankind.
Susan Winnett, who was also a literary critic that wrote a response to Frankenstein, supports the evidence of femininity in the novel. She states, “…his indulgence in the retrospective mode of “male” sense making keeps him form acknowledging his ongoing responsibility to the birth he clones as well as from seeing that hence forth his plot inevitably involves the consequence of an act of creation that he regards as a triumph in and of itself.” (Winnett 295) She continues on to say that Victor has this idea backwards in a sense because with the production of life should stem something beautiful and life lasting, but does the opposite for Victor. Just another example of what terrible events occur due to the unnatural “birth” by a man.
The night that Victor and Elizabeth wed represents a time of fear and anticipation for poor Victor. He is haunted by the thoughts that his monster is near and has harsh intentions towards his newly found happiness. With the monster killing Victors last true love, the monster wins this battle of monster vs. creator. Victor created an innocent soul and through rejection and hatred turned him into a murder. This particular situation represents the near completion of Victor creating life with Elizabeth just to have it ripped from his grasps by his obsession of to cheat Mother Nature and give life where he should not have toiled.
In conclusion of the novel both characters are over come with hatred of one another. Victor’s creation that began as a goal that consumed him to the very soul ended up consuming him and everyone he loved. The other authors that were quoted from support my idea that the basis of this novel is circled around femininity and the idea of creation. The idea that creation could be fulfilled by a man instead of women is an insane idea that Shelley purposes in this novel and to no surprise ends in disappoint and failure in both Victor and his Monster.
Works Cited
Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein. New York. W.W. Norton & Company, Inc. 1996. Print
Moers, Ellen. “Female Gothic: The Monster’s Mother.” New York Review of Books. Garden City: Doubleday, 1976. 214-44. Print.
Johnson, Barbara. “My Monster/Myself”: Diacritics 12.2 (1982): A Norton Critical Ed. New York, London: WW Norton & Company, 191. Print.
Winnett,Susan. “Coming Unstrung”: A Norton Critical Ed. New York, London: WW Norton & Company,
