Mary Shelley's Reflection Seen In The Eyes Of The Creature '

Alyssa-Jean Yokota
Fleming
English 4, Period 5
12 March 2015
Shelley’s Reflection Seen in the Eyes of the Creature In the era in which Frankenstein was written, the role of women was strictly submissive. Although written by a female author, Mary Shelley identified every female character as an objectified, used, abused, and easily discarded being. Characters such as Elizabeth and Justine are passive and gentle women who are placed in the story as more of a supporting role for men instead of being independent individuals. They are also put under false consequences such as Justine being framed guilty because of her gender. Some critics claim that the negative roles women have in the novel are entwined with Mary Shelley’s life as a woman,
while others like to compare her role with the creature. Being from the time period it was written in, Shelley framed Frankenstein to represent her position as a female by putting herself in the eyes of the creature. A feminist theory focuses on the role of women in society and how they respond to the rights and equality compared to men.
This perspective does not enforce the idea of females being more powerful than the male gender, but more towards seeking an equal balance of roles. In today’s society, the power of women and the number of feminists are increasing through the usage of social media and women around the world are becoming more educated about their role. This empowering movement developed relatively recently with the assistance of new technology, the spread of awareness, and the availability of education. Before modern times, females were treated with less respect than men and were considered lower in status. Mary Shelley and her famous mother, Mary Wollstonecraft, both lived in this era. Wollstonecraft became a famous feminist philosopher, describing her many thoughts on the role of women in her time and her daughter Shelley, wrote a fiction story with many hints of feministic
ideals. Mary Shelley’s emphasis on the role of women in Frankenstein is simply put as "the narrative strategy of Frankenstein, like the symbolic presentation of the monster, enables Shelley to express and efface herself at the same time and thus, at least partially, to satisfy her conflicting desires for self-assertion and social acceptance” (Poovey 131). An odd thought (yet true), Shelley views her role as a woman in a realistic fashion while presenting it in her story. She realizes that the feminine role is looked down upon, yet continues to almost “shove it” in the face of the audience. Authors are prone to expressing their internal emotions when they write; Shelley does so by entwining her pessimistic thoughts in the story.
More importantly, this negative view she sees within herself as a woman is displayed by the descriptions of the creature.
Like Mary, the creature grew up without a mother and carried heavy, self-effacing thoughts throughout its life. Mary was also very young and went through traumatic experiences when she wrote this novel, so it is no surprise that the descriptions of the creature are emotional and disturbing. Another hint at this perspective is the fact that the creature is never given a gender or name. Many readers perceive the creature to be a male because of its physical characteristics, but because of its many internal emotions and conflicts, it is possible to be considered feminine. But then again, following the feminine perspective, internal emotions may be applied to men and physical strength may be applied to women. Shelley’s pessimistic thoughts on herself were “essentially a ‘war within the mind’” (Hoeveler 47) and came through in the image of a horrid creature, but the way she described it was how she felt
internally.
Finding resources for a topic like this was extremely difficult. I know that many students are choosing to write about feminism mainly because it is a “simple” or “general” topic, but I chose it because I am a strong-minded feminist myself. I chose the topic of Mary Shelley expressing her image through the creature in the story because I personally believe that is what she intended. After researching for many days and looking further into the story, I realized most readers never encountered this idea so finding evidence through other literary criticisms became difficult. Eventually I found links and that led to links and criticisms that had footnotes with other criticisms and found The Proper Lady and the Woman Writer by Mary Poovey. She only touched upon the subject but it was enough to incorporate into my essay. I used Jstor to find other criticisms by her, but they did not describe my idea in any way so I did not use it.
As mentioned in the preceding paragraph, I am a feminist myself so choosing to write about the feminist perspective was never a second thought for me. I immediately chose to incorporate feministic perspectives into my analysis because I knew I could relate and understand the depths of the story better by researching this theory. The more specific idea of relating Shelley to Frankenstein’s creation came up as we discussed the novel in class. I slowly realized how similar the creature is to Shelley’s claimed views of herself and when I found some evidence on how they are similar, I knew I had to write about it. Although being one of the only readers to seek this idea makes me feel unique, I wish there were more literary critics who could assist me in supporting me with evidence.

Works Cited
Poovey, Mary. The Proper Lady and the Woman Writer: Ideology as Style in the Works of Mary Wollstonecraft, Mary Shelley, and Jane Austen. Chicago: U of Chicago, 1984. 131. Web.

Hoeveler, Diane. Frankenstein, Feminism, and Literary Theory. N.p.: n.p., n.d. Web. <http://epublications.marquette.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1051&context=english_fac>.

Inbinder, Gary. "English Historical Fiction Authors." : A Strange Relationship ~ Mary Shelley and Frankenstein 's Monster. N.p., n.d. Web. 12 Mar. 2015. <http://englishhistoryauthors.blogspot.com/2012/03/strange-relationship-mary-shelley-and.html>.