The Dangers of a Motherless Childhoos

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Victor Frankenstein dedicates and determines himself to individually create life, something unnatural to the human way of life. Abandonment and the lack of a nurturing mother leads to his regret and desire to commit infanticide. Steven Marcus correctly discusses in his article how feminists (especially) believe that Frankenstein provides a cautionary tale involving the dangers that result from masculine desires to create, as well as to nurture and raise, in the absence of a woman. While proven by Victor’s eagerness in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, Steven Marcus’ article, as well as modern society, analyzes the patriarchal scientific drive to usurp female procreative power, resulting in consequential struggles for the child involved in the situation. Research conducted regarding modern society’s motherless children stresses the importance of a motherly (or even parental) relationship throughout the developmental years of a child. Hope Edelman, a motherless child herself explains, “I can tell you, based on both personal experience and interviews with hundreds of motherless American women, that losing a mother at an early age is one of the most stressful life events a person can face. It completely rips apart the fabric of a child's life.” If a child experiences the death, abandonment or absence of a mother, they fail to receive an adequate substitution. This deficiency can generate long-term damage to his or her self-esteem, ability to relate to other people, overall feelings of security and ability to trust others. The absence of a mother in a child’s life limits their support network, discipline, and supervision (Amato). An immense variety of possible negative outcomes emerge from being orphaned or possessing a single pa... ... middle of paper ... ...end, I should not be so desolate in this peopled earth. (Shelley 144). Even the smallest of children run from this lonely and abandoned human, who has no place to go and no one to love. The creature’s remarks regarding his life and abandonment, as well as the experience of Hope Edelman and research by other scientists and writers, prove how much women impact the proper growth of a child. Frankenstein’s creation struggles daily from lack of parental presence and a motherly bond. Victor, being a father, immediately despises his child based on appearance and abandons him without a thought concerning the well-being of his child, something no successful mother could fail to acknowledge. The creature develops a feeling of hopelessness in that he will never experience the kind of love a human being would feel with two supportive and loving parents, especially a mother.

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