Frankenstein Women

In Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (1818), the characterization of women is based on the rigid gender division in eighteenth-century Geneva, which greatly resembles the social status of women in contemporary London. In Frankenstein women’s efforts are represented as ineffective and inessential to the public sphere by expressing men confidently as scientists, politicians or explorers. On the other hand, women are confined to the home as mere companions, wives and often caregivers to the children. However, Shelley upholds women’s views of family and familial affections by critiquing men’s deficient commitment to the familial, ultimately revealing the indifferent attitude towards Frankenstein’s creation which arouses tension in the cultural situation

Shelley includes, “during [Elizabeth’s] confinement, many arguments had been urged to persuade [Caroline] to refrain from attending upon her” (72). However, the efforts where ignored and Caroline entered the chamber before the danger of infection was past and the consequences of this imprudence were fatal. In this, she is the figure of feminine textuality. Devon Hodges agrees when she writes, “Shelley’s characters do not escape traditional female destinies,” in fact, “Shelley challenges the place of women plotted by the traditional novel by disrupting narrative sequence” (Hodges). In other words, Hodges believes the novel undermines the form of female destiny by altering the narrative sequence. The characterization of Caroline not only illustrates feminine destinies, but highlights the easy disposal of female characters in Frankenstein. Though Caroline was thought to be the center of the Frankenstein family, her death disrupted the expected sequence of events and highlighted Shelley’s discarding of minor female character’s. The death of Caroline, along with the disposal of other female characters (Elizabeth & Justine), illustrate the contemporary views of women as passive individuals who can be easily disregarded. Hodges himself writes, the violation of casual sequence “communicates the monstrous burden of female difference as it is defined by patriarchal culture” (Hodges). The essence of Hodges argument is that the suspension of female characters in Frankenstein favor the patriarchal culture. Indeed, Shelley implies the division of the male and female spheres through characterization but also through plot, which favors the advancement of the male versus