Mary Shelley Challenges Society in Frankenstein

Mary Shelley Challenges Society in Frankenstein

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 radical challenges to society’s structure and her own, and indeed her husband’s views as Romantics. By considering these vital influences on the text, we can see that in Shelley’s construction of the meaning in Frankenstein she encourages a life led as a challenge to dominant views.

Many consider Shelley as an early feminist. Certainly her mother’s views on the issue cannot be doubted. In her book “A Vindication of the Rights of Women” Mary Wollstonecraft criticizes society’s treatment of women. Similarly in Frankenstein Shelly, more than simply telling a story, challenges a dominant patriarchal value system. In the novel the women are constructed as victims of male egotism and selfishness. Caroline Beaufort, Victor Frankenstein’s mother, lived in ‘poverty’ due to her father’s ‘abominable pride’ that refused to accept help or charity. Safie, daughter of the Turkish merchant is almost kept from the one she loves by her father’s ‘treachery’. Thus we can see that Shelly presents us with a s...

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...e patriarchy, seeking technology without morality and judgment primarily on appearance, Shelley encourages her reader to reassess the value structures within society, underpinning the way they live, and consider an alternative way of life. Thus, Frankenstein certainly must be considered more than a simple story; it is an important vehicle to present the writer’s themes.

Bibliography/ Works Cited

Brooks, P. "'Godlike Science/ Unhallowed Arts': Language, Nature,and Monstrosity". The Endurance of Frankenstein. Ed. George Levine. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1979.

Shelley, M. Frankenstein. Ed. Candace Ward. New York, Dover, 1994. (London).

Stevenson, W. Study of the readership and influence in Frankenstein. Sydney. NSW University Publication. 1987

Walton, M. Notes on Shelley’s Frankenstein. Article. 1994