Mellor's Essay 'Possessing Nature: The Female In Frankenstein'

811 Words2 Pages

Chandru Sundarrajan
Professor Schoolfield
English 1325.008
31 March 2015
Summary
Mellor, Anne K. “Possessing Nature: The Female in Frankenstein.” Romanticism and
Feminism. Ed. Anne K. Mellor. Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1988. 220-32. Rpt. in Frankenstein. Ed. J. Paul Hunter. Norton Critical Edition. New York: Norton, 1996. 274-86.
Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein is set in a patriarchal nineteenth century society where men take up significant occupations outside the home and women are often limited to the household. In Anne K. Mellor’s essay “Possessing Nature: The Female in Frankenstein,” the writer explores the gender divide in Frankenstein and depicts the injustices towards the women in society. Mellor ultimately portrays Frankenstein as a feminist …show more content…

The family is marked by “justice, equality, and mutual affection” (277), and each of their names is symbolic as well: Felix is happiness, Agatha is goodness, and Safie is wisdom. Mellor asserts that the coexistence of happiness, goodness, and wisdom contradicts the separation of emotion and intellect present in society at the time. Felix, for example, rescues Safie from imprisonment. As a result, the family is very closely knit. However, despite the family being strongly knit, they all reject the creature and flee in its presence. Mellor notes that this flaw in their character may be due to the lack of a mother figure in their …show more content…

She provides several distinct reasons for his fear to do so. First of all, Mellor articulates that Victor is afraid that the female creature will be independent and cannot be controlled by her male counterpart. She then states that Victor believes that a female creation would be sadistic, “ten thousand times” (279) more evil, and more ugly than the male creature. Lastly, Mellor states that Victor believes the female will create more monsters and possibly be so strong that she may forcefully mate with even normal humans. Mellor asserts that Victor’s demolishment of the female creature is a symbol of male domination of women and that it is analogous to a “violent rape”

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