This is seen explicitly in the events that Shelley has expressed after the monster asks for a mate. The monster had promised to leave the human populated areas and go into the forests and live there. He only asked from Victor to make him a female counterpart with which he could sit and talk to and relate to. Victor at first thinks that it would be a remarkable idea and the society would be clean of the monster. However, when he thinks about the matter, he feels that giving the monster a mate could prove to be disastrous. Victor knows that the female would have a mind of her own to think and decide and if she would disagree to the agreement made before her creation, behind her conscious self, then that would create problems for everyone and more blood would be shed. The fear of man is seen here with regards to female autonomy in expressing her views and actions. Moreover he knows that a woman whose sexuality is aroused will make the choice of leaving a man just because of his looks for another who is better looking. Victor probably feared the same in the case of Elizabeth just like everyone else feared the same in the Victorian male mindset. A sexually liberated female was feared by the males of those times. Moreover they felt that any desire of the women, that are sexually liberated, to have children would mean the continuation of generations belonging to their thought and mindset and that would again prove to be a threat to society. "One of the first results of those sympathies for which the demon thirsted would be children, and a race of devils would be propagated upon the earth" (p. 165). The nearly completed mate for the monster...
He fears a woman who might resist and deny complying with any agreement made by the male dominated society prior to their birth, agreements like those which led to the death and destruction of Elizabeth because she complied. Victor, who represents the patriarchal society in those days, fears a woman who can speak for herself, her rights, is sexually liberated and expresses her right to choose a spouse.
Frankenstein's creation of the monster is rendered as a kind of horrific pregnancy; for example, where a pregnant woman expands with the child she is bearing and usually eats more, Frankenstein wastes away during his work, depriving himself "of rest and health" (Shelley 43). Rather than expressing any kind of paternal (or maternal) love for his creation, Frankenstein recoils, as "breathless horror and disgust filled [his] heart" (Shelley 43).
What Victor is saying is that in order to create a living being from the dead, he must haunt the graveyards like a human ghoul and experiment on live animals to "animate" "lifeless clay," being the deceased remains of human beings. From this admission, it is abundantly obvious that Victor, like Prometheus, sees "clay" as the foundation for creation, a substance which is part of the earth itself and
Mary Shelley's Frankenstein Bakhtin distinguished the literary form of the novel as distinct from other genres because of its rendering of the dynamic present, not in a separate and unitary literary language, but in the competing and often cosmic discord of actual and multiple voices, thus making contact with contemporary reality in all its openendedness (Bender et.al., p. x). Bakhtin's definition of the novel is important because it serves to illuminate
Mary Shelley & Emily Dickinson Women's Roles Then and Now: A Dialogue between Mary Shelley and Emily Dickinson Mary and Emily are having an afternoon tea at Emily's Homestead garden. In the midst of enjoying the different flowering plants that Emily had planted in the garden, the women talked about and compared their lives way back in 19th century Western society and in the present time. MARY: I know I should not be
Frankenstein in the Work of Mary Shelley FRANKENSTEIN BY MARY SHELLEY The focus of this study is to summarize chapters 16 through 20 in Mary Shelley's and to choose two to three particularly meaningful quotes or quotes that are provocative or significant. work entitled 'Frankenstein'. Chapter 16 opens with the exclamation of "cursed, cursed creator! Why did I live?" (Shelley) This exclamation importantly sweets the scene for the dilemma in this story
Mary Shelley's Frankenstein Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin Shelley conceived her well-known novel, "Frankenstein," when she, her husband Percy Bysshe Shelley and their friends were at a house party near Geneva in 1816 and she was challenged to come up with a ghost story (Malchow 1993). Mary, then only 18 years old, produced the plot, largely drawn from her own experiences, perceptions and the personalities of the members of her family. These impressions
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