FEMINISM THROUGH FRANKENSTEIN
As it is known, there have been always many differences in society between women and men. Women used to be dependent on men and they were kept doing “women's work” at home. However, due to the Industrial Revolution, women became a necessity in the workforce. That could have been the first time when women who had a different way of thinking )became to think differently by questioning and confronting gender roles and stereotypes. Through Frankenstein, the author seemed to ask herself these questions. When reading Frankenstein one can clearly see a patriarchal society where men are part of the public sector and women are left for the domestic. While men are in search of knowledge, happiness and new experiences, women are limited to the house and excluded from this intellectual males´ sphere.
Although the story is about a monster and science fiction, there are an issue of women's representation and its expression of romantic and attitudes which arouse through the plot. Women in Frankenstein are generally pure, innocent and passive. Though there are a few exceptions, such as Caroline Beaufort, who works to support her father, women seem to be kind but powerless. For example, Justine is executed for murder even being innocence; the female monster is aborted by Victor because of his fears of being unable to control her. This way of showing women so passive may be in order to call attention to the obsessive and destructive behavior that Victor and his monster exposed.
Being the daughter of a modern feminist, Mary Wollstonecraft, it is taken into consideration that Mary Shelley tries to express her feminist movement in Frankenstein as well. One can argue that Frankenstein represents a rejection of the male attempt to usurp, by unnatural ways, what is only from females, the birth. One can also infer that the novel is a rejection of the aggressive, rational and male-dominated science of the late seventeenth and early eighteenth century.
The status of women within the family, their role in society, and politics had been a subject of polemics for a couple of time. There are some problems related to the function of woman in that era. In Frankenstein, Mary Shelley chose to write from three different perspectives in which all of the narrators are male. Women are represented through men’s perception with small amount of description and little detail which automatically reduce the importance of woman in the story. Women are not placed at the same level as men who could be thought that they are mentally suppressed, like when Victor treats Elizabeth as “a promised gift”. How a woman could be compared with just a gift?
In summary, it is seen through all the novel how the author tries to show off how awful a patriarchal and chauvinist society was.The industrial revolution was extremely important in getting the feminist movement to the point it is at today. The industrial revolution provided factory jobs for women in an era in which they may not otherwise have been able to find work outside of the home. Women began to have a place working, and began earning their own wages.This gave women financial freedom from their husbands. Soon after, workers began to create a feeling of unity amongst them. Women became to realize that they were indeed needed and necessary, and deserved to be treated equally.
The status of women within the family, their role in society, and politics had been a subject of polemics for a couple of time. There are some problems related to the function of woman in that era. In Frankenstein, Mary Shelley chose to write from three different perspectives in which all of the narrators are male. Women are represented through men’s perception with small amount of description and little detail which automatically reduce the importance of woman in the story. Women are not placed at the same level as men who could be thought that they are mentally suppressed, like when Victor treats Elizabeth as “a promised gift”. How a woman could be compared with just a gift?
In summary, it is seen through all the novel how the author tries to show off how awful a patriarchal and chauvinist society was.The industrial revolution was extremely important in getting the feminist movement to the point it is at today. The industrial revolution provided factory jobs for women in an era in which they may not otherwise have been able to find work outside of the home. Women began to have a place working, and began earning their own wages.This gave women financial freedom from their husbands. Soon after, workers began to create a feeling of unity amongst them. Women became to realize that they were indeed needed and necessary, and deserved to be treated equally.
