•  
  •  
 

Faculty Mentor

Keri Holt

First Page

1

Last Page

34

Abstract

In 1792, pioneering English feminist Mary Wollstonecraft published “A Vindication of the Rights of Woman,” arguing that women’s rights could only advance if women moved into the male-dominated public sphere, leaving behind household-centered education, traditional marriage structures, and the nuclear family dynamic. In 1818, Wollstonecraft’s daughter Mary Shelley published “Frankenstein,” in which she explored and critiqued women’s permanent and unacknowledged status as caretakers within their households. Whereas Wollstonecraft aimed to dismantle marriage completely, Shelley simultaneously argued to preserve the notion of family and marriage while also reconstructing the gender roles within those dynamics. Through the lack of female representation from a male point of view, Shelley uses her male characters' relationships with women to critique the treatment of women in caretaking and reproductive settings, following such representation with an “ideal” family model that both breaks and conserves gender roles in a manner that is somewhat acceptable to long-established social rules. Although Wollstonecraft’s writings may have influenced the political beliefs presented in “Frankenstein,” Shelley’s personal experiences with motherhood slightly counteracted that. Thus, Mary Shelley’s “Frankenstein” served as a representation of her political beliefs, an introduction to 18th- and 19th-century English feminist arguments, and a personal outlet for her sorrows about motherhood and her desire for a conventional family. By acknowledging both the radical and conservative arguments presented in “Frankenstein,” this essay aims to explore and redefine the novel’s position as a "feminist novel” by drawing a connection to Shelley’s biographical influences.

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Download

Share

COinS