Reading Between the Lines:: An analysis of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, or, the Modern Prometheus, using Horace Walpole’s The Castle of Otranto as an example of male discourse about women
Author
Knudsen, Louise Othello
Term
4. term
Education
Publication year
2012
Submitted on
2012-07-31
Pages
77
Abstract
Dette speciale undersøger, hvordan Mary Shelleys køn præger Frankenstein og kan forklare, hvorfor romanen giver kvinder så lidt plads. Shelley var datter af den radikale forfatter Mary Wollstonecraft, der skrev A Vindication of the Rights of Woman og døde i barselssengen, og af William Godwin. Med denne baggrund er det slående, at Frankenstein fortæller en overvejende mandlig historie, hvor kvinder har få replikker og ofte dør. Jeg analyserer, hvordan bogen fremstiller sine mandlige og kvindelige figurer. Robert Walton og Victor Frankenstein skildres som stærkt ambitiøse og selvoptagne, og de værdsætter mandligt venskab højere end romantiske forhold til kvinder. Victor samler desuden træk, der forbindes med Mary Shelleys mand, Percy Bysshe Shelley—egenskaber, hun ikke bifaldt. Kvinderne i romanen legemliggør derimod for det meste tidens ideal om den 'rigtige dame'. For at forstå disse valg diskuterer jeg de sociale forventninger til mænd og kvinder i familien og det offentlige liv og inddrager Sandra M. Gilbert og Susan Gubars The Madwoman in the Attic. Her beskrives 'anxiety of authorship'—en usikkerhed og et pres, som mange kvindelige forfattere følte over retten til at skrive og over at kunne leve op til berømte navne—mens de trådte ind i en litterær verden defineret af mænd. Denne verden tilbød ofte snævre stereotyper af kvinder, som man ser i Horace Walpoles gotiske fortælling The Castle of Otranto, der bruges som reference for typiske kvindefremstillinger i genren. Set i dette lys kan Mary Shelleys marginalisering og drab på 'engleagtige' kvinder læses som et bevidst opgør med de begrænsende billeder. Romanen engagerer sig også i samtidens videnskab og advarer mod forsøg på at beherske naturen: Victors eksperiment med reproduktion uden kvindelig medvirken ender katastrofalt. Samtidig antyder den, at ikke kun kvinder, men også mænd kan skabe 'monstre'—en modreaktion mod Erasmus Darwin, der gav mødre skylden for 'misfostre'. Analysen trækker på Anne K. Mellors Mary Shelley, Her Life, Her Fiction, Her Monsters for at forbinde videnskabelige temaer med semibiografiske elementer. Samlet set leverer specialet en feministisk læsning af Frankenstein og anerkender samtidig de historiske begrænsninger, der kan forklare, hvorfor kvinder i høj grad er fraværende i fortællingen.
This thesis explores how Mary Shelley's identity as a woman shapes Frankenstein and helps explain why the novel gives women so little space. Shelley was the daughter of the radical writer Mary Wollstonecraft, author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, who died in childbirth, and of William Godwin. Given this background, it is striking that Frankenstein tells a largely male story in which women have few lines and often die. I examine how the book presents its male and female characters. Robert Walton and Victor Frankenstein are shown as intensely ambitious and self-focused, and they value male companionship over romance with women. Victor also concentrates traits associated with Mary Shelley's husband, Percy Bysshe Shelley—qualities she did not admire. By contrast, the women in the novel mostly embody the era's ideal of the 'proper lady'. To understand these choices, I discuss social expectations for men and women in family and public life and draw on Sandra M. Gilbert and Susan Gubar's The Madwoman in the Attic. They describe an 'anxiety of authorship': the doubt and pressure many women writers felt about their right to write and to live up to famous names, while entering a literary world defined by men. That world often fixed women in narrow stereotypes, as seen in Horace Walpole's Gothic tale The Castle of Otranto, used here as a reference for typical female portrayals in the genre. Read this way, Mary Shelley's silencing and even killing of 'angelic' women can be seen as a deliberate refusal to repeat those limiting images. The novel also engages with contemporary science and warns against attempts to master nature: Victor's experiment in reproduction without women ends in catastrophe. It further suggests that men, not only women, can produce 'monstrous' outcomes—a counter to Erasmus Darwin's claim that the mother was to blame for 'monstrous births'. The analysis draws on Anne K. Mellor's Mary Shelley, Her Life, Her Fiction, Her Monsters to connect scientific themes with semi-biographical elements. Overall, the thesis offers a feminist reading of Frankenstein while acknowledging historical constraints that help explain why women are largely absent from the story.
[This abstract was generated with the help of AI]
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