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The portrayal of women in literature
The portrayal of women in literature
The portrayal of women in literature
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Mary Shelley’s 1818 novel, Frankenstein, tells the fictitious tale of young scientist Victor Frankenstein and the creature he creates as part of a scientific experiment. Throughout the novel, readers hear about the challenges that Victor, his family, the creature, and Shelley’s other characters experience. Shelley includes many female characters in her novel’s world; however, the women do not often assume a central or essential role. Although a woman wrote Frankenstein, and therefore one might assume the novel would contain strong female characters, nevertheless, Shelley does not portray her female characters this way. Women often appear weaker than men in Frankenstein’s world because Shelley frequently presents her female characters as …show more content…
Near the middle of Frankenstein, the Frankenstein’s servant Justine is accused of murder, and Shelley portrays her as powerless to improve her circumstances. Justine says to the Frankensteins: “how heavily and fatally this one circumstance weighs against me, but I have no power of explaining it; and when I have expressed my ignorance, I am only left to conjecture concerning the probabilities by which it might have been placed in my pocket” (66). Justine expresses that she cannot help prove her innocence because she is incapable of explaining how the incriminating picture came into her possession. Because Shelley depicts Justine as unable to take action to save herself, she makes Justine look …show more content…
During the scene in which the Frankenstein family visits accused murderer Justine in jail, Shelley portrays her women characters as unable to refrain from emotional outbursts. At the jail, Victor explains how Justine “threw herself at the feet of Elizabeth, weeping bitterly. My cousin [Elizabeth] wept also” (68). Shelley describes her women characters as weeping, emotional, and groveling; however, Shelley does not portray her male characters in this way. Shelley does note that Victor feels deep despair because he explains: “I had retired to the corner of the prison room, where I could conceal the horrid anguish that possessed me. Despair!” (69-70). However, unlike her presentation of Justine and Elizabeth, Shelley portrays Victor as having the power to control and conceal his emotions; Shelley does not describe Victor as falling to the feet of others in tears or visibly showing his feelings to those around him. By describing her characters’ emotions in this contrasting way, Shelley makes the women in her novel’s world appear weak and out of control and the men seem strong and in
In conclusion, in Mary Shelly’s novel Frankenstein, the female characters always fulfill the limited and archetypical roles that are set for them by society. In this novel, many female characters are considered to be possessions. In fact, they are considered to be the servants of men. “I have a pretty present for my Victor—tomorrow he shall have it.” (Mary Shelly, Pg. 70)
‘[The] characters and plot of Frankenstein reflect . . . Shelley’s conflicted feelings about the masculine circle which surrounded her.’
Gender inequality will always affect the way women are portrayed in society, the weaker, unnecessary, and other sex. It is not just a subject of the past, but still holds a name in society, however in the olden eras the way women were treated and are looked at, in a much more harsh condition. In Shakespeare’s Othello and Shelley’s Frankenstein women’s roles in the books are solely based on the way they are treated in their time period. The way women are portrayed in these books, demonstrate that they can never be in the same standing as men, considered the second option, and therefore will never have the same respect as men. In both Othello and Frankenstein women are treated as property, used to better men’s social standards, and lack a voice,
The idea for the novel of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein came to her one night when she was staying in the company of what has been called ‘her male coterie’, including Lord Byron and her husband, Percy Shelley. Mary Shelley’s whole life seems to have been heavily influenced by men. She idolised her father, William Godwyn, and appears to have spent a good part of her life trying very hard to impress both him and her husband. There seems to have been a distinct lack of female influence, her mother, Mary Wollstonecraft, having died weeks after her birth, being replaced by a neglectful step-mother. These aspects of her life are perhaps evident in her novel. The characters and plot of Frankenstein were perhaps influenced by Shelley’s conflicting feelings about the predominately masculine circle which surrounded her, and perhaps the many masculine traits that we see in novel were based upon those of the male figures in Shelley’s own life. In this essay I will attempt to show some of these traits.
The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde could be compared to Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein because they both characterize their women characters as passive, disposable and useless. Although Frankenstein was written many years earlier, both texts deal with many of the s...
She is virtuous and loved by all, and she also has an unwavering faith in a higher power. Through her strong faith, Justine easily blames herself and takes responsibility for things that are not her fault, such as the death of William. Mary Shelley does not describe the physical aspects of Justine, which allows readers to focus on her personality and morals. By doing so, the differences between Victor and Justine become clear. Unlike Justine, Victor holds little faith in anything. His faith in science wavers once he steers off of the path of traditional, institutionalized methods, and he is left to discover his own path with nothing to put faith in other than in himself. Victor has chosen a more lonesome path, one that concerns only his affairs and no one else’s. By choosing this isolated path, Victor has also inflicted social isolation upon his creation which in turn causes the monster to harm others. The monster is, in fact, the true murderer of William. To cover up his tracks, the monster has chosen to frame Justine as the culprit by putting a photograph that William had been carrying into her pocket. Victor Frankenstein’s monster thinks that no woman
Mary Shelley’s novel entitled Frankenstein demonstrates women of the Romantic Era as powerless citizens of society. Throughout the novel, the women are secondary characters and are portrayed through the men’s perspective. Therefore, many would think that these female characters are passive and dependant as they are often described as companions and nurturers. Despite the unequal rights of women, Shelley, one of the earliest feminist, has developed female characters who show agency. This trait of taking charge of one 's course of life is reflected through Justine Moritz as she is willing to die for her beliefs, in Safie who defies her father’s and religious wishes and when Victor Frankenstein decides to abort
In this 1700’s society the standards for society are quite different than what they are now, for one the general measure of someone’s worth and goodness is based primarily upon their appearance. Another of these societal standards that Shelley conveys is the social classes of the time with the cottagers and the monster’s description of them and how they are divided by wealth and family reputation. The last of the aforementioned societal standards is that of hiding one’s problems in the case of Victor Frankenstein and his hiding of his creation that became a monster, a monster that society
Within Frankenstein, the level at which a female is portrayed is quite low. Like we have heard in class, women were not necessarily respected as much as men were when the novel was written. Published in 1818 by Mary Shelley, her story tells of the adventure of young Victor Frankenstein and the creation of his creature. Though deep within this narration of Frankenstein’s life, there seems to be an underlying theme seeping through Shelley’s writing. Shelley seems to venture into the idea of feminism and grotesquely show how men are treated much better than women. Her novel includes various concrete examples to support this hypothesis.
From the beginning of time in history, women have always been portrayed as and seen as the submissive sex. Women especially during the time period of the 1800s were characterized as passive, disposable, and serving an utilitarian function. Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein is a prime example displaying the depiction of women. The women in Frankenstein represent the treatment of women in the early 1800’s. Shelley’s incorporation of suffering and death of her female characters portrays that in the 1800’s it was acceptable. The women in the novel are treated as property and have minimal rights in comparison to the male characters. The feminist critic would find that in Frankenstein the women characters are treated like second class citizens. The three brutal murders of the innocent women are gothic elements which illustrates that women are inferior in the novel. Mary Shelley, through her novel Frankenstein, was able to give the reader a good sense of women’s role as the submissive sex, through the characters experiences of horrific events including but not limited to brutal murder and degradation, which is illuminated by her personal life experiences and time period of romanticism.
Since, not only does Victor monsterize himself by living in gluttony, but he also becomes increasingly inhumane as the story proceeds. For instance, he runs away from his creation and upon finding Frankenstein Victor shames him. This action is fairly similar to that of a mother abandoning a newborn child. For as ttmf by retaliates, “That paradox is perhaps best illustrated in Walton's consternation, after Victor's death, at finding himself torn between his initial horror at the "vision ... of such loathsome, yet appalling hideousness" and a "compassion" which responds to the monster's voice and passionate misery” therefore, in essence, what Frankenstein had to bear through was all due to Victor’s mistreatment of Frankenstein's emotions. As well as needs, and acting as if he were more of a wild animal than a human with a functioning brain. On the other hand, while we may gasp at the death of his younger brother, William, and be utterly shocked at Justine's execution, we must not forget that Justine's termination could have been easily evaded had it not been for Victor’s inhumanity and
When reading Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, one cannot help but notice that the women characters seem to have little substance compared to the male characters. This may have been caused by the time period in which she wrote: one in which females were considered inferior to males. This difference between the sexes can be looked at using a variety of different perspectives. Johanna M. Smith, a professor at the University of Texas at Arlington, discusses this issue using feminist eyes in her essay entitled "'Cooped up': Feminine Domesticity in Frankenstein." The main points in Professor Smith's essay are that the female characters are there only to reflect the male characters, and that the Frankenstein family has a weird style of living, which she describes as a "bookkeeping mentality" (Smith 279).
In “Frankenstein” penned by Mary Shelley, one cannot help but notice the role of women in the novel compared to men. Even though Mary Shelley is the daughter of Mary Wollstonecraft, a mother advocating for women’s rights in society, she displays the roles of Caroline, Elizabeth, and Justine as passive women. This may be the time period when women were considered inferior to men. Caroline, Elizabeth, and Justine are depicted as possessions by men, admired for their superficial beauty, and do not take action without the permission of men. On the other hand, Shelley illustrates Safie as a woman who speaks up for her own rights when her father forbids her to find Felix.
In Frankenstein, Shelley creates two very complex characters. They embody the moral dilemmas that arise from the corruption and disturbance of the natural order of the world. When Victor Frankenstein is attending school, he becomes infatuated with creating a living being and starts stealing body parts from morgues around the university. After many months of hard work, he finishes one stormy night bringing his creation to life. However, “now that [Victor] had finished, the beauty of the dream vanished, and breathless horror and disgust filled [his] heart” (Chambers). Right after Victor realizes what he has done, he falls into deep depression and must be nursed back to health by his friend. Victor spends the rest of the story facing consequences and moral problems from creating unnatural life. When he realizes that the ‘monster’ has killed his brother, even though no one believes him, he feels responsible for his brother’s murder because he was responsible for the existence of the ‘monster’. Also feeling responsible, Victor...
Can you imagine Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley's Frankenstein, the great work of literature, without, for example, such female characters as Mrs. Margaret Saville, Elizabeth Lavenza, and Justine Moritz? In this case the novel will have no meaning. All the women help to develop the plot, and without them Frankenstein will lose its spirit. Although these heroines have a lot in common in their characters: they are all strong-willed, kind, careful, and selfless, at the same time, each of them is unique, and each plays her own role in the novel. Mrs. Margaret Saville is the woman to whom the narrator tells the story. Elizabeth Lavenza is the beloved of Victor Frankenstein. Justine Moritz is the heroine who is accused by mistake of murdering William and executed instead of the fiend. There is close connection between the female and male characters, and if we break it, Frankenstein will have no sense. The author of the novel, Mary Wollstonecraft Shelly, characterizes the women in the same way as the men, and shows that they are independent players. So, the female characters in Frankenstein are as important as the male ones.