Frankenstein Birth Myth Essay

In 1985, Moer coined the term ‘birth myth’ to describe Frankenstein as a “woman’s book” about post-natal depression (79), and this idea has since been developed upon. However, the tradition of understanding Frankenstein as a ‘birth myth’ has been primarily considered in light of the biographical details of Mary Shelley’s life and their correspondence with her work. Particular attention has been given to the impact of her mother’s death shortly after Shelley’s birth and the subsequent trauma of the death of her daughter who was born premature (Williams 30). Hence, Moer suggests that ‘no outside influence’, other than Shelley’s personal losses, is necessary to explain the ‘fantasy of a newborn as at once monstrous agent of destruction and piteous

In The Last Man, for example, Shelley writes that ‘women who while gazing on the living forms of their children forget the pain of maternity’ (54). This is embodied in the ‘fond and anxious’ Mrs Raby in Falkner, who proclaims her child ‘lovely from her birth’ and desperately tries to shelter her from the ‘loveless race’ of an uncaring society (44). In contrast, Frankenstein feels nothing but immediate revulsion for his creature’s ugliness, pronouncing it ‘hideous’ (34) because it does not have a human appearance. Mellor draws parallels between the newborn creature’s yellow skin and eyes and babies who suffer from jaundice (39). It was not until the 20th century that neonatal jaundice was properly assessed, and the concept was only beginning to be understood when Shelley was writing Frankenstein, with the continuing idea that ‘if a poor child grows yellow – consequently it must die’ and therefore further help would not be attempted (Garner). The neglect of children, therefore, who were born with a “monstrous” deformity or illness, seems to be commented upon by Frankenstein’s abandonment of the creature because of its appearance. Moreover, Frankenstein not only fails as a maternal presence after the creature is born, in being unable to show affection or nurture his child, but his means of reproduction may also have harmed his offspring before it even comes into existence. Although not in the psychosomatic terms of the 1960s concept of the ‘The Attachment Theory’ (Holmes 41), the importance of the mother as the primary caregiver was apparent in the nineteenth century. For example, The Literary Gazette, in 1827, ran an article that stated a child’s health unquestionably ‘depends greatly on the health, both corporeal and mental, of the mother’ (122). According to Mind Hacks, which traces back the history of birthing psychology, the nineteenth century