Frankenstein Women Essay

The fictive elements of the novel Frankenstein, namely the reanimation of a corpse through galvanization, were met with much shock and criticism at the time of its publication in 1818. However, this was not so much because of the novel’s inherently grotesque nature, but because of the novel’s author. Mary Shelley was only 18 years old when she penned Frankenstein, in defiance of contemporary expectations of women, which forbade them to even entertain such gruesome thoughts, let alone write about them. However, despite this defiance in her personal life, Shelley’s female characters in Frankenstein are disappointingly typical, adhering to the expectations set for them in 19th century life. These women are the very picture of expected feminine

Though Frankenstein’s anxiety might not mirror those of all his contemporaries, that this anxiety persists even in present times suggests that it was not an uncommon sentiment. Modern women in the Western world, including the Geneva of Shelley’s novel, enjoy many freedoms then unknown, but some of their liberties are still under debate. The policing and regulation of women’s bodies, such as their right to an abortion or access to birth control, exercise a control much like that which Frankenstein sought to enforce. Reading Frankenstein through this lens both confirms and denies common conceptions of early 19th century life: it acknowledges the passive role of women in society, often solely in the domestic sphere as mothers or wives, while simultaneously revealing that this forced submission is due in part to their biology in the face of fragile masculinity. In an ideal world, gender issues addressed in a 19th century novel should not be familiar to 21st century readers, but this is not the case. When the mistreatment of a fictional monster is comparable to the mistreatment of modern women, society would do well to treat Shelley’s Frankenstein as a cautionary tale, and give these issues the acknowledgement they