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Frankenstein Women's Role In Society

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You’re insignificant to society. You have no role to in your country! Your weak and fragile to many people’s eyes. You're completely controlled by the men's in your life. First, by your fathers, brothers and male relatives and finally by your husbands. Your sole purpose in life is to find a husband, reproduce and then spend the rest of their lives serving him. Once you're married off all your assets belong to your husband. If you do decide to remain single, you would be ridiculed and pitied by your community. Thus the only thing you can be is a housewife and serve your family. On the bright side you are higher than a peasant, but are lower a man. You have to be supported by husband. You are in the early 1800s. The description above was …show more content…

Though these women aren't significantly develop in the novel and ending in death, these women all have fixed in roles in the book, they all expected to at least one of the following: a wife, a mother, and /or a daughter. Mary Shelley moved the female characters away from the killing stereotypes but to a more of “angelistic” figure.Caroline Beaufort, Victor’s mother, fulfils the roles of daughter, wife,and mother, and does it with an angelic grace. Caroline role in the novel shows a stereotypical role of a women in the early 19th century. Elizabeth is referred to as a kind of daughter to the Frankensteins and on several occasions as a sister/ cousin to Victor. She portrayed as an object in the book since she given to Victor as present. Throughout the book Elizabeth’s angelic beauty and motion was emphasis.This shows what women only possess at that time-obedience and ambiguous manner. Justine is a servant who was mistreated by her biological mother. She portrayed as a women status in society as Mary describes her as housework as a domesticated, virtuous, passive and devoted to othersand person but sadly she potrayed petty character which emphasis the tragedy of women in

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Addressing the Inner Workings of Both Society and the Minds Affected By It The eighteenth century occurred after both the Industrial Revolution and Enlightenment and many different progressions, both good and bad, happened during this time. These include the growing questions on gender roles and the role of a person in society as a whole. In all kinds of societies, people are treated and raised in different ways according to certain traits they own and how society perceives these traits. Jean-Jacques Rousseau's philosophy on the affect of society on an individual addresses these situations and explains why and how people are influenced by society.

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What to Take Away from Monster In today’s society, the word masculinity is not easily defined. It is a socially constructed word that stereotypes the male sex, by painting an image that every man has to be big and strong, fearless and show no emotion. In the book, Monster written by Walter Dean Myers, the main theme is that men showing emotion should not be a sign of weakness, and it has nothing to do with being a man. This is all proven with three key examples in the book which include: emotion, reputation and violence.

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In the award winning article, “Passages in Mary Shelly's Frankenstein: Towards a Feminist Figure of Humanity?” Cynthia Pon addresses masculinity and feminism in terms of conventions, ideals, and practices (Pon, 33). She focused on whether Mary Shelly's work as a writer opened the way to a feminist figure of humanity like Donna Haraway argued. The article has a pre-notion that the audience has read Frankenstein and Haraway's article. Pon has a slight bias, due to her passion as a feminist writer.

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As per usual, advancements in a story are made through various literary elements, Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley's Frankenstein is of no exception. Though what sets this authors use of these elements apart is the effectiveness in which they are presented in what can be considered a prologue of sorts, the letters. As a foreshadowing to what may occur between characters of differing sexes, gender roles are established. For the development of the a main character, Robert Walton, season (a key factor in character development as discussed in the literary work To Read Like A Professor) is described in thorough detail by non other than Walton himself, as he also goes on to discuss his opinion on it. Gender roles remain an important developmental tool

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One character, Justine, is very passive and used as a device to make Victor feel guilty for creating The Creature; as her major contribution to the plot was The Creature framing her for her brothers death and shortly after, being sentenced to death. Another female character, Safie, is used to teach The Creature how to speak: “My days were spent in close attention…and I may boast that I improved more rapidly than the Arabian…I could imitate almost every word that was spoken… I also learned the science of letters” (Shelley 106). Even the most prominent female character in the book, Frankenstein's lover and wife, Elizabeth, is killed by The Creature on their wedding night, in order to again make Victor regret creating The Creature, and eventually die of his unhappiness. Mary Shelley's depiction of women might be her indicating the roles of women at the time as inferior, a similar thesis brought about by Mary Wollstonecraft in A Vindication on the Rights of Women.

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In James Davis’ literary essay “Frankenstein and the Subversion of the Masculine Voice,” he discusses the oppression of women and the minor roles of females in Mary Shelly’s novel Frankenstein. With a feminist perspective, Davis claims, “He [Victor Frankenstein] oppresses female generation of life and of text; he rends apart both the physical and the rhetorical ‘form’ of female creativity. In fact, all three male narrators attempt to subvert the feminine voice, even in those brief moments when they tell the women’s stories” (307). Throughout his essay, Davis demonstrates the underlying message of Shelly’s subversion towards men and the social consequences of misogyny. Davis draws parallels between the three men, Robert Walton, Victor Frankenstein, and Victor’s creation, Frankenstein, in which they

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Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein presents important social criticism. Shelly focuses, in particular, on importance of forgiveness, betrayal, acceptance in society. Learning to forgive yourself and others is an important thing to know how to do or you’ll be holding on to useless hatred and pain all of your life; the same way the monster, Frankenstein, was doing. “Forgive me. Everywhere I go, they hate me”.

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When looking closer, it is unmistakable that this anti-feminism was a way of getting her story out there and at the same time exposing gender norms surrounding women. This subtle form of feminism was a very clever way for Shelley to create a story with many feminist themes while seeming anti-feminist on first look, a way to hook both the male audience as well as members of the female audience. In the novel, Shelley refers to the literary stereotypes that women often fell into as well as the experiences and fears surrounding maternity. She simultaneously shows the problematic male privilege and dominance prevailing at the time. Shelley manages to slip a criticism on gender in writing in this story while also maintaining the main story and solidifying Frankenstein as an-all time classic of horror literature.

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Interestingly enough, the novel resembles Shelley’s own life and can be interpreted as a reflection of her perception of families. Shelley shares many of the same characteristics with most of her characters. As the main character in the novel, Frankenstein’s creature is depicted as “a motherless orphan” who had an “unnatural birth” (Griffith). This correlates with Shelley’s own childhood as she was raised without a mother and her birth was in some ways “unnatural” as mothers are not naturally made to die during childbirth.

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Although the perspective of women in the Elizabethan era was much different from the perspective of manhood, it was also similar in a sense that manhood and womanhood both played an essential role during their era. The thought of men being the ones to do things such as commit murder and be ambitious is still prevalent today. In our society we view women as people who are soft and not quite as ambitious as the opposite sex. The notion that women are incapable of committing murder is obscure as they are physically capable of doing harm to any human body as well as being able to have ambition such as

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In Frankenstein, Mary Shelley uses the women in the novel as an important part of creation; without them and their nurturing personalities, the story would not be able to progress. As one of the main female characters, Elizabeth did not play a strong character, but her role was still crucial because she helped move the story along in a way that showed that certain explorations of science can be harmful. First, historically the only reason she would be needed, as Victor Frankenstein’s mate, would be to give birth, but that role is filled by Victor himself. Right before Victor brings the creature to life, he thinks, “I beheld the accomplishments of my toils.

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They all fit the archetype of a damsel in distress needing to be saved by others; Caroline by Alphonse, Elizabeth and Justine by the Frankenstein family, and are never given the chance to save themselves. Their lives are dedicated to the caring and nurturing roles of daughter, wife, and mother and they play the “perfect woman”; quiet and beautiful, waiting by the sidelines as the forever faithful companion to the male characters. Everything that happens to them is a result of someone else’s actions and is only significant as it affects the male characters. They have no control over their own fates and are portrayed as too fragile and precious to carry their own storyline and seem to exist only to wait to be sacrificed for the benefit of

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The novel Frankenstein by Mary Shelley is a science fiction story about a creature created from non-living matter, by a young scientist, Victor Frankenstein. The conflict between society and Frankenstein’s creature is largely perpetuated by a split between those considered attractive, and those who are not. The conflict and language use in Frankenstein demonstrate that most of society judges others based on their physical appearance, which leads to excluding those who fall outside the accepted definition of beauty and sometimes life-threatening consequences for both groups. Frankenstein and his parents demonstrate that they also fall victim to the habit of judging others initially based off of their appearance. The Frankenstein parents first

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