Gender Roles In Frankenstein

Mary Shelley's mother Mary Wollstonecraft is well known as an advocate of women's rights, most notably in her 1792 text A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, which is often regarded as the first work of modern feminist philosophy. With this in mind, do you find Frankenstein to be a disappointing work in its explorations of sex and gender roles?

The separation of masculine and feminine domestic life in the novel is portrayed by Mary Shelley as an allegorical tale of the terrible effects of explaining the domestic sphere as interchangable. Victor Frankenstein’s narrative in Frankenstein begins with his family history as Shelley is clearly showing that family and social standing is significant in the novel. Victor’s father meets Victor's mother

He then takes Caroline and cares for her like his child, he was “like a protecting spirit to the girl, who committed herself to his care”. Frankenstein's father had more fatherly characteristics than husband in his relationship with Caroline. He treated her “as a fair exotic is sheltered by the gardener from every rougher wind”. Caroline is described as a plant that could only survive with the careful nurturing of her surrogate guardian. However, Caroline isn't a weak, submissive wife as she orders her husband to “gradually relinquish all his public functions” so he can be “the husband and father" to his family. Domesticity can't work alongside “affairs of his country” and “public business” which was Victor's father's sole profession before meeting Elizabeth. The marriage between Victor's parents and environment created by their first child Victor, somewhat creating a greater familial bond which cannot coexist with Victor's father's world of politics and public affairs. His father's domestic life is more important to him than his career. Victor's father's political

Frankenstein could be read as an allegory of masculine usurpation of female reproductive, due to “womb envy,” which Victor displays in the novel. The monster that Victor fathers is made out of stolen body parts. This is symbolic of the idea of death being brought back to life. Victor enjoys his abnormal 'sex act' which creates the monster which passionate desire, saying “I had desired it with an arduor that far exceeded moderation”. The erotic lexcis used to describe Victor’s passionate pursuit of creating life without women and yet the fact the monster is male and not female, the gender Victor's society expect him to be attracted to clearly show that his monster is an object of simultaneous desire and revulsion. The monster was not created through sex between a man and a woman, however the monster’s creation an overriding sexual theme. Sexuality and death are inextricably linked in the monsters life. The monster’s murders have a sexual aspect. For example, when the monster murders Frankenstein's younger brother, he first has the violent sexual impulse to “seize him” which is based on his desire to connect with a living being. When he kills William, the monster sees and is drawn to William's portrait of his mother around his