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Gender Roles In Frankenstein

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I. Introduction “Had I a right, for my own benefit, to inflict this curse upon everlasting generations?” These words of Victor perfectly explicate the generic views on women during Shelley’s time, which helped in the creation of her novel, Frankenstein, by means of positing questions on female roles and their significance in society then and now. Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein: or, The Modern Prometheus is a renowned classic tale of a man-made creature pursuing for its approval in society undeterred by his malformed appearance and bizarre beginnings. By educating himself in the form of scrutinizing normative human behavior, he gradually feels his belonging in society even though the harsh rejection of his unconventional features at the end results …show more content…

Mostly with regards to the Romantic Period, the concept of division and binary oppositions is key in the novel. These systems principally include emotional and intellectual activity; masculinity and femininity; good and evil; rational and unstable, and of course, love and hate. According to gender roles, the crucial focus of the essay, the devaluation of the existence of females and their marginalization concretely mirrors the destruction of society and the creature. Concerning the psychology of Victor and the setting of the novel, the reader is able to unravel the corporal representation of Victor’s ungodly revolved disposition and the disconcerting social construct, at least to Shelley, culminating in the catastrophe of the novel’s dénouement. The representation of women, however, is more impactful than the other motifs. Especially since such a perspective goes heedless by most readers, delving one’s focus and condensing at Shelley’s low-key stance of discrimination against women, as a full-grown woman, is palpable. What this looks like in practice with contemporary movements is coalition building targeted at the undermined women existent today. By the same token, Frankenstein allows both modern male and female reader to avoid such a monstrous brainchild from engendering. The notion of ‘beauty doesn’t matter’ in this day and age is exploited and persecuted where the women who don’t abide by modern standards of beauty are framed as the ‘other’, similar to the creature. It is the ongoing relevance of Shelley’s nineteenth century work via strongly exercised misogyny accentuated by fragile masculinity that feminist interpretation is

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