While Mary Shelley was a feminist after all she is the daughter of one of the early feminists, obviously a book written before the victorian age can not be an allegory for anything related it.
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While Mary Shelley was a feminist after all she is the daughter of one of the early feminists, obviously a book written before the victorian age can not be an allegory for anything related it.
How feminist was she though? many critics, for instance, use Safie as proof of her "feminism", and some trace the character as a stand in for her mother, but, ultimately, when read at a closer angle, one can, for instance, attribute the characters refusal of her father's wishes as Islamophobia on Shelley's part, and, given, for instance, the politics and writing career of her husband, and the fact that he had just written a long poem "The Revolt of Islam" and dedicated it to her seems to show a little bit of Orientalism on her part - who knows? are we to say the "criticism" of Turkish culture was founded or not? Is Safie's father just another stock character Turk, or what? The Turk itself was a stock character, and quite popular even before the book (Moliere loved it, and later Mozart did, Rossini did, amongst countless others) - the misogynist Turk, in truth, by that time had become a stock character in Comedia Dell'arte. Who is to say though?Quote:
Originally Posted by JCamilo
One thing is for sure though, women in that book are denied a really significant role = they either are mothers, lovers, or lovely servants, yet at the same time, have no real voice, and are, in essence in the possession of their male counterparts - even the letters that comprise the frame of the story deny a female voice.
The only real feminist argument I can make for it is, yes, the society in the book is patriarchal, but ultimately everything falls apart because of the men.
All the arguments suggesting the creature is a woman, or whatever are merely pseudo-intellectual rubbish spawned from misreadings of The Madwoman in the Attic, which in itself wasn't even a good text.
Shelley's feminism is quite minimal at any rate - she essentially destroyed Percy's first wife without much regard, so, in my view, she merely was just a spoiled narcissist who eventually had disaster upon disaster land on her, deservedly so in my opinion. The feminist argument has to do with her time, more than her work (well this work anyway, I can't speak for the rest as I have not, and will not read them). George Sand, for instance, is a far better figure to stand in as "feminist author" than Shelley by a long shot.
Yup - that's it, just 30 odd years too early. Sorry to say, but Victoria wasn't even born when the book was first published, and the "Victorian Era", though technically starting in 1837 I would argue, in terms of literary imagination, and the rise of commercialism, didn't really start until the Crimean War in 1854, but I'm no history expert.Quote:
Originally Posted by Night_Lamp
if you want satire on beauty, try La Belle Bźte by Marie-Claire Blais - the family itself is a mere minor aspect of the book - as beautiful as they are, they are unhappy, as they lack the drive to move forward that so captivates Frankenstein.Quote:
Originally Posted by Gladys
I agree. If it were an allegory for women's plight, then why isn't the monster female? That would have been the correct and obvious choice. The elements that people attach to as feminist I think are just natural reactions to a female writer delving into her experience as a base to develop a story. For instance, I believe Mary Shelley was pregnant at the time, and one can project the reshaping of her body into a monster and the life within her as being born into a new creature. But these are hardly consciously coordinated ideas. They could even be coincidences. Or they could be an introspective musings that got worked into the novel. I don't know. I doesn't strike me as a feminist statement.Quote:
Originally Posted by JBI
By the way, I haven't read it in a while, but I thought it was a good read. :)
There actually has been a lot of scholarship written on the gender of the creature - in the movies it is a He, and it's desire for a wife seems to imply this, yet year after year, dissertation after dissertation...
The book was so meh - honestly, only the most mediocre of gnynocritics can have any interest in the text as literature, and keep a straight face - it's like those random poems by females that pop up in the Norton Anthologies because some English academics decided it was time to unearth some rightfully buried works. No one reads them, no one uses them in classes really, they are just there - letters by Queen Elizabeth, mediocre lyrics, some scenes from some plays nobody reads or preforms anymore - just sitting there.
Perhaps Frankenstein is different in that it has been absorbed into popular (especially American I wager) culture. The preoccupation with the pseudo-gothic thanks to the influence of mediocre movies has prolonged this books existence - there probably have been more porn films made of this text than there have been Jane Austen book movies.
I mean, even compared to her contemporaries, Mrs. Shelley doesn't have much - Gaskell, Austen, the Brontės etc. No offense for you 9 guys who voted 10/10, but really, didn't you notice that the diction remains the exact same throughout the whole novel? She has a few fancy words that she throws around, but the overall tone, pace, and language used is so monotonous, so ridiculous, so overly attempting to be high-mimetic in nature, when ultimately the book is anything but.
I do not think Franksteain is feminist. It is "rousseaunic" (meh :D ) and he is not a whole model for feminism. Except of course the absence of a female counterpart of significance put the blame of the monster on male aspects and responsabilties, but is minimal.
She was feminist in her own life, even because she had to defend herself reggarding the authorship of the book and her later writings are often attacked under the myopic vision of her feminine condition or Percey influence.
:lol: [Refernce to JBI's post just above.] Maybe I should re-read it. I don't recall the prose style. I thought the premise was imaginative for it's time. And it makes for a good story.
Oh yes, Camilo, I had forgotten. It is in response to Rousseau.
Quote:
Originally Posted by JBI
You are often harsh with minor writers. Indeed, Mary is monophonic, she had not the psychological talent of Emily Bronte or Austen fine critical language. But you are comparing to the top notch. She can stand her own against Washington Irving, Le Fanu and she is much superior to Bram Stoker (a later development). She obviously can not stand the romantic poets, Coleridge Crystabel or Ancient Mariner will wipe the floor with Frankstein, but nobody can deny her imaginative capacity and skill to create a symbol and a history to represent something and the nolvety (which is why it became popular) of her themes. She also managed to pull out one of the first apocalypitic novels, of course, the execution from her part lacked some work, but she is good enough.
Yes I certainly agree, I think it was certainly good enough. As you say not up to the heights of Emily Bronte or Austen, but it is still much better than JBI gives credit for.
The tone maybe somewhat monotonous in nature, or one paced, but perhaps there could be an argument for it due to the fact that it was twice removed from the story with it being a dictated letter. You get the feeling from the opening few pages of the story that Walton was a bit of a drip too. A monotonous tone wouldn't seem to out of place for such a character. That may seem like a weak excuse for the language being "so monotonous" and "so ridiculous" but it is something to consider nevertheless.
Yeah, altough no excuse, she was quite young, it not hard to write under the shadow of a big name like Percey either. She had a lot of pressure to not write again as well, and obviously the capacity to change the tone and rythim to give different voices like, lets say Dostoievisky can do, must be achived with pratice.
Also her references are not exactly the best, end of XVIII writers had heavy interference in their works, it is hard to remove Rousseau from his texts. Maybe if she had more likeness with anti-Rousseau style, Voltaire - this one a master of fast rythim - she could do something different, but of course, the melancholic sense of Frankstein would be damned...
While the family is relatively minor, all but the Creature are equally beautiful and truthful: Henry Clerval; the Frankensteins: Alphonse (the father), Elizabeth, Ernest, William and Victor himself; Mr. Kirwin; Justine Moritz, the executed; and Robert Walton. The Creature alone is ugly and deceitful.Quote:
Originally Posted by JBI
Yet from birth, the Creature is abandoned, unloved, rejected and assailed by all. The narrator would have us believe the Creature should have suffered in silence and isolation. Did Mary Shelley also hold this extreme view? I think not.
Therefore, a satire on beauty.
Good book. I recommend the 2004 film adaptation.
I really liked it. Now I want to see the movie but I don't really know witch one so maybe I'll check a few. I liked how the creature used every opportunity to learn but didn't understand anything about life. Also the ending was good and the creatures need for companion.
Also how Shelley did in an good way show people how we react to the unknown, and scare easily when we don't understand.
I read this book because it was a classic, and I'm trying to read books that are considered classics to see why they are considered such. I have to admit, after finishing some books, I can't always figure out why they are considered great works--and my theory that some books become classics because they survive their era by being at the bottom of a used book shelf.
I was leary of reading Frankenstein because I expected it to be gross. Some of the movies horrified me. However, I was pleasantly surprised. It was very good and not gruesome. The creature was sympathetic.
Aside from what has been mentioned as far as the points--I think it also demonstrates prejudice towards people's appearances. A person's size and ugliness can make people jump to assumptions that they are menacing.