From Wollstonecraft to Shelley: "Frankenstein" from the Feminist Perspective

Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein forces readers to question what it means to be a monster and how they are created. Shelley’s main character Victor Frankenstein is written as an egotistical madman who manipulates nature in an attempt to create life. He hopes to gain fame from this task, but when he is successful he does not take responsibility. He came from a good home with a loving family and denied the same love to his own creation. Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein was influenced by her mother, Mary Wollstonecraft, inspiring feminist approaches to education, the role of parents, and the creation of life.

The story is framed through the journals of Robert Walton, an explorer who finds Frankenstein wandering the North Pole. Frankenstein tells Walton the story of his quest to create life. Frankenstein explains that when he traveled to college he cut off all connection with friends and family and focused only on discovering the secret to life. He then worked for two years on recreating life from death and runs away when he succeeds. While running he finds his childhood friend Henry Clerval, and the two return home. Frankenstein’s youngest brother has been murdered and a close family friend has been accused of homicide. If she is found guilty she will be hanged. Frankenstein has several chances to come forward with his belief that his creation killed his brother, but he does not and she loses her life. Then on a vacation Frankenstein and his creature confront each other. Creature reveals his story to Frankenstein. Creature has been living in secret with the DeLacey family, and from them he learned how to read, speak, and be human. He has also come to the realization that the entire world will only be able to see him as a monster, and he will only find companionship in another creature like him. So he begs Frankenstein to create a female creature and promises that if Frankenstein does he will no longer act like a monster. Frankenstein drags his feet until he eventually destroys his work on the new creation in front of Creature. After that Creature kills everyone Frankenstein loves and leads him around the world until Frankenstein finally dies in the North Pole. The novel ends with the creature going off to burn to death.

Wollstonecraft is Shelley’s mother, and one of the earliest feminist writers. She wrote a great deal on women’s rights, but her most notable piece of work is A Vindication of the Rights of Woman. Wollstonecraft believed that men and women were rational creatures, and argued for women to be perceived as autonomous individuals. According to her, women could use education to find alternatives to marriage. She emphasizes in her writing the importance of women’s education and that women are equal to men, provided they are given equal opportunities. She frequently expresses that the unequal treatment between the sexes is irrational.

Shelley demonstrates throughout the book that the pursuit of knowledge should be praised, but not as far as Victor goes. Education is not equally available to everyone and it should not be taken for granted or abused. In Vindication Wollstonecraft compares the disparities in men’s education and women’s, saying that it is irrational that female education is so much worse than men’s (Wollstonecraft 86). Vindication frequently returns to the importance of education just as Frankenstein frequently returns to the pursuit of knowledge. Shelley subtly hints throughout the novel that women desire a thorough education. For instance as Frankenstein prepares to travel across Europe with Clerval, Shelley writes, “Elizabeth approved of the reasons of my departure and only regretted that she had not the same opportunities of enlarging her experience and cultivating her understanding” (Shelley 178). After Mrs. Frankenstein dies Elizabeth is surrounded only by men, and she becomes very aware of her own lack of opportunity. Which would account for her own moment of weakness when she expresses a desire to pursue knowledge. Wollstonecraft would argue that because women are taught to stay indoors with other women, they never know to desire anything else (Wollstonecraft 92-93). However, when they are exposed to inequality women want to prove themselves as equal. So when Elizabeth no longer has Mrs. Frankenstein to distract her from what she cannot have, Elizabeth begins to desire intellectual challenges.

For both Shelley and her mother, education is one of the most important aspects to life. For Wollstonecraft it represents the freedom of women from their political and civil slavery (Wollstonecraft 107). For Shelley it shapes the character of society, viewing education as “an important instrument which needed to be intelligently and morally handled to accomplish its end” (Nitchie 33). While Victor takes his education seriously in the practical sense, he ignores its moral importance. He does not realize until he is speaking to Walton how careful you must be in the pursuit of knowledge, saying, “how dangerous is the acquirement of knowledge and how much happier that man is who believes his native town the world, than he who aspires to become greater than his nature will allow” (Shelley 77). Shelley condemns Frankenstein’s reasons for pursuing education. He seeks knowledge for recognition, while characters like Creature and Clerval seek it for personal growth and happiness. Shelley and Wollstonecraft would agree that personal education should be taken very seriously morally, and when Victor does not his life is destroyed.

Wollstonecraft stressed that the role of parents is to cultivate the minds of their children (Wollstonecraft 105). Frankenstein fails this role when he does not help his creation become accustomed to the world. This leaves Creature by himself to discover the world around him, “I knew and could distinguish nothing; but feeling pain invade me on all sides, I sat down and wept” (Shelley 128). Frankenstein causes Creature so much agony by not providing him any attention or affection, that it is not at all surprising that the creature later becomes a monster. Frankenstein does not play the proper role of a parent in cultivating Creature’s mind. This leaves Creature to teach himself and all he knows is the world in front of him, and that world has only caused him pain. Without guidance he comes to the conclusion that he should inflict the same pain on the world, becoming a monster.

Wollstonecraft further implies that parents need to be consistent in the methods that they take to raise their children, stating that “It is the irregular exercise of parental authority that first injures the mind” (Wollstonecraft 105). Parental authority includes how parents discipline their children, how they educate them, and how they treat them in general. Frankenstein again fails his role when he torments Creature as he goes back and forth on his decision to provide him with a companion. Creature accuses Frankenstein of this injury, saying, “How inconstant are your feelings; but a moment ago you were moved by my representations, and why do you again harden yourself to my complaints” (Shelley 171). Frankenstein’s indecision to provide his creation with companionship causes Creature emotional trauma. When Frankenstein ultimately decides to destroy the new creation in front of the first it leaves the Creature hopeless of any joy.

In Vindication the roles of women as mothers is stressed as vital to the healthy development of children. However, this additionally relies on the father playing their own part, “make women rational creatures, and free citizens, and they will quickly become good wives and mothers; that is – if men do not neglect the duties of husbands and fathers” (Wollstonecraft 112). Mothers and fathers are both important to creating life, but Frankenstein ignores that in his own work. He believes he is working with Mother Nature when he is actually working against her. Shelley was well-versed in science and the work of Erasmus Darwin, Charles Darwin’s grandfather. Darwin began the theory of evolution and stated that, “’The genuine improvement of the species can result only from the conjunction of male and female sexuality’” (Mellor 101). Shelley’s ideas of feminism come largely from her mother, but they are applied to many subjects. One being the science of evolution. Frankenstein ignored evolution by creating life without a woman, which could only result in the creation of a monster. Shelley is calling attention to the important role that women play in the creation of life. Even Creature understands this importance, telling Frankenstein of his early memories with the DeLaceys, “I heard of the difference of sexes; of the birth and growth of children; how the father doated smiles on the infant…how the life and cares of the mother were wrapt up in precious charge…No father had watched my infant days, no mother blessed me with smiles and caresses” (Shelley 146-147). Creature was not only denied a father, but also a mother. Additionally, Darwin would argue that because there was no mother to balance Frankenstein’s insanity, the creation of a monster was inevitable (Mellor 100). If Frankenstein had not ignored the importance of mothers, and not disrespected Mother Nature, Creature would not have become a monster.

Victor Frankenstein is so seriously flawed that he becomes one of the most unlikeable characters in literature. Shelley wrote him this way to encourage readers to want to be the opposite of Frankenstein, which is a moral feminist. Wollstonecraft’s influence is so prevalent throughout the novel that in addition to being science fiction Frankenstein is a feminist novel. Shelley includes these lessons subtly in the plot of the story. In the novel, the desire for education should be praised, but only if the quest for knowledge comes from a place of pure desire to learn. Frankenstein’s quest comes from his desire for recognition and glory. He is also punished for not fulfilling as his role as a creator, and a father. He may not see Creature as his son, but children are the creations of their parents. Furthermore, Frankenstein fails in his role as a parent from the very beginning when he thought he could just leave women out of the process of creating life, as if they are unnecessary for it. Frankenstein is punished for all of this injustice through the deaths of his loved ones. His downfall serves as a warning against taking good fortune for granted, and against dismissing the importance of women. These are lessons that Mary Shelley herself may have learned from her mother’s A Vindication of the Rights of Woman.

Works Cited

Mellor, Anne K. Mary Shelley: Her Life, Her Fiction, Her Monsters. New York, New York: Routedge, Chapman & Hall, Inc., 1989. Print.

Nitchie, Elizabeth. Mary Shelley: Author of “Frankenstein.” New Brunswick, New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, 1953. Print.

Shelley, Mary W, and Percy B Shelley. The Original Frankenstein: Two Versions Mary Shelley’s Earliest Draft and Percy Shelley's Revised Text. Ed. Charles E Robinson. New York, New York: Vintage Books A Division of Random House, Inc., 2008. Print.

Wollstonecraft, Mary. “A Vindication of the Rights of Woman.” A Wollstonecraft Anthology. Ed. Janet M Todd. Don Mills, Ontario: Fitzhenry & Whiteside Limited, 1977. 84–114. Print.

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