Original Gender as Literary Theory

- Gender theory is a critical lens which overlaps heavily with feminist criticism, entering into
literary discourse in 1981 alongside it.
- The theory analyzes how gender and sexuality are constantly shaped by and shaping institutional
structures, interpersonal attitudes, artifacts, and behaviors.
- Gender criticism is not female centric, unlike feminist theory. It views both sex and gender as a
spectrum.
- Feminism views the differences between women and men as “essential,” but gender criticism
views these differences as “constructionist.” Differing characteristics are “not of the male and
female sex (nature) but, rather, of the masculine and feminine genders (nurture) (383).”
- This theory also investigates whether it is possible to write like a woman or like a man. Is it
possible for individuals to write accurately from the perspective of a differing gender? Does
gender cloud our ability to read accurately? Does sexuality affect our reading?
- Masculinity is a complex construct producing and reproducing a constellation of behavior and
goals, many of them destructive, and most of them injurious to women, and has become the
object of an unprecedented number of gender studies. (387)
- The assumptions we make in regards to sex, gender and sexuality are a relfrection of our “cultural
discource and thus social” meaning that they are a social construct not something that is
universally natural
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Frankenstein and Gender Theory:
- Through the lens of gender criticism, Victor’s heightened emotions throughout the novel can be
read ‘the masculine fear of being dominated by another man” and “unconscious homophobic
feelings of panic and loathing, driving Victor simultaneously to reject his monster/lover/himself
and yet to bond with him negatively so as to assure their mutual destruction (410-411)”
- Scott frequently refers to a staged version of Frankenstein from the nineteenth century by Richard
Brinsley Peake which was one of the first to deprive the monster of speech, a trend which would
continue on for many of the most prominent adaptations of ​Frankenstein​. This led to an emphasis
on the eyes and body of the actor, especially the creature’s muscular form. Ward says this
emphasis on the male figure offers a “sustained queer reading of Mary Shelley’s novel, one that
balances a psychological with a political experience (407).”
- Our book notes that the critical analysis of these illustrations through the queer lens allows for a
gateway to in turn analyze ​Frankenstein​’s text from a new perspective.