Frankenstein: A Feminist Critique of Science by Anne K.

Mellor
Summary
In terms of a perspective coming through a feminist, the use of metaphor and imagery is what lay

the grounds for multiple entities to submerge on the basis of literature and science. These models

of science explains best when they are formed by the literary works depending upon their

linguistic structure by the inspiration of metaphor and metonymy. To a feminist reader, the most

informed symbolic structure in a literary work is input of gender as the key value or variable.

Francis Bacon said, “I am come in very truth leading to you Nature with her children to bind her

to your service and make her your slave”. This notion presented by Francis Bacon describe his

motives to present the persuasion of modern science with sexual politics. In his work virile male

is the aggressive scientist who captures a fertile female who appears to be a slave in personality.

Being the novelist in her approach to define the controversial elements in modern science, Mary

Shelly was the first author to grasp, write about and inform about the dangers of using sexist

metaphors in seventeenth-century revolution. Mary Shelly presented her work as a fiction about

a mad scientist who created a monster that cannot be controlled. Her fiction was inspired by the

developments of science back in that period. She used her extensive understanding of modern

science to develop the fiction and to criticize the dangerous implications of methods used in

science. Her aspiration in her literary works of Frankenstein tend to reveal what she described as

“good” science and “bad” science. Man’s proud and selfish acts of developing scientific means

to fulfill personal needs provided him with Frankenstein or modern day Prometheus. Shelly tried

to maintain an argumentative approach while bringing up the potential evils of scientific

purposes filled with greed and defying the ideology of scientific methods towards setting a

gender definition for the nature of female.

In Anne’s point of view, the work of Mary Shelly is an inspiration of the works of famous

scientists Humphry Davy, Erasmus Darwin and Luigi Galvani in terms of scientific

understandings. Shelly’s approach towards the creation of Frankenstein is unique because

although the process of creation is vague and lacking details but her understanding towards the

phenomenon of science, its implications, and conceptualization of environment in her literary

work made it widely acclaimed in the eyes of critics. The novel expresses the trio between

scientific experimentation, functionality of physical world and human intervention in a balance

way where the consequences are kept in mind. Her work emphasizes the two key factors namely

control & change. These two key elements have been put to focus throughout the novel while

grasping the works of scientists mentioned above.

In the chapter; Possessing Nature: The Female in Frankenstein, Anne K. Mellor tries to establish the

argument of feminist in Frankenstein by stating the excerpt from the Mary Shelly’s novel where she

wrote about Frankenstein recognizing and identifying the nature of female. When victor Frankenstein

expresses his thoughts, “I pursued nature of her hiding places” he was indeed participating in gendered

classification of the universe whose implication could now be seen everywhere within himself. The one

dimension of a female in his apprehension is passive, being willing receptacle of male desire. This image

of female in Frankenstein is adopted by him by stealing the female’s control over her primary biological

function which is to be fertile and give birth. He sees this in his monstrous thinking as to source of

cultural power. By achieving this, Frankenstein removed the need of women by men at all thus,

eliminating the simple purpose of human survival. Being in power, the most horrific thing Frankenstein

did was to try and create a world only for men. His such implicit goal of removing the need of a woman

for the purpose of fulfilment of man’s need and survival removes the concept of feminine presence in the

world. Among cultural notions, Frankenstein completely ignores the balance of society being in place as
to presence of both men and women. In an attempt to become the sole creator of life, he is in patriarchal

denial of the value of sexuality and the element that defines it (gender).

Mellor tries to identify this literary excerpt of Shelly’s work and how can it be connected with feminine

and sexuality by relating the nature of Frankenstein to the prior work of her mother A Vindication of the

Rights of Woman in which she states the consequences of a society based on principle of values of male

dominant upon females. The portray of Victor Frankenstein is based on the nineteenth century Genevan

society in which the roles of male and female are divided on rigid grounds. Such social construction

implies the male being inhabited in public sphere and the female is confined to private sphere. In the

Victor Frankenstein world, the males are depicted to be privileged with working as merchants, scientists

and public servants working outside the house. Women have their roles strictly limited to home. For

instance, Elizabeth is not allowed to travel with Victor and her despair about not being considered

equivalent or receiving the same opportunities as Victor. In result of this division in classes, roles and

labor, intellectual roles and activates appear to be segregated from emotional activities. It is also clear

from the work that Victor consider it impossible to continue performing his duties of scientific research

and loving his wife simultaneously. This separation of masculine work from personal affections proves to

be the reason of Frankenstein’s downfall. his lack of ability to feel empathy for the creature he is

constructing and simply because of being a giant creature in comparison to his domestic partner

disapprove him of following social order of gender. This causes a chaotic situation in terms of being able

to love the monstrous creature he created. Mellor describe this incident as a primary evidence to the

destruction of females in the novel because of the illogical differences mentioned in the novel in terms of

gender discrimination. The division of masculinity being blessed with public sphere and women being

oppressed to remain in a domestic domain also becomes the reason to not being able to effectively

function in an orderly manner. The many instances covered in the novel depict the females as victims to

male superiority through Victor’s actions (i-e; the murder of Justine Moritz). The helplessness of

Elizabeth in not being able to provide justice to Justine emphasizes the limitations to women’s role in
Victor’s world. These incidents presented in the novel are a direct attributions to Victor’s self-obsession

and devotion that will later result in his own sufferings.

In the novel, Mary Shelly also highlights the problems like mutual deprivation in family system and

social structure because of unyielding and hierarchal gender division. This can be supported with the

approach to Mary Shelly’s political systems portrayed in the novel. Ultimately, the impulse to attack the

social injustice found in political system by oppressed gender is the reaction to the separation of women

from the public sphere. The character of Elizabeth is set to defy the incorrect political system. Through

her word when she exclaimed, “how I hate [the] shews and mockeries [of this world]! When on creature

is murdered, another is immediately deprived of life in a slow torturing manner; then the executioners,

their hands yet reeking with blood of innocence, believe that they had done a great deed. They call this

retribution. Hateful name! When the word is pronounced, I know greater and more horrid punishments

are going to be inflicted than the gloomiest tyrant has ever invented to satiate his utmost revenge.” The

De Lacey family opposed the patterns inflicted by this political social system which supports inequality in

gender roles. They represent the ideology of a system where society is driven by the social justice and

equality with affection. An example of it was exhibited through the actions of Felix when he willingly

sacrifice his own prosperity in order to provide justice for the Turkish merchant. Mary Shelly tries to

show the desired ideal through the structure of De Lacey family.

Conclusion
The review (critique) of Anne K Mellor for Mary Shelly’s Novel exhibits the foundation of

moral virtue based upon the preservation of domestic bond while Frankenstein shown to act

against it by failing into taking care of his domestic responsibilities, taking care of his child and

turning entirely transgresses. This entails the classic division of sexuality and gender division.

The critique tries to explain the feminine in the Frankenstein which is supported by the contents

in the novel. Through many ways, excerpts from the novel, characters and situations presented in
actual work, Mellor tries to build the narrative of feminine approach that Shelly had in mind

while writing such literary works. The novel was a combination of scientific and literary topics

to build a horror story with an agenda to put forward the real horrific issues that lies in society or

were present in nineteenth century. The most important one among them is feminism.
Bibliography
Quoted in Benjamin Farrington, "Temporis Partus Masculus: An Untranslated Writing

of Francis Bacon," Centaurus 1 (1951), p. 197.

Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus (1818 Text),

ed. James Rieger (New York: Bobbs-Merrill, 1974; rpt. Chicago: University of

Chicago Press, 1982), p. 43.

Sir Harold Hartley discusses the importance to Davy's career of this introductory

lecture in Humphry Davy (London: Nelson, 1966).

Mary Shelley's Journal, ed. Frederick L. Jones (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press,

1947), p. 67. Laura Crouch argued that the Discourse is the book listed by

Mary Shelley in her Journal under Books Read in 1816 as "Introduction to

Davy's Chemistry." See "Davy's A Discourse, Introductory to a Course of

Lectures on Chemistry: A Possible Scientific Source of Frankenstein," Keats-

Shelley Journal 27 (1978): 35-37. Mary Shelley would have known of Humphry

Davy's {311} work since childhood; she may even have been introduced to him

when Davy dined with Godwin on 16 February 1801.