Modern Feminism has many various strands of thinking as different people strive to explain the world around them. Gregory Castle says, “What all of these women have in common is an interest in exposing patriarchal forms of power as the cause of the unequal and subordinate status of women in Western societies” (96). Literature reflects the ideas of the author therefore, by interpreting Frankenstein: The Modern Prometheus by Mary Shelley with the literary theory of Feminism, the reader can understand the role of women in literature, and how society views them. The first leap into Modern Feminism started, according to Castle, with Mary Wollstonecraft; Castle writes about her work saying it “criticizes stereotypes of women as emotional and instinctive”
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The ghost is the angel who has lost themselves in serving others, sometimes to her own demise. In the words of Gilbert and Gubar she becomes “a messenger of the mystical otherness of death” (817). Although this is not as common in literature, the ghost haunts Frankenstein in many ways. The angel turned ghost is the other woman that Frankenstein loved: his own mother. Caroline Beaufort took care of her ill father selflessly. She “attended him with the greatest tenderness” until “her father died in her arms” (Shelley 18). Caroline associated herself with the dead, which Gilbert and Gubar says is a characteristic of the ghost; she “inhabits both this world and the next, then there is a sense in which, besides ministering to the dying, she is herself already dead” (817). When Caroline does die, she becomes “the snowy, porcelain immobility of the dead” (Gilbert and Gubar 817). Interestingly enough, at school, Frankenstein attempts to reanimate life, which could further connect him to the ghost of his …show more content…
A. James Wohlpart states, “At the center of Shelley 's critique is the way in which male creativity omits any feminine influence and thus creates a series of monsters” (266). Wohlpart argues that Frankenstein is attempting to create life without female interference. In this way, Shelley comments on the patriarchal view on the roles of women, emphasizing the only three ways they exist: angel, witch, and ghost. Women in literature are constrained by the societal views upon them. This constraint is an example if phallocentrism: men have dominated the literary world and therefore, Shelley must use these limiting roles in Frankenstein in order to be recognized as an author of merit. By using these roles instead of fighting them, Shelley uses mimicry; she follows these literary “rules” to gain respect. Then, her skills once recognized, allow her to reveal the destruction that is associated with these
The ghost is the angel who has lost themselves in serving others, sometimes to her own demise. In the words of Gilbert and Gubar she becomes “a messenger of the mystical otherness of death” (817). Although this is not as common in literature, the ghost haunts Frankenstein in many ways. The angel turned ghost is the other woman that Frankenstein loved: his own mother. Caroline Beaufort took care of her ill father selflessly. She “attended him with the greatest tenderness” until “her father died in her arms” (Shelley 18). Caroline associated herself with the dead, which Gilbert and Gubar says is a characteristic of the ghost; she “inhabits both this world and the next, then there is a sense in which, besides ministering to the dying, she is herself already dead” (817). When Caroline does die, she becomes “the snowy, porcelain immobility of the dead” (Gilbert and Gubar 817). Interestingly enough, at school, Frankenstein attempts to reanimate life, which could further connect him to the ghost of his …show more content…
A. James Wohlpart states, “At the center of Shelley 's critique is the way in which male creativity omits any feminine influence and thus creates a series of monsters” (266). Wohlpart argues that Frankenstein is attempting to create life without female interference. In this way, Shelley comments on the patriarchal view on the roles of women, emphasizing the only three ways they exist: angel, witch, and ghost. Women in literature are constrained by the societal views upon them. This constraint is an example if phallocentrism: men have dominated the literary world and therefore, Shelley must use these limiting roles in Frankenstein in order to be recognized as an author of merit. By using these roles instead of fighting them, Shelley uses mimicry; she follows these literary “rules” to gain respect. Then, her skills once recognized, allow her to reveal the destruction that is associated with these