Frankenstein: Shelley Use of Mascuine and Feminine Roles :: Free Essay Writer

Frankenstein Shelley Use of Mascuine and Feminine RolesShelley began writing Frankenstein in the company of what has been called her manful coterie, including her lover Percy Shelley, Lord Byron and his physician John Polidori. It has been suggested that the influence of this group, and particularly that of Shelley and Byron, affected her portrayal of male characters in the novel. As Ann Campbell writes The characters and plot of Frankenstein reflect . . . Shelleys conflicted feelings about the masculine circle which surrounded her. Certainly the male characters in Frankenstein are more developed that those of the females. Elizabeth Fay has suggested that the female characters are idealised approximates in a good deal of Shelleys work, particularly in the descriptions of Caroline and Elizabeth, the two mother figures in the novel. Caroline is, on surface value, a perfect parent, together with her husband, which renders superscripts irresponsibility in abandoning the creature more unforgivable. She possessed a mind of uncommon mould which was also soft and benevolent she is compared to a fair alien flower which is sheltered by Alphonse she drew inexhaustible stores of affection from a very mine of love to bestow on Victor, and her tender caresses are more or less of his first recollections. She is the idealised mother, a figure that Shelley viewed wistfully, as her own mother died when she was ten days old to be replaced by a disinterested stepmother. Carolines parenting provides the care that Frankenstein might well have lacked, had he been left to his father alone his father dismisses Agrippas work without explanation, thereby setting Victor on his course towards destruction. This is the first introduction of a theme that continues throughout the book, that of the necessity for female figures in parenting and in society. Without a mother figure and left only with Frankenstein who subsumes both parental roles, the creatures life is blighted by his imperf ection and lack of companionship. However, Caroline is also the trigger to Alfonses chivalry, thus presenting him in an improved light and allowing his character to develop at the expense of her own weakness. This is a feminist comment from Shelley, whose mother Mary Wollenstonecraft was a notorious feminist and an important influence. Justine, too, is an idealised figure, described during the trial as having a countenance which, always engaging, was rendered, by the solemnity of her feelings, exquisitely beautiful. She is the first innocent, being beautiful, weak and entirely accepting of her fate to the point of martyrdom.