Frankenstein as a Feminist Novel. Anonymous 12th Grade

Literature is an amalgamation of historical and social context alongside the writer’s personal feelings. This is why a sole interpretation of ‘Frankenstein’ is so difficult to come up with. Shelley came from a radical background of two vocally feminist parents but whose father did not support her right to an education. Shelley in this way symbolises the creature. A symbol of the new order wrecking the institutions of the old. A well educated person who according to the time did not deserve such knowledge breaking down patriarchal literary barriers to write the greatest horror and gothic novel of the time. But Shelley always asserted she was never a ‘radical’. The politics of one’s mother, like their sins, are not carried by the daughter. So is her novel a feminist one? Can it be interpreted in other ways? ‘Frankenstein’ is arguably a feminist novel. Not only is female strength shown to be suppressed, it is said to be greater than that of a male’s.

Victor said ‘the wretch’ saw him ‘destroy the creature on whose future existence he depended on for happiness’. The verb ‘depended’ is synonymous with ‘reliance’ and ‘need’ and suggests the creature could not have survived without a female. This alludes to the reproductive power...