Ghotic Fiction and Gender in Mary Shelley's Frankestein (1818)

Abstract

The aim of this essay is to explore the extent to which Gothic conventions in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (1818) enabled the writer to raise relevant issues pertaining to the articulation of gender in the novel. The Gothic genre and its fantastic nature often brings about discussions on questions particularly interesting for women, such as sexuality, gender and the body, among others, which would be more unlikely for women to be addressed in more realistic narratives. Departing from this premise, this dissertation will examine the novel’s literary, scientific and cultural context through the lens of a feminist approach. Structurally speaking, this dissertation will first offer a theoretical approach to Frankenstein’s reassessment of the Gothic tradition, in terms of what Ellen Moers has defined as “the Female Gothic” in her seminal work Literary Women: The Great Writers (1985), to move on to a critical analysis of the novel itself, where special attention will be given to look into the condition of both men and women in a gendered construction of the world, and to Mary Shelley’s particular appreciation of it