Personal Synthesis

So, what do I think about Frankenstein as a novel? After listening to several classes’ worth of discussion on the book along with reading some other blogs and critical essays, it is quite obvious that Frankenstein doesn’t portray a DIRECT sense of feminism. Women aren’t equal in any aspects of the book, which is clearly emphasized in Mellor’s article along with the general class discussions we had. Personally, I had to keep remembering that the author of Frankenstein is an eighteen year old woman who grew up in the early 19^th century. The fact that this young woman was able to make all of these observations and connections at such a young age and had the guts to write a novel on it, I’m truly amazed. So, does the book promote feminism? I believe it does in a very subtle way. At first, when I read the novel, I thought that the book portrayed strong male relationships and simply wanted to get rid of women altogether; but about halfway through the book I realized that Shelley probably wrote these absurd ideas to get her point across. She wanted to show how chaotic society would be if women aren’t valued as anything more than reproductive organisms (which is later unnecessary). If women continue to behave and be treated as household objects without any desires or hopes, men would find a way to do without them. Once men are able to create beings, they would become murderous creatures because men don’t actually have a motherly instinct. I believe Shelley wanted to get this point across that women are vital to the survival of mankind because we are mothers to our children and nurturers; if that one right is taken away, society collapses.

I do think the overall point of the story is that women should be allowed to be mothers, but Shelley also takes many other little jabs at society such as showing that Elizabeth wasn’t allowed to travel or go to college to visit Victor. She already has a crazy and what could soon be a real possibility (at the time) setting for a story and tries to show what happens if society continued in the direction it is going. I also think Shelley wanted this to be a call for action to women, to become more than the submissive house pet to their husbands. Not very many women were educated at the time and allowed to read, but I like to believe that Shelley hoped the word of mouth would travel from the few fortunate women who were able to read, such as school room teachers.

I noticed a few other blog posts agreed with me, stating that Frankenstein does promote equality between men and women, and yet I’m still intrigued by those who say otherwise. I’m not saying that these opinions are wrong, because many of them do make very valid and clear points, but in my mind; I keep going back to the fact that the author is a female. If Mary Shelley hadn’t written this novel and perhaps someone like Victor Frankenstein did, I think the overall reader response would have changed. The fact that a woman wrote a novel about issues women face in society is what has pushed Frankenstein into the classic literature genre.

If you have only seen the movies, I strongly recommend reading the book, and if you’ve only read the book try comparing the films, they can be very amusing. The ability to see the same work portrayed in different ways allows one to open their minds and develop their own opinions and I must say, I did enjoy the overall message of the book. I’m still working on whether or not I enjoyed reading the text but I’m sure my opinion on the book will change as I get older and re-reading the novel will surely bring up points I missed. 

Critical Essay

For the critical essay, I chose to summarize and respond to Anne Mellor’s essay “Possessing Nature: The Female in Frankenstein.” Mellor makes many interesting points in what she believes is Victor Frankenstein’s direct view and opinion of women. The first line Mellor mentions is “I pursued nature to her hiding places” and she says this creates a gender set up from the beginning of the novel, women are to be pursued, almost like prey. The next point Mellor brings up is that Frankenstein immediately “eliminates the necessity to have females at all.” (355.) This point continues to be brought up in the essay, stating that these new creatures are immortal and don’t need to reproduce at all, therefore women shouldn’t exist.  Anne Mellor also discusses the roles of patriarchy in Frankenstein stating that women were not allowed to travel (Elizabeth couldn’t go with Victor) nor were they allowed to leave the home and have other pursuits. She also notes that women weren’t allowed to have intelligent conversation which could be why Victor compared them to nature. Being of a science mind, he much prefers to create his own beliefs than work with nature.  Shelley created two worlds in the novel, male which is intellectual, and female which is emotional according to Mellor.

 The most prevalent point that Mellor brings up in the novel is Victor’s overall fear of women and their sexuality. She begins by mentioning the scene where Victor keeps picturing his dead mother lying in his arms. Victor wants to love Elizabeth, but he keeps picturing his dead mother instead, which shows he’s not interested in female companionship. Another scene brought up is the scene where Victor will not create a woman because they could be just as ugly as the male creature, and when he eventually does, Victor is afraid that the female creature would be preoccupied by the desire to have children. The female creature might also be an independent creature which in turn, she wouldn’t want the male creature for a companion. Another way Mellor links Victor’s fears about female sexuality is by stating that the creature would be unable be “small, delicate, modest, passive, and sexually pleasing…” (360) because of the proportions she would need to be built with. This is linked to Victor’s fear that the female creature would be ugly and cannot be an independent woman if she chooses so, because she would belong to the male creature. Because of this great fear that Victor has, Mellor goes on to state that even destroying the female creature that was created almost sounds like it could be rape of the female creature quoting this line “trembling with passion, I tore to pieces the thing on which I was engaged.” (361) Victor is so afraid of a woman who may challenge patriarchal values and have her own sexuality; he is quick to destroy her, he must use his own power (sexual or not) over her.

I could continue to summarize points from the essay, but I’d be here for hours. Mellor brings up so many points of the story that I didn’t even think of as patriarchal in context and she does a great job relating lines from the book to her ideas. I didn’t even think to view female sexuality as a vital component of the book, but after thinking about it, why aren’t the women viewed for their entire being than just the sole creator of children? Mellor does state that this is to bring across the point of eradicating women in society and Shelley desperately wanted to bring this point across of what happens if this is done. I also didn’t think that Victor was afraid of women; I thought he just didn’t respect them. I like how Mellor mentions Victor being afraid of women because it shows that while women are disrespected, they are also strong and empowering enough to cause fear in the main character. Overall, I do agree with Mellor’s point that Victor is more afraid of women than disrespectful of them, which gives me a whole new angle to see this story from.

Film Comparison

I’ve always been a fan of horror films and gothic literature, so I’ve seen several adaptations of Frankenstein. That being said, I hadn’t seen the most popular Frankenstein film made, one that came out during my lifetime. When I found out I had to do this project blog, I set off in search for the popular film, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein which came out in 1994 and stars Robert DeNiro. This wasn’t an easy search, both chain video stores in the county didn’t have it nor did my hometown library. I did eventually find it three weeks later on a last minute desperate trip to another library and found it under the letter “M”. I promptly checked it out.

The film itself surprised me. The movie did stay true to many elements of the books, such as the beginning where the movie begins with Walton writing a letter home. While the letters weren’t narrated in completion in the film, the overall effect was there. The film showed Captain Walton and his crew stuck in a horrendous storm with Victor Frankenstein, played by Kenneth Branagh, approaching them for help. These are pretty much the only similarities between the novel and film. I think the director kept this aspect as a way to set up a time frame for the film. A nice white caption shows up across the bottom of the screen announcing the year is 1794. Victor is heard yelling in the distance and everyone is awestruck at first saying they didn’t know what was approaching them, then Victor walks up to the crew and captain asking for help. While this is the only similar scene, another aspect I enjoyed from the movie is how the times in the novel and film matched. The characters in the film dressed in period clothing and behaved with appropriate mannerisms as to what one would expect in the late 1700’s. Most other films do not show this aspect, and seem to take on a grainy effect of this could be happening in your own backyard. In these aspects, the film directors tried very hard to stay true to the novel.

Now, the film differs quite a bit from the novel following the first ten minutes or so. I’ve decided to focus on one aspect that was discussed quite frequently in class and that is Victor and Elizabeth’s relationship. In the novel, Victor doesn’t seem very interested in Elizabeth, played by Helena Bonham Carter, as a wife and lover; which she was expected to become since she and Victor were children. Victor continues to put off the wedding date to pursue his science interests along with protecting her from the creature who swore to harm her on their wedding night. The film differs in this aspect that Victor and Elizabeth are seen innocently enough as children, but in the next scene when they are portrayed as adults they immediately begin acting like boyfriend and girlfriend. They begin kissing in ways that most consider inappropriate for brother and sister, along with an anxious marriage proposal before Victor departs for college. Another way the book differs is that while Victor is creating the creature, Elizabeth shows up in his apartment to surprise him because she simply misses him so much and must see him. In the novel, Victor and Elizabeth aren’t this close, nor is Elizabeth allowed to travel. Eventually Victor and Elizabeth do marry, after a scene where Elizabeth insists they marry the next day, and a line is spoken that would gross almost anyone out. Elizabeth mentions that “Brother and sister no more” and Victor mentions they are now “husband and wife.” Now, why did the film directors show the relationship this way? I think it was to make the film interesting. I think the filmmakers wanted to show a love story and let’s be honest, sex sells. Instead of Victor being shown as this heartless jerk who only cares about himself which happens in the novel, he is shown as a man who can love a woman and care about her greatly, even though she was raised as his sister. This weird twist on their relationship also showed Elizabeth as a person and not just some lady growing old in her home somewhere.

Another difference in the film I’d like to discuss is the portrayal of the creature. The creature is played by Robert DeNiro, and with such a major name, he must be shown quite often. The creature is shown as a savage killer in the novel because he didn’t have a friend or female creature. His revenge must be taken out on Victor and kill everyone closest to him. In the film, the creature initially kills Victor’s brother, William due to Victor not staying around to teach him right from wrong. “You gave me these emotions but you didn’t tell me how to use them…” When they meet up, the creature then asks for simply a friend, and Victor quietly declines his request, then the creature demands a female creature, or else. The creature is seen as more human in the film also, because he cries quite often, such as when he is forced to leave the cabin where he learned to speak and also when Victor, whom he calls father, dies on the ship. I think the filmmakers did this to make it obvious that the real hero of the story is the creature and not Doctor Victor Frankenstein.

Overall, the film and novel are quite different from each other, but they both follow the same basic storyline. While the storylines are the same, they were showed in different ways based on popularity. Victor and Elizabeth’s relationship is romantic and steamy, and the creature is actually human. Victor isn’t this selfish man, nor is the creature just out for revenge on his creator. In my opinion, these changes took away from Shelley’s point of what happens if man is able to create life without woman. ( I won’t even discuss the female creature in the film, but it’s the biggest distinction between the book and film)While women were seen as more than just objects in the film, this also took away from Shelley’s social commentary on the expectations of women at the time. Many critics argue that Shelley wrote to get a point of male and female equality made, and the film didn’t show this at all. I did enjoy the movie though; it had a lot more connection and a sense of realness to it, than the book. If you were frustrated with the ending of Frankenstein, the novel, I recommend checking this movie out because it offers an ending that most readers (at least in class) were hoping to get. 

Reader Response

Looking for reader responses wasn’t very challenging, but it was somewhat amusing. After looking on Barnes and Noble and only finding a handful of ratings, I thought why are there so few of reviews on this piece of literature? Most reviews were five stars but no username or text was provided, which didn’t help much when comparing what other readers had to say about Frankenstein for this project. I stumbled over to Amazon and initially found only two reviews, which both rated Frankenstein at five stars, I typed in Norton Critical edition and found 34 reviews with an average rating of around 4.5 stars. The reviews were positive, mostly college students stating that they had to read the book and fell in love with it. While there were a few negative reviews, they were just negatively reviewed because of Norton’s revisions to the novels and didn’t relate to or discuss the actual story that Shelley wrote. Feeling discouraged, I went over to Good Reads and was pleasantly surprised.

 Good Reads has around 8,000 reviews for Frankenstein with an average rating of 3.65 stars. Wow! I scrolled through these reviews for about two hours trying to figure out if there is a particular audience or theme these reviews revolve around and I noticed a few funny things.

Most low star ratings came from either students in high school or students in college at the time of the review. After clicking on the user profile, I noted that most reviews that were under three stars came from users who appear under the age of thirty. This was a common theme in the classroom also; most of us dreaded reading this novel because it is quite old and uses language that is unheard of today. I do think good reads is a site dedicated to mostly scholars or people who are advocates for reading, so I think this site may be slightly biased. I did find an amusing review on the site which I think sums up most of the class’ feelings on the novel by the end of the book.

 This was written by user, BunWat, on July 24^th, 2010 (No other information could be found on them) and they said “Yeah I know, its dated, the language is excessive and sometimes so elevated as to be faintly absurd, the frame is probably not necessary, and the women are mostly useless. And yet, somehow it still captures my imagination.” I found this to be the closest thing to how I felt about the novel, that it was dreadful; yet I was fascinated because so many of the issues women face in the novel are relatable centuries later.

In conclusion, the reviews were a mish-mash of good and bad, but most bad reviews came from people who were forced to read the book. I’d be interested to see if in ten years these readers become one of the classic readers who rate the novel at five stars because they are either able to relate to it better or have taken the time to mature and see past the basic language barrier for an underlying message. I’m still on the fence of whether or not I enjoyed the book, I think if I read it again though; I’d have a much better understanding and I’d be able to make better connections with the reading and everyday life.

Works Cited

BunWat. "Frankenstein." Good Reads. Goodreads.com. July 24, 2010. Web. December 11, 2012.

"Frankenstein." Amazon. Amazon.com, Inc. Web. December 12, 2012.

"Frankenstein." Barnes and Noble. Barnesandnoble.com. Web. December 12, 2012.

Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. Dir. Branagh Kenneth. Perf. Robert DeNiro, Kenneth Branagh, and Helena Bonham Carter. Sony Pictures, 1994. DVD.

Mellor, Anne. "The Female in Frankenstein." Rev. of Frankenstein, by Mary Shelley. Norton Critical Edition 2012: 355-368. Print.

Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein Ed. Paul Hunter. New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 2012. Print.