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.