International Journal of Literacy and Education

This paper seeks to attempt feminist analysis of Frankenstein by Mary Shelley focusing on how gender, motherhood, and the mingling powers of creating ostensively manifest in the text. Within the frame of reference of feminist theory, the text is read to reflect patriarchal anxieties over the early 19^th century female agency and reproduction, coupled with female intellectual independence. In fact, Shelley has constructed a character-defying technology when using Victor Frankenstein as a "male mother", whose attempt to supplant nature in birth leads to disorder and destruction. Absence in crucial moments of creations and decisions indicates silencing women's voices, not to mention the novel being an indictment against the kinds of male-dominated scientific and social orders. Characters like Elizabeth and Justine delineate how much damage could be done to women in patriarchal societies. This critique then gives a different perspective to Frankenstein, outlining its historical and cultural frames of reference, while manifesting that it has a lasting meaning as subversive regarding questions of gender and the consequences of silencing female agency.