Character Analysis: Androgyny in Mary Shelleys "Frankenstein"

Character Analysis: Androgyny in Mary Shelleys Author: Cristina Flores
Publisher: GRIN Verlag
ISBN: 3656619069
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 17

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Book Description
Seminar paper from the year 2010 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Literature, grade: 1,3, University of Paderborn, language: English, abstract: Families in the 19th century mostly lived in a patriarchal society. Growing up during this time, Mary Shelley used this society “ruled or controlled by men” as the basis for the population of her novel Frankenstein. On the first sight, the characters appear to fulfill their gender roles perfectly. Women occupy the domestic sphere, men work outside home. In addition, women are only of marginal importance whereas men appear as the strong protagonists who are able to influence the storyline. Even if this first overview is correct, Mary Shelley does not maintain this severe separation of sexes and their characteristics but proves that both women and men own some features of the other sex. Therefore, one could state that the women in Frankenstein have an important role as well, as, at second sight, they share a lot of similarities with men and vice versa which contributes to analyze the topic of androgyny. In my term paper I will therefore concentrate on this androgyny of men and women in Frankenstein. Being androgynous, which can be defined as the state of “having both male and female characteristics” , is an essential element of the novel. Analyzing the male characters one discovers that the male characteristics are important but that it is especially the femaleness which leads to the course of the novel and not typically male behavior. With regard to women, the androgyny shows the beginning of emancipation and hence, women as contemporary heroines, able to escape from a male-dominated society. Furthermore, it is important to analyze the monster that shows androgynous traits so that it cannot be classified as either male or female. These features show that the monster possesses general human qualities as it shares a lot of similarities with the characters of the novel.

Character Analysis: Androgyny in Mary Shelleys "Frankenstein"

Character Analysis: Androgyny in Mary Shelleys Author: Cristina Flores
Publisher: GRIN Verlag
ISBN: 3656619069
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 17

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Book Description
Seminar paper from the year 2010 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Literature, grade: 1,3, University of Paderborn, language: English, abstract: Families in the 19th century mostly lived in a patriarchal society. Growing up during this time, Mary Shelley used this society “ruled or controlled by men” as the basis for the population of her novel Frankenstein. On the first sight, the characters appear to fulfill their gender roles perfectly. Women occupy the domestic sphere, men work outside home. In addition, women are only of marginal importance whereas men appear as the strong protagonists who are able to influence the storyline. Even if this first overview is correct, Mary Shelley does not maintain this severe separation of sexes and their characteristics but proves that both women and men own some features of the other sex. Therefore, one could state that the women in Frankenstein have an important role as well, as, at second sight, they share a lot of similarities with men and vice versa which contributes to analyze the topic of androgyny. In my term paper I will therefore concentrate on this androgyny of men and women in Frankenstein. Being androgynous, which can be defined as the state of “having both male and female characteristics” , is an essential element of the novel. Analyzing the male characters one discovers that the male characteristics are important but that it is especially the femaleness which leads to the course of the novel and not typically male behavior. With regard to women, the androgyny shows the beginning of emancipation and hence, women as contemporary heroines, able to escape from a male-dominated society. Furthermore, it is important to analyze the monster that shows androgynous traits so that it cannot be classified as either male or female. These features show that the monster possesses general human qualities as it shares a lot of similarities with the characters of the novel.

Mary Shelley and Frankenstein

Mary Shelley and Frankenstein PDF Author: William Veeder
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 9780226852263
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 288

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Book Description


Mary Shelley

Mary Shelley PDF Author: Anne K. Mellor
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1136609334
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 306

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Book Description
An innovative, beautifully written analysis of Mary Shelley's life and works which draws on unpublished archival material as well as Frankenstein and examines her relationship with her husband and other key personalities.

The Cambridge Companion to Mary Shelley

The Cambridge Companion to Mary Shelley PDF Author: Esther Schor
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1139826735
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 318

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Book Description
Known from her day to ours as 'the Author of Frankenstein', Mary Shelley indeed created one of the central myths of modernity. But she went on to survive all manner of upheaval - personal, political, and professional - and to produce an oeuvre of bracing intelligence and wide cultural sweep. The Cambridge Companion to Mary Shelley helps readers to assess for themselves her remarkable body of work. In clear, accessible essays, a distinguished group of scholars place Shelley's works in several historical and aesthetic contexts: literary history, the legacies of her parents William Godwin and Mary Wollstonecraft, and of course the life and afterlife, in cinema, robotics and hypertext, of Frankenstein. Other topics covered include Mary Shelley as a biographer and cultural critic, as the first editor of Percy Shelley's works, and as travel writer. This invaluable volume is complemented by a chronology, a guide to further reading and a select filmography.

Mary Shelley's Frankenstein

Mary Shelley's Frankenstein PDF Author: Harold Bloom
Publisher: Infobase Publishing
ISBN: 0791093581
Category : Frankenstein's monster (Fictitious character)
Languages : en
Pages : 151

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Book Description
This book presents a collection of essays exploring various aspects of the novel "Frankenstein" by Mary Shelley.

The Endurance of Frankenstein

The Endurance of Frankenstein PDF Author: George Levine
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 9780520046405
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 368

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Book Description
MARY SHELLEY's Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus grew out of a parlor game and a nightmare vision. The story of the book's origin is a famous one, first told in the introduction Mary Shelley wrote for the 1831 edition of the novel. The two Shelleys, Byron, Mary's stepsister Claire Clairmont, and John William Polidori (Byron's physician) spent a "wet, ungenial summer in the Swiss Alps." Byron suggested that "each write a ghost story." If one is to trust Mary Shelley's account (and James Rieger has shown the untrustworthiness of its chronology and particulars), only she and "poor Polidori" took the contest seriously. The two "illustrious poets," according to her, "annoyed by the platitude of prose, speedily relinquished their uncongenial task." Polidori, too, is made to seem careless, unable to handle his story of a "skull-headed lady." Though Mary Shelley is just as deprecating when she speaks of her own "tiresome unlucky ghost story," she also suggests that its sources went deeper. Her truant muse became active as soon as she fastened on the "idea" of "making only a transcript of the grim terrors of my waking dream": "'I have found it! What terrified me will terrify others."' The twelve essays in this collection attest to the endurance of Mary Shelley's "waking dream." Appropriately, though less romantically, this book also grew out of a playful conversation at a party. When several of the contributors to this book discovered that they were all closet aficionados of Mary Shelley's novel, they decided that a book might be written in which each contributor-contestant might try to account for the persistent hold that Frankenstein continues to exercise on the popular imagination. Within a few months, two films--Warhol's Frankenstein and Mel Brooks's Young Frankenstein--and the Hall-Landau and Isherwood-Bachardy television versions of the novel appeared to remind us of our blunted purpose. These manifestations were an auspicious sign and resulted in the book Endurance of Frankenstein.

Decoding Gender in Science Fiction

Decoding Gender in Science Fiction PDF Author: Brian Attebery
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317971477
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 228

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Book Description
From Frankenstein to futuristic feminist utopias, Decoding Gender in Science Fiction examines the ways science fiction writers have incorporated, explored, and revised conventional notions of sexual difference. Attebery traces a fascinating history of men's and women's writing that covertly or overtly investigates conceptions of gender, suggesting new perspectives on the genre.

Mary Shelley: Frankenstein

Mary Shelley: Frankenstein PDF Author: Nicholas Marsh
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1137037636
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 208

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Book Description
This study focuses on how Frankenstein works: how the story is told and why it is so rich and gripping. Part I uses carefully selected short extracts for close textual analysis, while Part II examines Shelley's life, the historical and literary contexts of the novel, and offers a sample of key criticism.

Critical Theory Today

Critical Theory Today PDF Author: Lois Tyson
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1136615563
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 486

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Book Description
Critical Theory Today is the essential introduction to contemporary criticial theory. It provides clear, simple explanations and concrete examples of complex concepts, making a wide variety of commonly used critical theories accessible to novices without sacrificing any theoretical rigor or thoroughness. This new edition provides in-depth coverage of the most common approaches to literary analysis today: feminism, psychoanalysis, Marxism, reader-response theory, new criticism, structuralism and semiotics, deconstruction, new historicism, cultural criticism, lesbian/gay/queer theory, African American criticism, and postcolonial criticism. The chapters provide an extended explanation of each theory, using examples from everyday life, popular culture, and literary texts; a list of specific questions critics who use that theory ask about literary texts; an interpretation of F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby through the lens of each theory; a list of questions for further practice to guide readers in applying each theory to different literary works; and a bibliography of primary and secondary works for further reading.

Nature and Civilisation in Mary Shelley's Frankenstein

Nature and Civilisation in Mary Shelley's Frankenstein PDF Author: Nadine Wolf
Publisher: GRIN Verlag
ISBN: 3638761800
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 29

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Book Description
Seminar paper from the year 2004 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Literature, grade: 1,0, University of Bayreuth, course: Proseminar, 9 entries in the bibliography, language: English, abstract: Civilization has developed itself from nature, but it has also changed nature in the process. Apart from theories of much cited social analysts like Rousseau or John Locke, one equally well known example is that of man as the hunter: in his natural state, man only hunted to find food, to ensure the survival of himself and his family. In our society, humans do not have to hunt their food by themselves anymore, but we still don't seem to have lost our natural instincts, our natural aggressions. One logical consequence is that we direct our aggressions towards each other, that we decimate our own species; the problem is, however, that natural reasons like ensuring the best breed possible don't exist anymore, that we don't have explanations why we kill each other apparently at random. Tim Marshall writes about a crime known as 'The Edinburgh scandal', which took place in the years of 1828 and 1829. Dr. Robert Knox, an anatomist from Edinburgh and very engaged in the newly upcoming art of dissection, employed two criminals to bring him fresh corpses for his dissections. At this time, grave robbing in order to obtain corpses was an usual occurrence in British graveyards, but in this case the acquired 'objects' didn't come from those who had died naturally, but from people who had been murdered only for the sake of dissection. The reason for these murders was science, and with it civilization, therefore human nature was misused for the sake of science which in turn needed the bodies to explore the secrets nature still withheld from science. The resemblance to Mary Shelley's novel is apparent. But in Frankenstein, nature and civilization are also set in opposition to each other by the attributes they are given: nature as feminine, civilization as masculine. S