An Analysis Of Frankenstein From The Perspective Of Ecofeminism

Mary Shelley, Sir Percy Shelley’s wife, is one of the most important female writersduring the period of English Romanticism in the late of eighteenth century and the earlynineteenth century. She is famous for her work Frankenstein (or The ModernPromethous) that published in1818. Once the novel is published, it drew widespreadcritical attention made it become the model of Gothic novel and the ancestor of sciencefiction. This thesis attempts to approach this novel from the perspective of ecofeminism,discussing the relationship between women and nature, woman and men, women and‘science and technology’, and Mary Shelley’s ecofeminist awareness of the text. Theauthor will discover the new aspects of the text so that explain the work from a newangle on the basis of previous studies.This thesis is organized in six parts: introduction, four chapters, and the conclusion.The introduction draws a full view of Mary Shelley’s life and her work Frankenstein.Besides, it introduces the literary review at home and abroad.Chapter one is the theoretical part of this thesis. It describes the brief introductionof the source and development of ecofeminism and the connotations of ecofeminism.The second Chapter analyzes how the relationship between women and natureembodied in Frankenstein: the first is their essential links, and the second is theirsymbolic link. The former explains their identities while the latter interprets the featuresof women ‘naturalized’ and ‘feminized’ nature.Chapter three discusses the relationship between women and men in Frankenstein.first it focuses on the absence of female voice in that society, which contains Elizabeth’ssilence and Justine’s “unable to defend for herself”; and secondly it emphasizes on theabsence of female roles under the male authority, which includes the three aspects: theabsence of Mrs. Saville, the death of the holy mother Caroline and Safie escapes fromreality.Chapter four explores the relationship between women and ‘science andtechnology’. First, relative to Victor as the representative of science and technology, itanalyzes women is the otherness of science and technology; an then it states that women is deprived of right to live for the female monster is tore by Victor; finally, explainswomen is deprived of right to reproductive on the basis of man-made that goes againstthe natural law.The last part is the conclusion, in which it restates the ecofeminism based on thatsums up the whole thesis. Through the analysis of the novel, it expresses Mary Shelley’sworries about the English industrial revolution. She is an author has the romantic doesnot praise the heroic spirit of ‘science and technology’, and the human being conquernature and oppress women by her romantic strokes, conversely, she has insight to thecrisis of the rapid development of science and technology, which encourage people tocompletely review the relationship between women and nature, men, and science andtechnology.