Mary Shelley’s Political Exploration In The Last Man

The Last Man is one of the works of Mary Shelley,who was a famous English writer during the British Romantic period.Research on this novel now at home and abroad are mainly focused on the following five aspects: political metaphor,feminism,humanism,ecological ideas,and autobiographical elements.However,few of them had discussions of the author’s political tendency which might have been influenced by the author’s father’s anarchism.Based on this idea,this thesis by way of close reading and biographical research tries to explore the author’s political tendency.And it turned out that Mary Shelley is an anarchist in this novel.This thesis is consisted of five parts.The first part is the introduction.This part introduces the author’s life,the outline of the novel,the current research at home and abroad,the research significance and research methods.The second part analyzes the path toward a republican system.Ryland and Adrian,two characters in the novel,take this way.By analyzing their pursuits of a republic and the final results,we find that Verney was disappointed with republicanism.And he was doubtful about the necessity of the government and institutions.The third part analyzes the road toward monarchy.The two characters in the novel that insist on monarchy are the Ex-Queen and Raymond.By analyzing their pursuits of a monarchy and the final results,we find that Verney was pessimistic with monarchy.And he believed that the monarchy would not work for Britain.The fourth part analyzes the political exploration and the anarchist ideology of the narrator in this novel,Verney,as well as the autobiographical element of Shelley.The fifth part is the summary.The above analysis shows that Mary Shelley was an anarchist in this novel.