Anxiety And Ambivalence:The Female Romantic Voice In Frankenstein

Mary Shelley arranges her most well-known novel Frankenstein in a nested set of narrative frames,unfolded respectively by three male narrators—Victor Frankenstein,Robert Walton,and the creature made by Frankenstein.Though there is no female narrator,Mary Shelley has interwoven her own voice as a female Romantic into the very fabric of the text,a voice which has two dimensions—anxiety and ambivalence.The main body of this thesis is composed of three chapters.Chapter One analyses Mary Shelley’s anxiety as a female Romantic,which originates from two respects—procreation and authorship.Mary Shelley’s anxiety about procreation includes not only fears about birth and death,but also a more profound concern about parenting and education.Mary Shelley’s anxiety about authorship is mainly caused by her desire for original imagination and the pressure from male Romantics around her,especially her husband Percy Shelley.Chapter Two discusses Mary Shelley’s ambivalence towards Frankenstein and male Romantics,which is an externalization of her inner anxiety.Frankenstein is seemingly a modern scientist but actually a typical male Romantic;Percy Shelley is one of the most important prototypes of Frankenstein.Mary Shelley’s ambivalence towards male Romantics is revealed in her ambivalent characterization of Frankenstein: she both sympathizes with Frankenstein for his pursuit of an imaginary paradise and criticizes Frankenstein for his trampling on nature,family,and friends,caused by his pursuit of unfettered imagination.Chapter Three discusses the contradictory ideas in Frankenstein,such as the contradictions between reason and sensibility,male heroism and female characteristics,radical and conservative politics.These contradictions to some extent reflect the discrepancies between male and female Romantics’ ideologies.This thesis tries to demonstrate that Mary Shelley’s anxiety and ambivalence are positive efforts to accommodate these contradictions,and the principle of golden mean functions as the basis of the female authorial voice in Frankenstein.