I'd rather have three wishes from a fairy God mother...not but really

In her book, Frankenstein, Shelley avoids strong women characters. This can be seen through Victor’s attempts to create one, but is tormented by the idea that the female might be just as strong, if not stronger than the male monster. I think that this represents the gendered society that was very prevalent during the time the book was written. By attempting to create a women monster Victor is trying to fill the void he feels after his personal romantic relationship has crumbled. The fear of someone having something that doesn’t have is too much for Victor, thus he second-guessed his decisions.

In this attempts to create the women ‘monster’ he runs away from his normal life into a place of hiding. I think that this shows that he is ashamed of his interest in a female sexed ‘monster’, and wants to hide his ambition and need to ‘complete’ what he had started. By removing himself from his regular life to attempt this creation, I think that the underlying message supports the ideas that women should be repressed, and not represented in society. I also think that by removing himself, and running off to an island, his idea is that if he did decided to finish creating the female monster, he could up and leave her if he succeeded.

In the book Shelley noted that Victor was scared that if he created a female ‘monster’ that they would reproduce. I think this also shows that Victor is scared of the Darwin theory. Shelley makes this obvious because Victor is scared that the ‘monsters’ will reproduce and make something that is more powerful than they are independently of each other. The fear that resides within Victor I think is valid while it’s a fear of the unknown. I am also conflicted because I feel like the fear of reproduction is also just fear of the future and women becoming more powerful. If he created the first female, he would be gifting the female with even more power, which is what is feared in both society and in the story.

All three paragraphs have a strong theme throughout them, and I feel like the evidence is fairly fluid. The initial evidence serves as an argument because it could potentially be argued the other way. I think that the evidence provided in the second two paragraphs provides a basic structure of why my argument and point are accurate. I think some strong themes that run throughout all of the paragraphs are the theme of gender roles and representations on the larger scale of society. With considerations of the ramifications that might happen if he did in fact create the female, it is obvious that females have the potential to be more powerful than men. That fear is solidified when we see Victor destroy his attempts and his personal romantic life deteriorate. I think that between the second and the third paragraph we can see the exaggeration of the fears by removing from society and considering the future, two serious actions. Overall I believe this argument is a reflection of Shelley’s frustrations with gender and society and her attempt to show us why and how women could be powerful.