Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein as a Proto- Ecofeminist Text

Abstract

Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein could possibly be one of the first texts of ecofeminism considering that the novel focuses on the interrelation of the domination of women, and nature, both suppressed under the thumb of male science. The novel takes a critical view on Victor Frankenstein’s pursuit of the unnatural wish to control life, akin to conquering nature, and reflects the Enlightenment period. Shelley’s depiction of passive women and the Creature’s alienation illustrates the failure to acknowledge both emotional and ecological equilibrium. Nature, described to be both restorative and voiceless, breathes in the deep scars of civilization and remains, a polite observer. Frankenstein, through these aspects, reflects the worries of ecofeminism, slavery of nature and dispossession of the feminine are one and the same, and that the exploitation of nature is directly proportional to the negligence of the feminine, is absolutely clear on what science is misplaced and uncontrolled able to unleash.