Frankenstein And Philosophy PDF Download

I set out to discover if there was a link between the philosophy of Mary Wollstonecraft and the novel Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, Wollstonecraft's daughter. Herein I present what I have discovered and the subsequent conclusion. In terms of the structure of this thesis, the first part lays the foundation for the second part. In the first part I explore four different themes -- slavery, monster, parent-child relationship and education -- to show that the philosophy of Wollstonecraft is connected with Frankenstein. In the second part I use those connections to read Frankenstein through the lens of Wollstonecraft's philosophy to show that Shelley is setting up a comparison between two different worlds within Frankenstein, the village world and Frankenstein's world. From the events that transpire in Frankenstein's world, it can be said that Shelley is issuing a warning, the warning that if Wollstonecraft's philosophy is not considered, then the world of Frankenstein will become the real world, and the village world will remain a fantasy. This is because of family. The family collapses in Frankenstein's world because Frankenstein's world upholds the separate spheres theory in which the women stay at home in the private sphere and the men operate within the public sphere. The family also collapse within Frankenstein's world due to Frankenstein's ambition. In the village world there is no separation of men and women, instead everyone operates within the same space and so the family is strengthened. The collapse of the family leads to the collapse of society because family is the foundation of society. Thus, Shelley is issuing the warning that if Wollstonecraft's philosophy is not considered then Frankenstein's world will continue to be the real world in which family continues to collapse and so society will continue to collapse. Firstly, I am going to put forward a brief account of the lives of both Mary Wollstonecraft and Mary Shelley. In doing this, I would like to show how their own lives informed their work as a way to better understand their work. But, also, the first connection between Mary Wollstonecraft and Mary Shelley is as mother-daughter. It would be foolish to deny the relational connection between the two authors and how important that relationship was to Shelley in her own intellectual career. This leads to the second connection between the two, as a philosopher and as a novelist, so that it is possible, as I will argue throughout my thesis, to read Frankenstein through the lens of Wollstonecraft's philosophy. Those two connections, as mother-daughter and as a philosopher and novelist, come together and intersect to argue the second point of my thesis, that Shelley is furthering Wollstonecraft's philosophy is to issue a warning about the state of society if Wollstonecraft's philosophy is not followed.