KUNST by leajulienne

KUN(S)T

Issue #14

Frankenstein

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Introduction

Introduction Kun(s)t is a biannual subscription which publishes journals at the intersection of art, theory, film and literature through a feminist lens. Mainstream media has created a culture of self-hate. It’s also pretty boring. We grew up being sold stories about purity, femininity and perfect happiness; now we want to tell new ones. In this issue we look at Frankenstein: The Modern Prometheus by Mary Shelley. Frankenstein has become one of the most iconic stories of our time which has been endlessly readapted into mainstream culture through film, stage and comic books. However here at Kun(s)t we wanted to go back to the novel itself and look at its commentary of a patriarichal society. The fact that such an iconic book was written in the 17th century by a woman was a key factor as to why we wanted to investigate the text. Mary Shelley, daughter of Mary Wollstonecraft is the perfect subject for this edition. What we found was a story about subversion and control over women, which at first glance seems like a sexist novel which disregards its female characters. However we uncover the true meaning of the absense of strong female characters in the book, we look at the fear of female sexuality and autonomy in the destruction of the female creation. We imagined the female creature’s seams be violently ripped apart by her creator before coming to full fruition, her threads can be seen becoming undone throughout the book by our designer Lea Julienne. However, we like to recontextualise this image with the idea of her freeing herself by the bounds of her creator instead. We tried to imagine, who could this creature have become if she were to be created today, her essence and spirit lives through some of us who stand against sexist expectations and standard set out by people like doctor Frankenstein. With contributions by Anne K Mellor, Ayla O’Shea, Deborah Lindsay Williams & Gisselle Lopez and thank you to Micheala Stark & Zoe Ligon. We hope you enjoy this issue of Kun(s)t, happy reading and looking! Kirsten

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1 Mary Shelley

Mary Shelley

Mary Shelley’s background is no doubt vital context to her writings, especially through a feminist perspective. She was the daughter of philosopher and political writer William Godwin and famed feminist Mary Wollstonecraft: the author of The Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792). Sadly for Shelley, she never really knew her mother who died shortly after her birth. Her father William Godwin was left to care for 1. Shelley and her older half-sister Fanny Imlay. The Godwin household had a number of distinguished guests during Shelley’s childhood, including Samuel Taylor Coleridge and William Wordsworth. While she didn’t have a formal education, she did make great use of her father’s extensive library. Shelley could often be found reading, sometimes by her mother’s grave. She also liked to daydream, escaping from her often challenging home life into her imagination.Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin Shelley began writing “Frankenstein; or, the Modern Prometheus” when she was eighteen years old, two years after she’d become pregnantwith her first child, a baby she did not name. When Mary Shelley, eventual author of Frankenstein, was born, she had no indication that just days later, her mother, famed feminist critic Mary Wollstonecraft, would pass away due to complications following childbirth. Growing up without a mother present in her life, Shelley grew up yet with the voice of her mother impacting her writing and her beliefs, for she perused Wollstonecraft’s texts avidly and studied them relentlessly. Shelley also had no indication that years later, she would implement the skills and innate talent imprinted upon her by her literary parents to create one of the most influential and relevant pieces of horror sci-fi literature ever written: Frankenstein, the Modern Prometheus. So, it is curious that when one considers the women of Shelley’s first novel in relation to Wollstonecraft’s firm attack on the misogynistic society of late eighteenth

[01] See Marshall’s The Life and Letters of Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, Vol. 2, pg. 183; a letter written by Godwin to his daughter following the death of Percy Shelley. LLMWS notes a rocky relationship between Shelley and Godwin which progressively became

more stilted with time. Despite being Shelley’s only living biological parent, Shelley was more like her mother in terms of beliefs and literary prestige. This statement hints at Godwin’s acknowledgement that his daughter is more unlike him and like her

This page: (1) Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (1797–1851), Frankenstein, manuscript, MS. Abinger c.56, fols. 20v – 21r, 1816 – 1817. The Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford.

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century / early nineteenth century Europe, one would find that the depictions could not be any more different. Where Wollstonecraft argued for equality of education and female independence, Shelley presented her women as meek, submissive, and dependent of the dominant male narrative. However, the curiosity of this thematic contradiction ends with a close reading of Frankenstein, which uncovers how Shelley cleverly structured the stories and characters of these women to actually advance the feminist messages Wollstonecraft left behind, rather than dismiss them. When one considers the literary legacy that Mary Shelley was born into, one would find it perplexing that the daughter of Mary Wollstonecraft – renowned and celebrated feminist critic known for her firm beliefs rooted in equality between sexes – would seem to write her first novel, Frankenstein, with little to no attention to the development of her female characters. The purpose of Shelley’s female characters, at a superficial glance, appears to go against everything Wollstonecraft wished for women: they were to be educated, forgoing of delicacy, capable of having rational souls, independent, and intelligent. Wollstonecraft’s most famous feminist text, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, argues for these points and fights for the then radical perspective of women’s minds being equal to that of men, and should be treated as such. Yet, Shelley’s Frankensteinian women were presented as uneducated, lacked quality personality, appeared content with their existence being limited to the advancement of their male counterparts, and were all either killed or driven out of the text by the novel’s end. This curiosity prompted a two hundred year long discussion among scholars. As the literary heiress that succeeded Wollstonecraft, what caused Shelley to smear her mother’s legacy of feminism? A closer inspection of the novel and its feminist themes proved that the exact opposite is true. Born into a family of literary fame, but also into a world in

Next page: (3) Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (1797–1851), Frankenstein, manuscript, MS. Abinger c.56, fols. 20v – 21r, 1816 – 1817. The Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford.

Mary Shelley

Next page: (2) Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (1797–1851), Frankenstein, manuscript, MS. Abinger c.56, fols. 20v – 21r, 1816 – 1817. The Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford.

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mother than previously realized.

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Mary Shelley

Singularly bold, somewhat imperious, and active of mind. Her desire of knowledge is great, and her perseverance in everything she undertakes almost invincible.3

[03] Marshall’s The Life and Letters of Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, Vol. 2, pg. 196.

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Mary Shelley

desperate need of feminismand female empowerment, Shelley’s Frankenstein helped to pave the path for both horror sci-fi and female novelists. Her upbringing, while not following any strict curriculum set by her father, was centered on the teachings and writings left behind by her mother, Mary Wollstonecraft. While the presentation and in-text treatment of Shelley’s Frankensteinian women were, if read superficially, the embodiment of everything scorned by the Wollstonecraftian model of how women should be conducted in society, Shelley clearly held a torch for the messages of hermother, and ensured to continue this conversation within her first novel to reflect them in an indirect, but clear, manner. Shelley’s Frankenstein advances Wollstonecraft’s messages rather than undermining or dismissing them. In examining both the original text, as well as a spectrum of films inspired by the novel’s events, it is noticeable that Wollstonecraft’s firm feminist influence has survived, and will continue to survive, through the scholarly conversations held about both A Vindication of the Rights of Woman and in the progeny of her daughter’s creation. According to William Godwin, Shelley’s father, she was “singularly bold, somewhat imperious, and active of mind. Her desire of knowledge is great, and her perseverance in everything she undertakes almost invincible,”[4]and much of who she was could be credited to what she learned from Wollstonecraft posthumously. Godwin claimed that neither Shelley nor her half-sister Fanny were raised in “exclusive attention to the system of their mother” [5] but there is little doubt among Shelley scholars thatWollstonecraft’s work presented a major influence in Shelley’s writings, especially in Frankenstein

[04] See “Finding the Mother”: The Wollstonecraftian Feminist Influence in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and its Media by Gisele Lopez published by Saint Xavier University, 2009.

[05] Marshall’s The Life and Letters of Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, Vol. 2, pg. 196.

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2 Presence in Absence

Presence in Absence

I teach Frankenstein in a course that’s called Our Monsters, Ourselves and one of the perspectives that informs my teaching is feminism, which for some students is surprising – a student once said to me, “You’re a feminist? But you’re so calm,” as if somehow, those two things are mutually exclusive. Over the years I’ve noticed that when talk about feminist politics or gender roles in literature classes, students often assume that discussions of gender are always only about women. It’s as if by default “gender” must refer only to women because it’s only for women that “gender” is a problem. When I want to talk about a text from a feminist perspectives, however, frequently students will say that this or that text can’t be feminist, because they’re looking at the text for role models. For example, they’re looking for the female characters in a novel to be strong and noble and good and successful and so forth. But “role models” don’t necessarily make a text feminist, and that’s one of the ways that I use Frankenstein in class: to show that the absence of something can none the less be something. My teaching of Frankenstein is indebted to the work of the literary scholar Anne Mellor [5], who argues that Frankenstein is, in fact, a feminist novel. Students, however, often seem to be perplexed by this idea. They say: “But there are no major women characters. Elizabeth, the fiancée of Victor Frankenstein is a marginal character. She’s not very important, So how can it be feminist? Because there are no women in the novel of major importance really.” The students are correct: women are, in some ways, peripheral to the novel’s main plot lines. And yet at the same time, of course, women are central to the text precisely because they’re not there. As an example of this absence /presence idea, we look at the main topic of this journal: a passage when Frankenstein, in response to the creature’s request, has begun to make the creature a femal companion. The creature, you’ll remember, has come to Victor and said, “You need to make me a companion in my image, like me and

Opposite page: (5) Gene Wilder as Victor Frankenstein in Mel Brooke’s film adaptation of the novel, (!974).

Presence in Absence

Previous page: (4) Colin Clive as Victor Frankenstein in James Whale’s film adaptation of the novel, (!931).

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[05] Anne K. Mellor, “Frankenstein: A Feminist Her Monsters, by A. K. Mellor]. The Wordsworth Critique of Science,” in One Culture: Essays Circle, 20(4), 210–212. on Literature and Science, ed. George Levine (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1988), pp. 287-312. Also see: Langbauer, L. (1989). [Review of Mary Shelley: Her Life, Her Fiction,

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Presence in Absence

then we’ll go off to South America and live in the wilderness and eat nuts and berries. And we’ll be happy forever,” which is an interesting picture of a marriage. (But that’s not my point here today.) As Frankenstein begins the process of creating the female monster, he imagines what will happen when this female comes into being. What Victor fears is that 5. the female monster, were she to be created, would have autonomy, that she would decide, “I don’t want to be part of this bargain. I don’t like this other creature I’m supposed to be a companion with. I hate him.” In other words, he’s afraid that she might have her own way of thinking. Female autonomy, in Victor’s eyes, becomes a terrible threat. The second thing he’s afraid of, of course, is that “one of the first results of those sympathies for which the daemon thirsted would be children, and a race of devils would be propagated upon the earth, who might make the very existence of the species of man a condition precarious and full of terror.” So the second problem with the female monster is that the female monster and the male monster might breed and create more monsters. Of course, Frankenstein has been interested in creating things all by himself, with no women involved whatsoever. So it’s either that the woman monster will reject the creature’s plan for her and think on her own or that she will decide to breed. Both of those prospects are terrifying. So he destroys this almost finished female creature, much to the dismay of the original creature, who vows vengeance on Victor because Victor has doomed him to a life of loneliness. The absence of the female monster, and the chain of events triggered by her absence, helps me to talk with my students about how that absence matters. And then we talk about the function of this absence –and the absence of the other women in the novel (for instance, the mothers in this novel are all dead; Elizabeth, Victor’s long-suffering fiancée has very little influence on Victor, or on the plot). What happens as a result of trying to sidestep the female part [continued page 8]

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Prescence in Abscence

I teach Frankenstein in a course that’s called Our Monsters, Ourselves and one of the perspectives that informs my teaching is feminism, which for some students is surprising – a student once said to me, “You’re a feminist? But you’re so calm,” as if somehow, those two things are mutually exclusive. Over the years I’ve noticed that when talk about feminist politics or gender roles in literature classes, students often assume that discussions of gender are always only about women. It’s as if by default “gender” must refer only to women because it’s only for women that “gender” is a problem. When I want to talk about a text from a feminist perspectives, however, frequently students will say that this or that text can’t be feminist, because they’re looking at the text for role models. For example, they’re looking for the female characters in a novel to be strong and noble and good and successful and so forth. But “role models” don’t necessarily make a text feminist, and that’s one of the ways that I use Frankenstein in class: to show that the absence of something can none the less be something. My teaching of Frankenstein is indebted to the work of the literary scholar Anne Mellor, who argues that Frankenstein is, in fact, a feminist novel. Students, however, often seem to be perplexed by this idea. They say: “But there are no major women characters. Elizabeth, the fiancée of Victor Frankenstein is a marginal character. She’s not very important. So how can it be feminist? Because there are no women in the novel, really.” The students are correct: women are, in some ways, peripheral to the novel’s main plot lines. And yet at the same time, of course, women are central to the text precisely because they’re not there. As an example of this absence/presence idea, we look at the main topic of of this journal: a passage when Frankenstein, in response to the creature’s request, has begun to make the creature a female companion. The creature, you’ll remember, has come to Victor and

The overall representation of women in Frankenstein is passiveness and submissiveness towards the decisions and actions of men; they are portrayed as absent due to their minor roles and are doomed with fatal endings. One might be perplexed at the idea that this text could be feminist.

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Prescence in Abscence

said, “You need to make me a companion in my image– like me and then we’ll go off to South America and live in the wilderness and eat nuts and berries. And we’ll be happy forever,” which is an interesting picture of a marriage. (But that’s not my point here today.) As Frankenstein begins the process of creating the female monster, he imagines what will happen when this female comes into being. What Victor fears is that the female monster, were she to be created, would have autonomy, that she would decide, “I don’t want to be part of this bargain. I don’t like this other creature I’m supposed to be a companion with. I hate him.” In other words, he’s afraid that she might have her own way of thinking. Female autonomy, in Victor’s eyes, becomes a terrible threat. The second thing he’s afraid of, of course, is that “one of the first results of those sympathies for which the daemon thirsted would be children, and a race of devils would be propagated upon the earth, who might make the very existence of the species of man a condition precarious and full of terror.” So the second problem with the female monster is that the female monster and the male monster might breed and create more monsters. Of course, Frankenstein has been interested in creating things all by himself, with no women involved whatsoever. So it’s either that the woman monster will reject the creature’s plan for her and think on her own or that she will decide to breed. Both of those prospects are terrifying. And so he destroys this almost-finished female creature, much to the dismay of the original creature, who vows vengeance on Victor because Victor has doomed him to a life of loneliness . The absence of the female monster, and the chain of events triggered by her absence, helps me to talk with my students about how that absence matters. And then we talk about the function of this absence –and the absence of the other women in the novel (for instance, the mothers in this novel are all dead; Elizabeth, Victor’s long-suffering fiancée has very little influence on Victor, or on the plot). What happens as a result

Kun(s)t

Prescence in Abscence

I teach Frankenstein in a course that’s called Our Monsters, Ourselves and one of the perspectives that informs my teaching is feminism, which for some students is surprising – a student once said to me, “You’re a feminist? But you’re so calm,” as if somehow, those two things are mutually exclusive. Over the years I’ve noticed that when talk about feminist politics or gender roles in literature classes, students often assume that discussions of gender are always only about women. It’s as if by default “gender” must refer only to women because it’s only for women that “gender” is a problem. When I want to talk about a text from a feminist perspectives, however, frequently students will say that this or that text can’t be feminist, because they’re looking at the text for role models. For example, they’re looking for the female characters in a novel to be strong and noble and good and successful and so forth. But “role models” don’t necessarily make a text feminist, and that’s one of the ways that I use Frankenstein in class: to show that the absence of something can none the less be something. My teaching of Frankenstein is indebted to the work of the literary scholar Anne Mellor, who argues that Frankenstein is, in fact, a feminist novel. Students, however, often seem to be perplexed by this idea. They say: “But there are no major women characters. Elizabeth, the fiancée of Victor Frankenstein is a marginal character. She’s not very important. So how can it be feminist? Because there are no women in the novel, really.” The students are correct: women are, in some ways, peripheral to the novel’s main plot lines. And yet at the same time, of course, women are central to the text precisely because they’re not there. As an example of this absence/presence idea, we look at the main topic of of this journal: a passage when Frankenstein, in response to the creature’s request, has begun to make the creature a female companion. The creature, you’ll remember, has come to Victor and

[01] Mar y Shelley, Frankenstein, or The Modern Prometheus (London: Lackington, Hughes, Harding, Mavor and Jones, 1818); all further references to Frankenstein will be to the only modern reprint of this first edition, edited by James Rieger (New York: Bobbs-Metrill, 1974; reprinted, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1982), and will be cited by page number only in the text. This phrase occurs on page 49.

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Prescence in Abscence

However women are central to the text precisely because they’re not there. The absence of the female monster a creates a chain of events triggered by her absence. The feminist politics of Shelley’s novel exists in the critique of Frankensteins decisions to create a masculine mode of reproduction.It’s that absence that creates the monstrosity that ultimately undoes Frankenstein.

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Presence in Absence

of creation or propagation? What happens when you marginalize women, when you attempt to keep women on the sidelines? When we think about it that way, the novel helps students to start to think about the fact that to be “feminist,” doesn’t necessarily have to be about the creation of . . . say, Wonder Woman. Feminist politics can exist in the absence of any kind of “role model.” The feminist politics of Shelley’s novel exists in the critique of Frankenstein’s decisions to create a masculine mode of reproduction: he creates the male creature, he creates and then uncreates the female creature. It’s that absence that creates the monstrosity that ultimately undoes Frankenstein. Thinking about the absence of women in this fashion helps us to see that the novel is not necessarily about finding answers but is about asking different sorts of questions: about the nature of society, about the nature of creation, about the power of the environment to shape character, about the relationships between men and women, individuals and society. When the term “feminist text” comes to mind in regard to literature, we typically think of a novel with a strong female lead. Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, a predominately male oriented novel, strays from this stereotype and instead includes an abundance of subordinate female characters that shape the novel into the feminist text that it is. These characters range from the soft spoken love interest of Victor, Elizabeth, to the strong willed Safie, to the near creation of the Monster’s female companion. Through male narration, Shelley depicts how these women are thought of and treated by the male characters, even deliberately putting them in situations that subtly frame her own opinion pertaining to feminist ideologies. Frankenstein brings to light the various problems that were, and still are, prominent in the world of women by deliberately portraying them as something weak, disposable, and subservient to men. People sense the many

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Presence in Absence

important absences in the book. It’s famously known as this book about the dangers of science or technology, but what we at Kun(s)t

Frankenstein brings to light the various problems that were, and still are, prominent in the world of women by deliberately portraying them as something weak, disposable, and subservient to men. 6 really think, is that it’s about a world without mothers. Her longing for a mother infuses that book—the monster is born without a mother. All the chaos and violence in that book ensues because there’s no nurturing, there’s no mum, there’s no maternal love. It’s still resonant because she’s envisioning a world where humanity says, look what we can do with our brains. Look what science can do, and look at the damage science can do. It’s an ambivalent book in the deepest sense

[06] See O’Shea, Alya. The Fear of Femaleness: How “Frankenstein” Acts as a Feminist Platform on Literature and Science, 2006 for further reading.

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3 Possessing Nature

Possessing Nature

When Victor Frankenstein identifies Nature as female, “I pursued nature into her hiding places” [07], he participates in a gendered construction of the His scientific penetration universe whose ramifications and technological exploitation are everywhere apparent in Frankenstein. His scientific of female nature is only one penetration and technological exploitation of female nature, dimension of a more general which I have discussed elsewhere cultural encoding of the female [08] is only one dimension of a as passive and possessable. more general cultural encoding of the female as passive and possessable, the willing receptacle of male desire. The destruction of the female implicit in Frankenstein’s usurpation of the natural mode of human reproduction symbolically erupts in his nightmare following the animation of his creature, in which his bride-to-be is transformed in his arms into the corpse of his dead mother, “a shroud enveloped her form, and I saw the grave worms crawling in the folds of the flannel”. By stealing the female’s control over reproduction, Frankenstein has eliminated the female’s primary biological function and source of cultural power. Indeed, for the simple purpose of human survival, Frankenstein has eliminated the necessity to have females at all. One of the deepest horrors of this novel is Frankenstein’s implicit goal of creating a society for men only: his creature is male; he refuses to create a female; there is no reason that the race of immortal beings he hoped to propagate should not be exclusively male. [09] On the cultural level, Frankenstein’s scientific project, to become the sole creator of a human being-supports a patriarchal denial of the value of women and of female sexuality. Mary Shelley, doubtless inspired by her mother’s A Vindication of the Rights of Women, specifically portrays

[07] Mar y Shelley, Frankenstein, or The Modern Prometheus (London: Lackington, Hughes, Harding, Mavor and Jones, 1818); all further references to Frankenstein will be to the only modern reprint of this first edition, edited by James

Rieger (New York: Bobbs-Metrill, 1974; reprinted, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1982). [08] Anne K. Mellor, “Frankenstein: A Feminist Critique of Science,” in One Culture: Essays on Literature and Science, ed. George Levine (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1988),

Next Page: (3) Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (1797–1851), Frankenstein, manuscript, MS. Abinger c.56, fols. 20v – 21r, 1816 – 1817. The Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford.

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Posessing Nature

the consequences of a social construction of gender that values the male above the female. At every level Victor Frankenstein is engaged upon a rape of nature, a violent penetration and usurpation of the female’s “hiding places,” of the womb. Terrified of female sexuality and the power of human reproduction it enables, both he and the patriarchal society he represents use the technologies of science and the laws of the polis to manipulate, control, and repress women. Thinking back on Elizabeth Lavenza strangled on her bridal bier and on Fuseli’s image of female erotic desire that she replicates, we can now see that at this level Victor’s creature, his monster, realizes his own most potent lust. The monster, like Fuseli’s incubus, leers over Elizabeth, enacting Victor’s own repressed desire to rape, possess, and destroy the female. Victor’s creature here becomes just that, his “creature,” the instrument of his most potent desire: to destroy female reproductive power so that only men may rule. However, in Mary Shelley’s feminist novel, Victor Frankenstein’s desire is portrayed not only as horrible and finally unattainable but also as self destructive. For Nature is not the passive, inert, or “dead” matter that Frankenstein imagines [4]. Frankenstein assumes that he can violate Nature and pursue her to her hiding places with impunity. But Nature both resists and revenges herself upon his attempts. During his research, Nature denies to Victor Frankenstein both mental and physical health : “Any enthusiasm was checked by my anxiety, and I appeared rather like one doomed by slavery to toil in the mines, or any other unwholesome trade, than an artist occupied by his favourite employment. Every night l was oppressed by a slow fever, and I became nervous to a most painful degree” (p. 51). When his experiment is completed, Victor has a fit that renders him “life less” for “a long, long time” and that marks the onset of a “nervous fever” that confines him for many months (p. 57). Victor continues to be tormented by anxiety attacks, bouts of delirium, periods of distraction and madness. As soon as he

[09] While I largely agree with Mary Poovey’s intelligent and sensitive analysis of Frankenstein’s egotistic desire (in The Proper Lady and the Woman writer, pp. 123-33), I do not share her view that the nature we see in the novel is “fatal to human beings and

human relationships.” Poovey fails to distinguish between Frankenstein’s view of nature and the author’s and between the first and second editions of the novel in this regard.

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Feminism in Frankenstein

determines to blaspheme against Nature a second time, by creating a female human being. Nature punishes him: “the eternal twinkling of the stars weighed upon me, and ... l listened to every blast of wind, as if it were a dull ugly siroc on its way to consume me” (p. 145). His mental illness returns: “Every thought that was devoted to it was an extreme anguish, and every word that I spoke in allusion to it caused my lips to quiver and my heart to palpitate” (p. 156); “my spirits became unequal; l grew restless and nervous” (p. 162). Finally, Frankenstein’s obsession with destroying his creature exposes him to such mental and physical fatigue that he dies at the age of twenty five. Nature prevents Frankenstein from constructing a normal human being: an unnatural method of reproduction produces an unnatural being, in this case a freak of gigantic stature, watery eyes, a shriveled complexion, and straight black lips. This physiognomy causes Frankenstein’s instinctive withdrawal from his child, and sets in motion the series of events that produces the monster who destroys Frankenstein’s family, friends, and self. Moreover, Nature pursues Victor Frankenstein with the very electricity he has stolen: lightning, thunder, and rain rage around him. The November night on which he steals the “spark of being” from Nature is dreary, dismal, and wet: “the rain . . . poured from a black and comfortless sky” (p.54). He next glimpses his creature during a flash of lightning as a violent stonn plays over his head at Plainpalais (p. 71); significantly, the almighty Alps, and in particular Mont Blanc, are represented in this novel as female, as an image of omnipotent fertility [10]. On his wedding day, Victor admires “the beautiful Mont Blanc, and the assemblage of snowy mountains that in vain endeavour to emulate her” (p. 190). Before Frankenstein’s first encounter with his creature among the Alps, “the rain poured down in torrents, and thick mists hid the summits of the mountains” (p. 91 ). Setting sail from the Orkney [10] On Mary Shelley’s subversive representation of the traditionally masculinized Alps as female, see Fred V. Randel, “Frankenstein, Feminism, and the lntertextuality of Mountains,” Studies in Romanticisrn 23 (Winter, 1984): 515-33.

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Feminism in Frankenstein

island where he has destroyed his female creature, planning to throw her mangled remains into the sea, Frankenstein wakes to find his skiff threatened by a fierce wind and high waves that portend his own death: “I might be driven into the wide Atlantic, and feel all the tortures of starvation, or be swallowed up in the immeasurable waters that roared and buffetted around me. I ... felt the torment of a burning thirst; looked upon the sea, it was to be my grave” (p. 169). Frankenstein ends his life and his pursuit of the monster he has made in the arctic regions, surrounded by the aurora borealis, the electromagnetic field of the North Pole. The atmospheric effects of the novel, which most readers have dismissed as little more than the traditional trappings of Gothic fiction, in fact manifest the power of Nature to punish those who transgress her boundaries. The elemental forces that Victor has released pursue him to his hiding places, raging round him like avenging Furies

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4 Destroying the Female

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Destroying the Female

One of the more contentious issues in Frankenstein is the creature’s demand that Victor provide him a mate: “You must create a female for me, with whom I can live in the interchange of those sympathies necessary for my being. This you alone can do; and I demand it of you as a right which you must not refuse.”[11] Is having a mate a right? Is it ethical to create a being for that purpose? If so, what are the rights of the mate? These questions are central to Frankenstein, where Mary Shelley explores the responsibilities of creators and their creations. While the answers are debatable, considering Frankenstein in relation to both its literary contexts and modern controversies about relationships can illuminate what is at stake. The doctrine of the separate spheres that Victor Frankenstein endorses encodes a particular attitude to female sexuality that Mary Shelley subtly exposes in her novel. This attitude is manifested most vividly in Victor’s response to the creature’s request for a female companion, an Eve to comfort and embrace him. After hearing his creature’s autobiographical account of his sufferings and aspirations, Frankenstein is moved by an awakened conscience to do justice toward his Adam and promises to create a female creature, on condition that both leave forever the neighborhood of mankind. After numerous delays, Frankenstein finally gathers the necessary instruments and materials together into an isolated cottage on one of the Orkney Islands off Scotland and proceeds to create a female being. Once again he becomes ill: “my heart often sickened at the work of my hands .... my spirits became unequal; I grew restless and nervous” (p 162)Disgusted by his enterprise, Frankenstein finally determines to stop his work, rationalizing his decision to deprive his creature of a female companion in terms that repay careful examination. Here is Frankenstein’s meditation:

[11] Mary Shelley, Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus, 1818, edited by D. L. Macdonald and Kathleen Scherf, 3rd ed., Peterborough: Broadview, 2012, page 156.

Kun(s)t

Posessing Nature

“ I was now about to form another: being, of whose dispositions I was alike ignorant; she might become ten thousand times more malignant than her mate, and delight, for its own sake, in murder and wretchedness. He had sworn to quit the neighborhood of man, and hide himself in deserts; but she had not; and she, who in all probability was to become a thinking and reasoning animal, might refuse to comply with a compact made before her creation. They might even hate each other; the creature who already lived loathed his own deformity, and might he not conceive a greater abhorrence for it when it came before his eyes in the female form? She also might turn with disgust from him to the superior beauty of man; she might quit him, and he be again alone, exasperated by the fresh provocation of being deserted by one of his own species. Even if they were to leave Europe, and inhabit the deserts of the new world , yet one of the first results of those sympathies for which the daemon thirsted would be children, and a race of devils would be propagated upon the earth, who might make the very existence of the species of man a condition precarious and full of terror. Had I a right, for my own benefit, to inflict this curse upon everlasting generations? . . . I shuddered to think that future ages might curse me as their pest, whose selfishness had not hesitated to buy its own peace at the price perhaps of the existence of the whole human race.” (p. 163) What does Victor Frankenstein truly fear, which causes him to end his creation of a female? First, he is afraid of an independent female will, afraid that his female creature will have desires and opinions that cannot be controlled by his male creature. Like Rousseau’s natural man, she might refuse to comply with a social contract made before her birth by another person.

I was now about to form another being of whose dispositions I was alike ignorant, she might become ten thousand times more malignant than her mate., and delight, for its own sake, in murder and wretchedness He had sworn to quit the neighborhood of man

and hide himself in deserts

But she had not; and she,

who in all probability was to become a thinking and reasoning animal might refuse to comply with a compact made before her creation.

They might even hate each other;

the creature who already lived loathed his own deformity, and might he not conceive a greater abhorrence for it when it came before his eyes in the female form?

She also might turn with disgust from him to the superior beauty of man;

she might quit him, and he be again alone, exasperated by the fresh provocation of being deserted by one of his own species.

Even if they were to leave Europe, and inhabit the deserts of the new world

yet one of the first results of those sympathies for which the daemon thirsted would be children

Had I a right, for my own benefit, to inflict this curse upon everlasting generations?

shuddered to think that future ages might curse me as their pest, whose selfishness had not hesitated to buy its own peace at the price

and a race of devils would be propagated upon the earth, who might make the very existence of the species of man a condition precarious and full of terror.

perhaps of the existence of the whole human race

Kun(s)t

Destroying the Female

She might assert her own integrity and the revolutionary right to determine her own existence.Second, those uninhibited female desires might be sadistic: Frankenstein imagines a female “ten thousand times” more evil than her mate, who would “delight” in murder for its own sake.Third, he fears that his female creature will be more ugly than his male creature, so much so that even the male will turn from her in disgust.Fourth, he fears that she will prefer to mate with ordinary males; implicit here is Frankenstein’s horror that, given the gigantic strength of this female, she would have the power to seize and even rape the male she might choose. And finally, he is afraid of her reproductive powers, her capacity to generate an entire race of similar creatures. What Victor Frankenstein truly fears is female sexuality as such. A woman who is sexually liberated, free to choose her own life, her own sexual partner (by force, if necessary). And to propagate at will can appear only monstrously ugly to Victor Frankenstein, for she defies that sexist aesthetic that insists that women be small, delicate, modest, passive, and sexually pleasing-but available only to their lawful husbands.Horrified by this image of uninhibited female sexuality, Victor Frankenstein violently reasserts a male control over the female body, penetrating and mutilating the female creature at his feet in an image that suggests a violent rape: “trembling with passion, [I] tore to pieces the thing on which I was engaged” (p. 164). The morning after, when he returns to the scene, “The remains of the halffinished creature, whom I had destroyed, lay scattered on the floor, and I almost felt as if I had mangled the living flesh of a human being” (p. 167). However he has rationalized his decision to murder the female creature, Frankenstein’s “passion” is here revealed as a fusion of fear, lust, and hostility, a desire to control and even destroy female sexuality. To sum up, at every level Victor Frankenstein is engaged upon a rape of nature, a violent penetration and usurpation of the female’s “hiding places,” of the womb. Terrified of female sexuality and the power of human reproduction it enables, both he and the patriarchal society he represents use the technologies of science and the laws of the polis to manipulate, control, and repress women [12] Mary Shelley, Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus, 1818, edited by D. L. Macdonald and Kathleen Scherf, 3rd ed., Peterborough: Broadview, 2012, page 157.

Kun(s)t

Destroying the Female

The remains of the halffinished creature, whom I had destroyed, lay scattered on the floor, and I almost felt as if I had mangled the living flesh of a human. 12

Kun(s)t

5 She’s Alive!

Kun(s)t speak t Stark and Zoe examples of au women who we carry on the es female creatur

Kun(s)t

to Micheala Ligon as utonomous we believe ssence of the re today.

When it comes to picking out lingerie, most of us have been conditioned to look for the most flattering options, with garments that lift and support, highlight our ‘best bits’, and definitely don’t dig into our flesh all high on the agenda. It goes without saying that these outdated ideals of perfection, imposed on us by our patriarchal overlords and the mainstream media, are complete and utter bullshit. Our lumps, bumps, and rolls are not the ‘imperfections’ we have been led to believe they are, but a completely normal side effect of being a human with a body, and even something to be celebrated. Micheala Stark retorts back at Frankenstein who insists the sexist aesthetic that women be small, delicate, modest to be considered beautiful.

Micheala Stark

Opposite page: (Michaela Stark’s self-portrait (2020) in body sculpting corset and lingerie. Artwork from the Second Skin series.

Kun(s)t

Could you tell me a little about the themes accentuate the part I feel most insecure of your work and what its all about? about in that moment. I’ll continue to manipulate my body until I feel I’ve made my ‘imperfections’ look beautiful. When My work is about celebrating the parts I feel happy with my cellulite or fat rolls of the body that society usually makes us or whatever, then I know I have my final feel insecure about, through lingerie that shape and can move on to the pattern accentuates the ‘imperfections’ of the body: cutting part. the fat rolls, bulges, cellulite, uneven breasts, body hair etc. My aim is to counteract all the You talk about feeling insecure about prescribed beauty norms that have been your body, but your pictures evoke a force fed to us through the fashion and huge amount of confidence. How do you beauty industries. channel this energy when you’re being photographed? Where do you find inspiration? I mostly use myself as a model and I’m inspired by all the parts of my body that I feel insecure about – working through my feelings is a major part of my design process. I always start with my own body and a loosely fitting garment, which I drape over myself while looking in the mirror, although some days I just want to avoid my reflection altogether. When I’ve draped the garment over myself, I try to sculpt it to

Wearing lingerie is kind of like wearing armour for me. It makes me feel confident and allows me to channel this fantasy alter ego version of myself. My photographs, which are usually self-portraits, are as much a part of my art as the lingerie is. By the time I’ve reached this stage, I’ve already been through all the emotional labour. I’ve tackled my insecurities and created a garment that allows me to feel 09

Kun(s)t

My work is about celebrating the parts of the body that society usually makes us feel insecure about, through lingerie that accentuates the ‘imperfections’ of the body: the fat rolls, bulges, cellulite, uneven breasts, body hair etc. My aim is to counteract all the prescribed beauty norms that have been force fed to us through the fashion and beauty industries.

Kun(s)t

body. My work is not so much the hiding – it’s more enhancing, enhancing, enhancing! I use the same techniques couturiers use to make the parts we usually don’t want others to see bigger and more prominent. I want to celebrate the body, not hide it away. In terms of aesthetics, I would say my lingerie is unapologetically feminine. The pieces are soft, romantic, and colourful, and I love to use delicate silks Why did you make the move from clothing and very feminine, sensual silhouettes. It’s really important to me that each piece is into lingerie? specifically designed to perfectly fit and complement the body of the person who is I’ve always loved lingerie – it makes me feel going to wear it, whether that’s myself or a sexy and just gives me a lot of confidence. client. When I’m wearing it, I feel like I’m playing Given social media’s censorship rules, out a fantasy, almost tapping into an alter- it must be hard to present the kind of work ego. Being a plus-size girl, whose 32FF you make. How do you navigate this? breasts came pretty much right on puberty, I’d always felt a bit left out of the lingerie It’s insanely difficult! I think this a big game. From the age of 14-19 I had to shop challenge for most artists trying to liberate at an outlet story called ‘Big Girls Don’t Cry the female body. At this stage, Instagram (Anymore)’ because it was the only place removes pretty much any photo I upload, in the city that sold my size. As I’m sure you even if there is no nudity. They have can imagine, stores like this don’t stock absolute power to police my body however the beautiful, delicate lingerie that I so they like. The sad truth of the matter is that desperately desired, and every experience women, and plus-size women particularly, going there was totally mortifying. are being censored more than anyone else. It’s sad because I think the fact that they have this power means artists are forced to Can you tell me a little about how you create your lingerie? What is the process comply by their rules behind it? beautiful in my own skin, so in the photos I emanate a sense of confidence because I really am feeling confident. It also helps that I’m taking the photo. It means I’m in control of the image and of how my body and sexuality is going to be portrayed. It’s important I feel confident in the photos, because the whole point is to help others who see my work to feel safe about their

Each piece is completely one-of-a-kind and can take up to a month to make because they’re so intricate. I guess you could say I’m working as a ‘counter-couturier’ of sorts. Couturiers engineer their garments to solely focus on hiding and enhancing the

Find more at @MichealaStark on Instagram . 09

What Victor Frankenstein truly fears is female sexuality as such. A woman who is sexually liberated, free to choose her own life, her own sexual partner. Zoe Ligon is not here to judge, she is here to help us unlearn the shame around sexuality, especially with women. She will help people wade through the funny, weird, and emotional world of sex. Really, the only thing the 26-year-old sex educator and Spectrum owner won’t do is shame folks about where they are in their personal sexual journey. Instead, Zoe advocates for the idea that one can (and should) continue to learn about pleasure and desire throughout their life. Sex can usher in feelings of giddiness, power, and elation — but sometimes stirs up weird, embarrassing, and uncomfortable emotions, too.

Zöe Ligon How did you first discover your own sexuality growing up? I was not sexual at all as a young person. I felt really uncomfortable when there was any sexual energy projected onto me, especially by adults or people much older than me, so I hid. I tried to be as devoid of sexual energy as possible. My first erotic memory, however, was a fantasy about being restrained in a box and my crush rescuing me. How has your sexuality evolved since then? I’ve identified as heterosexual for most of my life, but I currently feel that pansexual more accurately describes my sexual and romantic attraction. I’m also a kinky bottom who wishes they were a power bottom. As far as my sexuality journey, sometimes I feel like I’m taking steps backward, then

Opposite page: (Michaela Stark’s self-portrait (2020) in body sculpting corset and lingerie. Artwork from the Second Skin series.

Kun(s)t

having to remind myself that they’re all steps forward. I went from having no sexual desire to being recklessly sexual in an effort to quell the subconscious psycho-sexual issues that plagued me for a lifetime. Now, I find myself in more of a place of harmony with those issues.I am currently balancing my voracious sexual appetite with my need to be loved and cared for in a non-sexual, intimate manner. When I first became sexual, I had a lot of sex in order to be physically intimate with people because I thought there was no other way to achieve that. I went from having no sexual desire to being recklessly sexual in an effort to quell subconscious psycho-sexual issues that plagued me for a lifetime. How do you think young people’s current sexual education and attitudes about sexuality differs from the way it was when we were coming of age? I was not sexual at all as a young person, 09

Kun(s)t

I personally crusade for myth busting and shedding light on the most uncomfortable, taboo subjects. I envision a world where pleasure is no longer associated with sin and shame. I want world leaders to have such mind blowing orgasms that war and violence doesn’t even cross their minds.

Kun(s)t

begin to teach porn literacy as a part of sex education. As far as non-porn media goes, there may be shows featuring non-monogamy, kink, and LGBTQIA+ identity, but they are still tokenized. I think it’s impossible to know how attitudes have changed given that people don’t exactly research sexual attitudes (and when they do, it’s often biased.) I felt that the way the students of How do you think young people’s current Stoneman Douglas High School organized was an inspiring example of how younger sexual education and attitudes about sexuality differs from the way it was when people aren’t willing to be complacent as many of us millennials have been. we were coming of age? I felt really uncomfortable when there was any sexual energy projected onto me, especially by adults or people much older than me, so I hid. I tried to be as devoid of sexual energy as possible. My first erotic memory, however, was a fantasy about being restrained in a box and my crush rescuing me.

Let’s talk about the sex education. It’s hard for me to say as an ancient 26 What do you find most people need year old, but I certainly have faith in our a refresher on? What common young people. I learned about transgender misconceptions do you see? identity towards the end of high school, but my nieces had friends in middle school I personally crusade for myth-busting and who identified as transgender. Things are shedding light on the most uncomfortable, discussed a bit more openly now, that’s taboo subjects. Circumcision, childhood for sure. That’s just one piece of anecdotal trauma, mental illness, and nuanced evidence from a very progressive bubble, areas of consent are all important to talk however.I think entertainment and media about. But those aren’t the things I am is the best gauge on this. Porn has asked about on a daily basis. I am most adversely affected the younger generation frequently asked about the myth of vibrator more than millennials, simply because tube addiction/desensitization and homophobic sites weren’t a thing when we were little. fears of prostate stimulation.People are The Butterfly Effect with Jon Ronson is a also convinced that there is one single fantastic series that sums up this dynamic product that is “best” (like, what’s the best quite well. I love porn, but without context vibrator ever? The best harness ever?) it is damaging to developing healthy Everyone likes different things, because attitudes towards sexuality. On top of that, everyone is different! I cannot emphasize adults can’t bring themselves to accept this enough. that kids will find porn, no matter how much they think they control what their kid sees. If you try to find sex education online, you’ll I love that you find ways to let comedy, probably encounter porn first. We must experimentation, and sexuality exist in the 09

deserves to be, and access to unbiased, comprehensive education around sex/ relationships/identity. Lastly, I want world leaders who are having such mind blowing I think this is just me. I can’t not have a orgasms that war and violence doesn’t even sense of humor about it. I’m glad it naturally cross their minds opposes the fear-driven sex ed approach (... which is most “sex ed”). Once I realized that humor and curiosity resonates more with people and helps dismantle the taboos more than eroticism, I just let that aspect of me blossom a bit more I suppose. same space. Did you make a conscious choice to take this approach?

What’s the best sex advice you’ve ever received?

Take care of yourself. Seriously, just take care of yourself and the rest will come.

What’s the worst sex advice you’ve ever received? The entire Sex and the City enterprise.

Here’s a big one: how would you like to see us, as a society, progress re: sexuality? I envision a world where pleasure is no longer associated with sin and shame, marginalized identities are not fetishized, and there are sex/trauma/kink/nonmonogamy/gender-aware mental and medical health professionals available through universal healthcare.I want bodily autonomy to be valued as much as it

Find more at @Thongria on Instagram .