The Death of Maternity : Decaying Female Bodies in Mary Shelley's Fiction [abstract]

Abstract

In this paper, I examine the trope of the dying woman in Mary Shelley's early works, including Frankenstein, Mathilda, and her short fiction. Critics are in general agreement that two of Frankenstein's essential subjects are the trauma of creation and the dire consequences of child abandonment. Mary Shelley's fiction is riddled with dead mothers and young women wasting away as a result of male action. Maternity is appropriated by patriarchy in Mary Shelley's fiction; this usurpation of motherhood is always at the expense of the female body. Mary Shelley creates worlds in which procreation is malecentered and results in the destruction of otherwise fertile female bodies.