WMST 2000 Lecture Notes - Lecture 5: Mary Astell, Inbreeding, Aphra Behn

• School: University of Guelph
• Department: Women's Studies
• Course: WMST 2000
• Professor: Amy Butchart

Document Summary

Mary shelley: mary shelley criticizes the oppression of women, but she does not do so overtly. Victor as a well-educated man is extremely interested in achieving scientific insights. By doing this, he flouts the laws of nature. Bearing children is an innate function and prerogative of women. Thus, he intends to create a patriarchal environment that consciously omits women and consists only of men as women are not needed any longer. The fact that all three narrators in the novel are male underlines this point. Since victor"s procreation develops to become the murder of victor"s whole family, mary shelley specifically portrays the consequences of a social construction of gender that values the male above the female.