How does Victor Frankenstein usurp the role of women and God in the opening chapters of the novel?.
In the opening chapters of the novel, Frankenstein is shown to usurp the role of God and women through his use of language relating to God's role in creating life and women's role in childbirth. He is also shown to directly criticise male-female reproduction, and attempts to steal God's role as the father. Mary Shelley may have written ideas like this into her novel due to the fact that her mother died when she was young, and that she had a miscarriage. Additionally, she may have been warning over-zealous scientists about the boundaries of scientific discoveries.
Frankenstein can be seen to usurp the role of women due to Shelley's use of mythical allusions. Throughout chapters four and five, Shelley's uses language that makes specific and implied reference to the moon. The moon here represents Diana, Goddess of the moon and of childbirth, and Shelley uses this inference to suggest that women are watching Frankenstein as he usurps their role in the creation of life. The comparison between women and the moon can also be inferred through the idea of a ˜monthly cycle'. The moon orbits the Earth in a monthly cycle, which is a parallel for the monthly cycle of menstruation. This parallel means that the suggestions Shelley makes about the moon, and therefore women, more obvious and powerful. Frankenstein says "The moon gazed upon my midnight labours ", and this use of pathetic fallacy suggests that Diana, representing all women, is watching Frankenstein's work, with the word "gazed " implying that women are watching almost in awe, showing that Frankenstein has become more powerful than them. Since he is more powerful than them, this would suggest that Frankenstein has usurped the role of women. In chapter five, Frankenstein is woken from his dream about Elizabeth and his mother "by the dim and yellow light of the moon, as it forced its way through the window shutters " and the use of personification here connotes that women are angry as a result of Frankenstein usurping their role in childbirth.