This study explores the formation and evolution of Mary Shelley's philosophy of sympathy, one which she continued to revise and refine throughout her lifetime. Her novels, journals, and letters reveal a persistent desire to understand what she perceived to be a deeply fraught emotion, a moral sentiment grounded in paradox. Engaging with the Moral Sense philosophy of Anthony Ashley Cooper, the third earl of Shaftesbury (1671-1713), Francis Hutcheson (1694-1746), David Hume (1711-1776), and Adam Smith (1723-1790), Shelley insists that sympathy lies at the very heart of our ethical being, encouraging recognition of and respect for the other. Yet, as she demonstrates in her fiction-from Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus (1818) to Falkner (1837)-when felt to excess, sympathy can mutate into an unnatural and harmful emotion capable of provoking antisocial, immoral, incestuous, and even suicidal behaviour. More than this, Shelley's investigation of sympathy exposes its serious limitations. Predicated on a similarity to self, sympathy, Shelley suggests, often fails when confronted with difference. Finally, through multiple perspectives, Shelley illustrates the complex and contradictory motivations behind sympathy, showing that it can arise from genuine benevolence, self-interest, or a combination of the two, an entangling of intentions that serves to further complicate this moral sentiment. Ultimately, Shelley's philosophy of sympathy acknowledges its shortcomings and potential dangers but nonetheless celebrates sympathy as a social virtue, as the locus of our moral selves.

In this thesis, I use nonlinear understandings of the palimpsest in two distinct ways in order to explore both how Shelley constructs a palimpsestic relationship between Falkner and Frankenstein, and the ways in which this palimpsestic relationship is thematized through the interactions and identities of Falkner’s characters. In Chapter One, I use the figure of the palimpsest to uncover the untapped affective and philosophic potentiality of Frankenstein and Falkner, a potentiality that reveals itself only by considering each text as being in an intimate, unabating dance with the other. Chapter Two then ingests the figure of the palimpsest and investigates the ways that Falkner engages with what I call the embodied palimpsest of the nineteenth-century woman, whose identity constructs itself through simultaneous acts of effacement and reanimation. Through this kind of reparative reading, I aim to reclaim Falkner from its moneyspinner status and to show its layered complexities of storytelling, theme, and philosophical inquiry. / Thesis / Master of Arts (MA)

No description available.

Denna uppsats ämnar med hjälp av av teorier från ekokritik och posthumanism besvara frågorna hur Mary Shelley i sin roman skildrar relationen mellan natur och människa, samt hur man med utgångspunkt i Frankensteins monster (i uppsatsen refererad till som Skapelsen) kan diskutera begreppet människa. Med ekokritik menas här att studera det mänskliga jämfört med det ickemänskliga samt att också diskutera detta mänskliga, vilket är en av huvudpoängerna inom posthumanism. Den vetenskapssyn och natursyn som var gällande på Mary Shelleys tid var antropocentrisk, en världsåskådning som alltid utgår ifrån människan, och som oftast ger människan högre status än allt annat. I romanen skildras detta genom Kapten Waltons syn på sitt upptäcktsresande, och Victor Frankensteins önskan att besegra döden, eller naturen, genom att skapa en ny varelse, för vilket han får plikta med sitt liv, då han inte klarar det hårda klimatet vid Nordpolen. Det blir alltså naturen som dödar honom. I detta kan ses Mary Shelleys kritik mot ett oansvarigt utforskande av naturen och dess processer. Vid försök att diskutera konceptet människa kan upptäckas att en definition lätt motarbetas genom att inte alla människor passar in på denna definition, och att det också kan finnas andra varelser som helt eller delvis gör det. Saken kompliceras dessutom av att en maskin, en robot, eller en artificiell intelligens, numera kan fungera mycket likt en hjärna, och att den mänskliga hjärnan beskrivs som en serie elektrokemiska impulser. Vi leds att acceptera Derridas tanke att människa inte är något som går att definiera. Även denna diskussion kan ses som antropocentrisk, vilket är en av svårigheterna; att bortse från sin egen kulturs världsåskådning. / The main focus of this essay is to attempt to answer the questions of how Mary Shelley, in her novel Frankenstein or the Modern Prometheus, portrays the relationship between man and nature, and how Frankensteins creature can serve as a starting point in a discussion of the term human. The theories of ecocriticism - here described as the study of the relationship between human and nonhuman - and poshumanism, which contains the premisses for discussing this human, reveal many interesting things about the novel. The scientific approach to the world, and by extension, nature, can in Shelleys novel be considered anthropocentric, which is portrayed as a damaging world-view. Attempts to discuss the concept of human reveals that any definition can be met with resistence and objections. Not all humans meet the criteria of a certain definition, and there may be other creatures that do. The conclusion here may be that the human simply cannot be defined properly.

Feminist analyses of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein have yielded fruitful interpretations that make sense of what might otherwise be considered inessential details in the narrative. Specifically, the anxieties and politics of birth and motherhood have been brought forward as central concerns of the novel. However, given the influence of the liberal, Marxist, and radical strains of feminism in the period that laid the foundations of feminist Frankenstein scholarship (the 1960s-80s), most of this work has focused on the burdens of motherhood, the bonds of womanhood, or the oppressive structure of the family, in some cases accusing Shelley of offering a defense of patriarchy. These influential strains of feminism were themselves influenced by the most dominant theories in philosophical ethics, deontology and utilitarianism, both of which emerged from the same Enlightenment intelligentsia that included Shelley's parents, Mary Wollstonecraft and William Godwin. However, in the 1980s, a line of feminist inquiry began to yield an alternative to influential moral theories: the ethics of care. In contrast to the dominant theories, which tend to laud principle- or calculus-based ethical reasoning that assumes interchangeability of moral subjects, the ethics of care emphasises particular relationships and the fact that people are not interchangeable, having different vulnerabilities, dependencies, and dependents. Most importantly, care ethics accuses traditional ethics of ignoring children altogether, creating the illusion that the paradigmatic moral subject is neither dependent nor obligated in non-voluntary relationships. The ethics of care presents challenges for some strains of feminism, particularly in that it takes as given certain natural differences between all people in terms of abilities and circumstances rather than seek to eliminate such differences, and that it argues in favour of the same self-sacrificing values that many feminists have argued have contributed to women's oppression. Because of this dissent, I have decided to approach Frankenstein from the ethics of care, reading it as a criticism of the masculinist values and assumptions embedded in the emerging moral theories of Shelley's period. I will argue that Victor is emblematic of the detached individualistic ethical reasoner valued by masculinist theories and criticised by care ethicists. The Frankenstein family and the DeLaceys both provide examples of caring relations as contrasts to Victor's behaviour. The Creature, offspring of an incomplete moral theory, is both victim and perpetuator of masculinist individualistic, calculus-based moral reasoning. He is more aware than Victor of the necessity of caring relations, but he follows an ethic of retribution inspired by principle-based theories. He knows he needs a partner, but speaks of her in the language that Victor speaks of him—as property. The glimmer of hope in the novel lies with Walton, who, unlike Victor, is willing to engage in dialogue across difference, and finally to set his high aspirations aside for the well-being of his crew.

This essay challanges one of the worlds most famous horror story, Mary Shelley'sFrankenstein.Who is the monster in this novel? People know the story but they often tend to blend the two head characters, Victor Frankenstein and his creature. Based on the psychoanalysis, founded by Sigmund Freud, this essay argues that Victor Frankenstein is not the nice guy he seems to be. Appearances are not always what they seem and Victor Frankenstein turns into a "monster of the soul" due to suppressed feelings. His creature never stands a chance without any guidence and love. The creature is instead turned into a "monster of the body" since it is constantly badly treated from the start

This dissertation focuses on a Romanticism that was profoundly global in scope, and examines the boundary-crossing literary techniques of William Wordsworth, Percy Shelley and Mary Shelley. These authors saw identity as delimited by artificial borders, and we witness in their work competitions between local and global, immediate and infinite, home and away – all formulated in spatial terms. This thesis argues that by using motifs and philosophies associated with “borderless” global travel, these authors radically destabilized definitions of nature, history, and the home. Wordsworth and the Shelleys saw the act of travel as essentially cosmopolitan, and frequently depicted spaces outside of familiar boundaries as being rich in imaginative vitality. Their fiction and poetry abounds with examples of North American primitivism, radical modes of transportation, and unknown territories sought by passionate explorers. Importantly, they often used such examples of foreignness to rejuvenate familiar spaces and knowledge – these were individuals determined to retain a certain amount of local integrity, or connection with the reluctant minds who feared alien contexts. As such, they were each aware of the fragility of embedded minds, and the connection of these minds to bordered historical contexts. Aware of the dangers posed by uninhibited imaginative movements, they depicted travel as an artistically seductive activity. Their impulse as authors was thus to use global experiences as a tool of literary expression, while refraining from a total abandonment of local responsibility. This dissertation therefore argues that the imaginative experience of space in the Romantic period was profoundly split, tethered on the one hand to custom and familiarity, and on the other aspiring to boundless global freedoms.

This dissertation focuses on a Romanticism that was profoundly global in scope, and examines the boundary-crossing literary techniques of William Wordsworth, Percy Shelley and Mary Shelley. These authors saw identity as delimited by artificial borders, and we witness in their work competitions between local and global, immediate and infinite, home and away – all formulated in spatial terms. This thesis argues that by using motifs and philosophies associated with “borderless” global travel, these authors radically destabilized definitions of nature, history, and the home. Wordsworth and the Shelleys saw the act of travel as essentially cosmopolitan, and frequently depicted spaces outside of familiar boundaries as being rich in imaginative vitality. Their fiction and poetry abounds with examples of North American primitivism, radical modes of transportation, and unknown territories sought by passionate explorers. Importantly, they often used such examples of foreignness to rejuvenate familiar spaces and knowledge – these were individuals determined to retain a certain amount of local integrity, or connection with the reluctant minds who feared alien contexts. As such, they were each aware of the fragility of embedded minds, and the connection of these minds to bordered historical contexts. Aware of the dangers posed by uninhibited imaginative movements, they depicted travel as an artistically seductive activity. Their impulse as authors was thus to use global experiences as a tool of literary expression, while refraining from a total abandonment of local responsibility. This dissertation therefore argues that the imaginative experience of space in the Romantic period was profoundly split, tethered on the one hand to custom and familiarity, and on the other aspiring to boundless global freedoms.

Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein has frequently been interpreted as a cautionary tale of the dangers of medical science and its ambitions. However, by comparing the different narratives in the novel the essay will show that the intention of the novel is quite different. The essay will show that while Frankenstein himself comes to believe that science is the culprit, the narratives by Walton and the creature qualify that view, showing rather that the problem is not science as such but Frankenstein’s abandonment of his creation. The essay begins with a brief introduction to the historical background of the novel, followed by an analysis of the three distinct narratives given by Walton, Frankenstein and the creature, and conclude with a discussion of the findings when comparing their narratives. / Mary Shelleys Frankenstein har ofta tolkats som en varnande berättelse om farorna av medicinsk vetenskap och dess ambitioner. Men genom att jämföra de olika berättelserna i boken så kommer uppsatsen att visa att syftet med boken är ganska annorlunda. Uppsatsen kommer att visa att medan Frankenstein själv tror att vetenskapen är den skyldige, Waltons och varelsens berättelser berättigar denna uppfattning, så är problemet inte vetenskap som sådan utan det faktum att Frankenstein övergav sin skapelse. Uppsatsen börjar med en kort introduktion till den historiska bakgrunden av boken, följt av en analys av de tre distinkta berättelserna från Walton, Frankenstein och varelsen och uppsatsen avslutas med en diskussion av resultaten när man jämför deras berättelser.

No description available.