The Traumas of Child Birth & Frankenstein
April 17, 2015
DeVry University
The Traumas of Child Birth and Frankenstein
The most beautiful experience a women can be a part of in life is supposed to be child birth. Bringing another life into this world through a natural process is a very touching and personal occurrence. With how beautiful this happening sounds to be, there is a down side. Along with child birth comes pain and trauma. Having to push another body out of yours causes physical and mental scars that will always stay with you. One particular woman that understood pain very well was author Mary Shelley. With her experiences and stories to share, Shelley created the first, as some say, science fiction novel, Frankenstein. In this dark novel, Mary introduces Frankenstein, a young man who seeks to create life. Successfully creating someone out of animal and human parts, Frankenstein turns on his hideous yet caring creation. This begins the end of Frankenstein’s life for leaving his creation forever. Shelley had many hidden messages throughout her novel about her personal fears of labor, what the child would be like and if she could be good enough. In this research paper, I will dissect Shelley’s novel and discuss how it portrays her fears of being a mother and giving birth.
To get a deeper understanding on Shelley’s novel and why she wrote Frankenstein, it is best to get to know the author first. Growing up, “Mary was familiar with death. She was herself an orphan, her mother having died due to complications of childbirth when Mary was eleven days old. Mary’s half-sister and Percy’s first wife both committed suicide” (D’Amoto, 2009). Later on in life when Mary found her love, Percy Shelley, she was never able to keep a child. Pregnancy after pregnancy, Mary would suffer from miscarriages. This is when she started to give up hope and thought she wasn’t suitable to be a mother. Finally, Percy and Mary...