Imaginary And Symbolic Orders, And The Power Of Language In Mary Shelley's Frankenstein

Since Mary Shelley's novel Frankenstein was published in 1818, its popularity has indeed been prodigious. But academic criticism of this novel has been thin until the last twenty years. Now the novel has been gradually taken quite seriously for its possible effect on a popular audience, revaluated and admitted to the high-culture pantheon of Romanticism. Critics analyze it from various kinds of perspectives.According to Lacan's theories about the imaginary and symbolic orders, gender and language, and feminists' drawing on the ideas of Lacan, the present thesis purports to join the two aspects together, and then try further exploration in a psychoanalytic reading of Frankenstein with feminist components. Mary's novel describes clear human's path to the Symbolic orders from Imaginary orders and what will happen if something goes wrong in this process; moreover, she also stresses the essential role of language in it, especially in the aspect of gender identity.This paper consists of five chapters.Chapter 1 presents the critical history of Frankenstein, with emphasizing the previous feminist and psychoanalytic readings on the novel.Chapter 2 presents Lacan's theories on the imaginary and symbolic orders, gender and language, which functions as theoretical frame in this reading. This part firstly looks back the origin of psychoanalytic approach to literature, and secondly describes Lacan's theories on the imaginary and symbolic orders, gender and language, as well as the feminists' drawing on the ideas of him.Chapter 3 makes a detailed discussion about the concepts of imaginary orders and symbolic orders reflected in Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, and the relationship between them as well. The novel describes vividly the contrast between the world of the mirror-image, or double (the Imaginary), and that of kinship, language, and social life (the Symbolic). And this novel in turn demonstrates that the symbolic order's insistence on denying the Imaginary comes at the cost of excluding the maternal body. This part focuses on two points. The first is the relation among the image of mother and two leading characters in this novel (Victor Frankenstein and the monster), and the second is the monster's path to monstrosity.Chapter 4 concentrates on the functions of language in the building of Symbolic orders, especially of women's identity, which is clearly showed in the novel. Rather than being a reflection of society, rather than merely adding to knowledge, language determines knowledge and society. According to Lacan's theories on language and feminists' point of view, it is language that builds the Symbolic system; language is a realm of...