Sažetak This paper explores how Mary Shelley used the unprecedented motif of male
procreation to both acurrately describe and harshly criticize the unfavourable position of
women in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Inspired by Mary Wollstonecraft, her
mother and also one the earliest feminist writers, Shelley depicts the inevitable negative
outcomes of the strict gender division in the society. This meant that the public sphere of life
was regarded as the male realm, while the private or emotional sphere of life represented …

This paper explores how Mary Shelley used the unprecedented motif of male procreation to
both acurrately describe and harshly criticize the unfavourable position of women in the
eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Inspired by Mary Wollstonecraft, her mother and also
one the earliest feminist writers, Shelley depicts the inevitable negative outcomes of the strict
gender division in the society. This meant that the public sphere of life was regarded as the
male realm, while the private or emotional sphere of life represented the female realm …