著者

田中 淑子

出版者

川村学園女子大学

雑誌

川村学園女子大学研究紀要 (ISSN:09186050)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.9, no.1, pp.11-18, 1998-03-15

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"Sense and Sensibility" is a controversial topic in the background of the transition from Classicism to Romanticism. Mary Shelly's Frankenstein reflects the change of the times, working toward a sort of cognitive estrangement from sense and sensibility in the form of domestic affection, education and science. Victor Frankenstein's aims and dangers of scientific discovery not only violate the norm of human culture, but also destroy his domestic affections. But ironically his social isolation is reinforced when his creature Monster finds that he has no link to any other beings in existence and claims his wife to satisfy his hunger for domestic affection. Mary Shelley doesn't seem to believe that enlightenment by sense can be useful in the development of human society, like her father William Godwin, while she also doubts whether sensibility can compensate for what the acquirement of knowledge cannot make up, unlike her mother Mary Wollstonecraft. The book concludes in duality where sense and sensibility cannot reconcile to each other.