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3.2. Shelley as woman writer of science fiction 
Donawerth examines in her work Frankenstein’s daughters: woman writing 
science fiction (1997) to what extent women in a world mostly dominated by 
male power were able to write about a male theme, namely science. She asks 
how women could write science fiction, if science denied them access to be 
agent-scientists and considers nature to be female in order to exercise control 
over it (178).
As a boy, “the world was to [Frankenstein] a secret which [he] desired to 
divine“ (Frankenstein ii, 35) and he early felt “the enticements of science“ (iv, 
48). He felt “gladness akin to rapture“ through his “earnest research to learn 
the hidden laws of nature” (ii, 35). His “object of pursuit” (iv, 49) was “the inner 
spirit of nature” and “the physical secrets of the world” (ii, 36). After showing 
enthusiasm for alchemists, Frankenstein quickly realizes that their knowledge 
is obsolete. At college, he is again fascinated by science. His professor, M. 
Waldman praises “the modern masters” of science who “penetrate into the 
recesses of nature and show how she works in her hiding-places” (iii, 46).
Donawerth emphasizes master and her: Frankenstein represents the male 
scientist who wants to dominate the female nature. The scientist chases after 
nature, exposes her and reveals her, infiltrates her, and pleasures in his 
mastery (xix). 

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Furthermore Donawerth points out how Shelley gives her female voice 
to a male issue:
For Mary Shelley, male narration, of course, was a solution as well as a 
problem, as it has become for many later women writers of science fiction: male 
narration allows a woman to enact vicariously a tale of adventure, a triumph of 
science, in a sexist society that rarely allows the female person such freedoms 
(Donawerth xxiv).
In women’s science fiction, women “redefine science and its discourses so 
that science responds to women’s issues (such as reproduction)” (Donawerth 
178) as Shelley did in Frankenstein, ‘giving birth’ to an artificial human.