Jessica Hale’s “Constructing Connectedness: Gender, Sexuality and Race in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein,” examines how the forces of globalization, imperialism and New World slavery have an impact on gender, sexuality and race in Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein. Hale says that the destructive scientific pursuits of Victor Frankenstein show the problems of a world dominated by men. Hale further continues to support her thesis by showing examples of homosocial relationships in Frankenstein. She also explains how Freud’s “Beyond the Pleasure Principle” tie into the novel by using the correlation of body of the monster, sexuality and death. Lastly, Hale talks about how the issues of gender and sexuality portrayed in the novel have a deeper meaning than that pursued by the psychoanalytic theory. Although Frankenstein can be viewed as a portrayal of the nineteenth century society, Hale argues that Frankenstein is “undeniably a critique of Romanticism, colonialism and imperialism as potentially destructive even deadly, paradigms.”

One example of close reading of a passage from Frankenstein is on page 13 of the criticism, where Hale explores the homosocial relationships in the novel. Hale argues that Robert Walton has a homosocial longing. She backs up this thought with a direct quote from the novel written by Walton, “I desire the company of a man who could sympathize with me, whose eyes would reply to mine” (4). Hale analyzes this line and concludes that Walton uses the language of erotic desire to express a longing for a male companion, rather than the longing for a woman.

One secondary source used in the criticism is from Schoene-Harwood’s journal entry “Writing Men: Literary Masculinities from Frankenstein to the New Man.” She uses a direct quote from his article to further support her thoughts that Frankenstein portrays Homosocial Relationships. By using a quote from this article she gives more validity to what she is saying.

At first glance I did not know what the psychoanalytic theory was. After looking it up on google I learned that it is a method of investigating personality disorders. It also contains the idea that the things that happen during childhood contribute to the way people function as adults. I learned that these theories can be applied to analyzing literature because they can be used to explore textual meaning in the context of the representation of culture in the present day society of the author.