Through depicting four kinds of relational trajectories (familial, homosocial, sexual and racial) and using psychoanalytic theory, Hale addresses Shelley’s implicit concern on the forces of globalization, imperialism and New World slavery in her article, “Constructing Connectedness: Gender, Sexuality and Race in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein”. My favorite part is the familial part in which Hale illustrates that the domestic and extra-familial spheres are not mutually exclusive. She uses the relationship between Alphonse and Caroline and between Vitor and Elizabeth to prove her idea that this family in Frankenstein is an embodiment of the universal gender inequality in which wives submit to husbands’ protection and care and young girls are given like prizes to men.

One close reading of Frankenstein is about Victor’s thoughts when he encounters the gaze of the monster, “A new species… would owe their being to me. No father could claim the gratitude of his child so completely as I should deserve theirs.”  This quote shows completely Victor’s narcissistic quality. Actually what he loves about he creature, the monster, is his own psyche reflected in the monster’s gaze. In addition, the secondary source that Hale uses is a quote from Schoene – Harwood,”men who feel secure enough in their masculinity to display feelings of domestic affection…who seem perfectly balanced in their manliness which incorporates rather than categorically excludes the feminine.” This quote explains the homosocial relationship between Alphonse and Henry and reason that men exclude feminine from their own companionship. However, Hale does not use the quote to explain her idea; instead, she develops her own idea based on part of the quote. This quote only serves to as a beginning of her point that Henry and Alphonse both have feminine, nurturing qualities.

When I first saw the word ‘homosocial’, I misunderstood it to have a similar meaning as ‘homosexual’. But as I read the following paragraphs, I find that homosociality actually does not mean an erotic, sexual relationship between same sex but rather an most intimate and intense relationship in which both men express a longing for one another without actual sex drive. This is my understanding of this word, but I was not very sure about it so I looked it up in Wikipedia. In Wikipedia, ‘homosociality’ means same-sex relationships that are not of a romantic or sexual nature, such as friendship, mentorship, etcetera.

In sum, by using close reading, secondary source and appropriate terms, Hale expertly analyzes the four trajectories in Frankenstein.