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In her book Romanticism and Gender, Anne Mellor, borrowing Carol Gilligan's term "an ethic of care," posits what she terms a feminine Romanticism, an ethic concerned with the cultural and psychological benefits of community and domestic relations. Mellor contrasts this feminine Romanticism with the individual, idealistic quests for political reform which comprise what she accordingly terms masculine Romanticism. She states:
In opposition to the revolutionary Promethean politics urged by the young Wordsworth and Coleridge, by Blake, Godwin, and Percy Shelley, a program that advocated radical social change and utopian transformation of the social and political order, the women writers of the Romantic era offered an alternative program grounded on the trope of the family-politic, on the idea of a nation-state that evolves gradually and rationally under the mutual care and guidance of both mother and father. (65)
It is this ethic of the family-politic, first formulated by Mary Wollstonecraft, that Mary Shelley advocates in Frankenstein through the De Lacey family, as "[T]he Frankenstein family embodies a masculine ethic of justice, one in which the rights and freedoms of the individual are privileged...In contrast, the De Lacey family embodies a female ethic of care in which the bonding of the family unit is primary" (Mary Shelley: Her Life, Her Fictions, Her Monsters, 125). In Frankenstein, however, the effects of Victor's solipsistic experiments, the creature, are rendered incompatible with the domestic affection of the De Lacey's. The female ethic of care fails to provide positive alternatives to counteract the destructive elements of masculine Romantic ideology. Whereas Anne Mellor sees the irreconcilability of these two ethics as a central theme in Frankenstein, she does not acknowledge the potential that Shelley presents in The Last Man for a unification of the male ethic of justice with a female ethic of care.
Other recent criticism on The Last Man has focused on the nihilistic aspects of this novel.[3] Morton Paley sees this novel as a critique of masculine imagination's failure to bring about social reform, for he finds Adrian's idealism to be "solipsistic, offering only an escape from a grim reality" (113). Barbara Johnson's and Audrey Fisch's essays take up deconstructive arguments which see the text as an attempt to undermine patriarchal institutions such as government or any masculine, hegemonic construction which subordinates women and foreigners. Due to the novel's ending, these nihilistic interpretations are valid in their pessimistic reading of the novel, but they are shortsighted insofar as they tend to regard this novel only as another attempt by Mary Shelley to reiterate her critique of the destructive aspects of masculine Romantic idealism. They have not focused on the novel's positive aspect, which is an attempt to unite community with Romantic ideology.
In order to support this reading, I would like to draw on pertinent biographical details of Mary Shelley's life. Mary Shelley wrote The Last Man in 1826, almost ten years after she had finished Frankenstein. During this ten-year period, several tragic events had occurred which motivated her to reconsider the possible values of both community and Romantic idealism. Between 1815 and 1819, while living in Italy, Shelley had given birth to four children, three of whom died before they ever reached their second year.[4] In 1822, Percy's death by drowning forced her to leave Italy with their only remaining child and return to England. Shelley's journal entries from 1822 to 1826 reflect her deepening sense of isolation. On May 14, 1824 she writes, "The last man! Yes, I may well describe that solitary being's feelings, feeling myself as the last relic of a beloved race, my companions, extinct before me" and on May 15, the day that she learned of Byron's death in Greece, she laments, "Why am I doomed to live on seeing all expire before me...at age twenty six I am in the condition of an aged person-- all my old friends are gone" (Mary Shelley, The Journals of Mary Shelley, vol. 2 476-78). In the wake of the isolation she felt at the deaths of her husband and children, as well as their community of friends, it can be suggested that Shelley came to value even more the benefits of domesticity and community.[5]
Mary Shelley's grief over the loss of her husband manifests itself in the idealized portrait of Shelley which emerges in her journal entries. The January 18, 1824 entry reads: "My Shelley (dear dear name...oh my Shelley-- Shelley-- was unequaled-- will he not be unrivalled?" (Journals, vol. 2 473). This idealization of Shelley is also evident in her annotations to the 1824 edition of Percy Shelley's poems, which she edited and published. Of his poem Prometheus Unbound, she remarks, "Shelley loved to idealize the real-- to gift the mechanism of the material universe with a soul and a voice, and to bestow such also on the most delicate and abstract emotions and thoughts of the mind" (The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Byssche Shelley 161-62). With the death of her husband, and through her annotations to his poetical works, it appears as though Mary Shelley was attempting to recuperate the masculine idealism of her husband in order to reconcile it with domestic, communal comfort. I want to argue that this attempt resulted in the novel, The Last Man.
The Last Man has been commonly believed to be a roman a clef, and it seems as though through the literary creation of the characters Mary Shelley is attempting to bring back the friends and loved ones that she had lost in life. Specifically, Mary's idealization of Percy Shelley in the poems and journal entries is reflected in the figure of Adrian, Earl of Windsor. Adrian is the son of the dethroned monarch of England who instead of attempting to restore his throne ardently supports the egalitarian ideals instituted by the new republican form of government. The republican state of England in this text reflects Percy's ideals for utopian political reform, and this egalitarian system as well seems to represent the family-politic that Anne Mellor describes as being a feminized form of government. Adrian's "craving for knowledge" and "impetuous courage" as well as his "love of freedom" (32), are all characteristics that Mary Shelley had bestowed on her husband in her journal entries and her editorial work. Adrian even resembles Shelley physically, as Lionel Verney, the novel's narrator and often considered to be a self-representation of Mary Shelley within the text, describes him as "a tall, slim, fair boy, with a physiognomy of the excess of sensibility and refinement" (25-26).[6]
Through the figure of Adrian, Shelley's attempts to reconcile the political idealism of her husband with domestic community. On a local level, it is Adrian who transforms Verney from a child of the wilderness into a learned, social being. Adrian, through nurturing and compassion, brings Verney into a form of social community. On a more political level, Adrian shares Percy Shelley's desire for mankind's ability for self-improvement:
Oh, that death and sickness were banished from our earthly home! That hatred, tyranny, and fear could no longer make their lair in the human heart...the choice is with us; let us will it, and our habitation becomes a paradise. For the will of man is omnipotent, blunting the arrows of death, soothing the bed of disease, and wiping away the tears of agony. (Mary Shelley, The Last Man76)
This remark echoes a comment that Mary Shelley had made in her annotations to Percy's poem, Prometheus Unbound, "Shelley believed that mankind had only to will that there should be no evil, and there would be none" (Complete Works 161). This remark also echoes Victor Frankenstein's desire to create a species of life that would be immune to death and disease. Adrian's speech, however, focuses his political idealism on creating a greater good for the community, as opposed to Victor's self-glorifying quest to become like God through the creation of life. Adrian's quests appear to be rooted more in material community than in abstract idealism.
Shelley's attempt to balance political idealism with domestic affection in the novel is also evident in the personal relationships that define the community at Windsor. Raymond, a power-hungry lord that resembles the real-life Lord Byron, actually rejects a politically advantageous marriage and marries his true love, Perdita, who is Verney's sister. This allows for the eventual marriage between Idris, the sister of Adrian, and Verney. The two couples live in domestic harmony at Windsor among friends and relatives in the early years of their marriage, as Verney remarks, "Our lives were a living comment on that beautiful sentiment of Plutarch, that `our souls have a natural inclination to love, being born as much to love, as to feel, to reason, to understand, and remember'" (92). When Raymond decides to campaign for the position of the Protector of England, Shelley brings the close-knit community of the two families from the isolated, idyllic sphere of Windsor to the larger political community of London. This move suggests that community, and domestic affection, do not have to remain separate from masculine idealism and political quests.
In this respect, Shelley attempts to revise the domestic harmony of the De Lacey family in Frankenstein. While the De Lacey family was by itself a stable domestic community, it could not withstand outside social forces, such as the creature, intruding into its inherently isolated structure. In The Last Man, the split between the domestic and the public arenas is not so sharply defined. Raymond's wife, Perdita, actively participates in his political activities. Once he is elected Lord Protector, Raymond goes about his political reforms and social improvements of England. Perdita, as the Lady Protectress of England, supports his political career while sharing his hope and fears, "Her love gave birth to sympathy; her intelligence made her understand him at a word; her powers of intellect enabled her to assist and guide him" (120). Their union seems harmonious and egalitarian, as Perdita counsels Raymond with her intelligence, intellect, and above all, love. Both the marriage of Raymond and Perdita and their ascension to the roles of Lord Protector and Lady Protectress of England appear to be the ultimate union of masculine, political idealism with domestic affection.
However, Shelley's representation of Perdita and Raymond as a harmonious union between idealism and domesticity is soon qualified. When Raymond begins an affair with Evadne, the exotic Greek, he becomes estranged from Perdita, and eventually flees to Greece to fight in their war against Turkey. Although Perdita follows him to Greece and they briefly reunite and reconcile, Raymond is killed in the invasion of a city that has been struck by the plague. Perdita then kills herself rather than live without her husband. This episode marks the first instance of Shelley's qualification of the union of idealism with domesticity. Raymond's exploits in Greece dismantle the unity between masculine idealism and domestic community, for his quest in the East destroys not only his marriage, but the community that the couples had created among themselves in London. Like Victor Frankenstein, Raymond eventually pursues an individualistic quest for glory at the expense his family's domestic happiness. Through Raymond's exploits, Shelley begins to demonstrate that despite the seeming congruity between idealism and domesticity, masculine quests and feminine affection ultimately cannot be unified.
Shelley intensifies the irreconcilability of masculine idealism with domestic affection by introducing to the community an even greater threat than male egotism: the plague. The plague has been interpreted in various ways, but almost all critics of the novel view it as the final, devastating critique of masculine Romantic ideology.[7] According to Audrey A. Fisch, the plague deconstructs hierarchical social orders, but at the expense of human life. She states, "[T]he Plague ruthlessly insists on the equal humanity of all and on the spuriousness of categories used to make distinctions. But, of course, all this is done at a tremendous cost" (Fisch 272). Fisch makes the important observation that while the plague initially brings about an egalitarian community in which everyone is rendered equal in the face of death, this equality is ultimately qualified by the almost complete extinction of humanity.
Lee Sterrenberg offers an illuminating critique of the plague in his essay, "The Last Man: Anatomy of Failed Revolutions." Sterrenberg believes that the plague represents Mary Shelley's critique of Percy's Promethean politics which advocated an extreme, revolutionary reorganization of the social order. Despite the fact that Percy Shelley had witnessed the damaging effects of the French Revolution, the militarism of Napoleon, and the reactionary politics advocated by the Congress of Vienna, he still remained idealistic about the possibilities for social reform.[8] Mary Shelley, by creating a plague that ultimately destroys the ideals for social reform advocated by the male Romantics, qualifies her husband's idealism, even though it was this very idealism that she glorified in her annotations to Percy's poems. Because of the unmediated annihilation that the plague enacts on mankind, the plague thus becomes a metaphor for the destructive effects of the excessive political idealism advocated by men such as her husband.
The initial resistance to the plague in the novel seems to support both Mary's ideals for community as well as Percy's ideals of an egalitarian social order. Before the plague actually comes to England, the English government grants asylum to refugees from the Continent who are trying to escape the disease. Once the plague arrives in England, the novel places an even stronger emphasis on communal resistance to the plague, a communal resistance which advocates egalitarianism. Verney describes how the plague rips apart the social fabric of the nation, reducing all classes and races to an equal level:
As the rules of order and pressure of laws were lost, some began with hesitation and wonder to transgress the accustomed uses of society. ...We were all equal now; magnificent dwellings, luxurious carpets, and beds of down were afforded to all...We were all equal now; but near at hand was an equality still more leveling, a state where beauty and strength, and wisdom, would be as vain as riches and birth. (317)
However, even though the outbreak of plague furthers the emergence of an egalitarian framework for the English nation, this egalitarian system is undermined by the fact that it is only in the face of death that it is possible. While Shelley prioritizes the fact that an egalitarian system of domestic community emerges from the fight against the plague, this system ultimately is qualified by death.
Shelley eventually qualifies the idealism, namely the idealism of Adrian, with which the characters in the novel regard their efforts to defy death as well. Once the plague arrives in England, Adrian becomes the Lord Protector. Adrian sees this role as the means through which his idealistic belief in the power of the human may be implemented. He tells Verney, "This is my post; I was born for this-- to rule England in anarchy, to save her in danger-- to devote myself for her" (255). Although Adrian's desire to aid England in her time of need is noble, it is not without qualifications. Adrian's ascension to the role of Protector is overshadowed by the fact that it comes at a time when half the world is already destroyed by the plague. Thus, it is ironic when he claims, "I can be the first to support and guard my country, now that terrific disasters have laid strong hands upon her." (255). Even as the Protector, Adrian's idealism is ineffectual against the devastating effects of the plague.
Shelley furthers her critique of Adrian's idealism by demonstrating how this idealism fosters a patriarchal, solipsistic attitude towards the other surviving members of the community. Adrian's desire to save England from disaster is always prefaced by the fact that it is he, and he alone, who can save her. Towards the novel's end, Adrian convinces the two remaining survivors, Verney and Clara, to sail to Greece despite their apprehension about sailing in stormy weather. Adrian tells Verney, "though it's not exactly what you wish, yet consent, to please me" (440). Like Raymond, or even Victor Frankenstein, Adrian eventually forsakes the good of the community in order to pursue his own quests and desires. Fittingly, Adrian and Clara are drowned in a shipwreck. Audrey Fisch has noted, "the cost of [Adrian's] quest for perfection in leadership is illness and death for the people" (Fisch 275), and this escapade of Adrian's is no exception, for the shipwreck leaves Verney as the last man on earth.
With Adrian's death, Shelley not only critiques masculine desire for adventure and power, but she also thoroughly destroys any chance for human regeneration. The possible union of Adrian and Clara is the only non-incestuous hope for human regeneration on earth. According to Mellor, "even as Mary Shelley paints Adrian as a paragon of benevolence, idealism, courage, and self-sacrifice, her resentment cracks this perfect facade. Adrian never marries, never accepts the responsibility for a family" (Mary Shelley 149). Mary Shelley's own resentment at Percy for his neglect of both her and their children's needs during their marriage may be manifested in this facet of Adrian's character.[9] Even as she sets out to idealize Adrian in the novel, or Percy in her annotations to his poems, Mary Shelley ultimately cannot condone the masculine idealism that her husband championed, for its consequences eventually destroy the domestic community. Percy's desire to "idealize the real" produces negative consequences for the domestic sphere, for it leads him to pursue egotistical, idealized quests rather than face the material needs of his wife and children.
The Last Man ends with the failure of masculine Romantic imagination and idealism to integrate itself within a feminine model of domestic affection. Despite her attempt to reconcile her husband's idealism with domesticity, Mary Shelley seems to render integration impossible, for the masculine desire for abstract idealism eventually destroys community, both on the local and global level. Whereas Raymond's betrayal of the domestic destroys the community of friends, Adrian's idealism eventually destroys the hope of human regeneration. And of course, the plague's devastating effects bring about the ultimate qualification of idealism by extinguishing the human race. Thus, even as Shelly attempts to recuperate the Romantic idealism of her husband within a material, communal space, she ultimately presents a stronger, more complex condemnation of masculine Romanticism than she could ever have imagined in Frankenstein. In terms of its ultimate qualification of Romantic idealism, The Last Man becomes Shelley's most hideous progeny.
Fisch, Audrey, Mellor, Anne K., and Schor, Esther H., eds. The Other Mary Shelley: Beyond Frankenstein. New York: Oxford University Press, 1993.
Fisch, Audrey A. "Plaguing Politics: AIDS, Deconstruction, and The Last Man." The Other Mary Shelley: Beyond Frankenstein. Eds. Fisch, Mellor, and Schor. New York: Oxford University Press, 1993: 267-286.
Johnson, Barbara. "The Last Man." The Other Mary Shelley: Beyond Frankenstein. Eds. Fisch, Mellor, and Schor. New York: Oxford University Press, 1993: 258-266.
Mellor, Anne K.. Mary Shelley: Her Life, Her Fiction, Her Monsters. New York: Methuen, 1988.
------. "Possessing Nature: The Female in Frankenstein." Romanticism and Feminism. ed. Anne K. Mellor. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1988: 220-232.
-------. Romanticism and Gender. New York: Routledge, 1993.
Paley, Morton D. "The Last Man: Apocalypse without Milennium." The Other Mary Shelley: Beyond Frankenstein. Eds. Fisch, Mellor, and Schor. New York: Oxford University Press, 1993: 107-123.
Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein, or The Modern Prometheus. New York: Oxford University Press, 1992.
------. The Journals of Mary Shelley: 1814-1844. 2 vols. Paula R. Feldman and Diana Scott-Kilvert, eds. New York: Oxford University Press, 1987.
-----. The Last Man. New York: Oxford University Press, 1994.
Shelley, Percy. The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Byssche Shelley.
George Edward Woodberry, ed. Cambridge, MA: The Riverside Press, 1901.
Spark, Muriel. Mary Shelley. New York: E.P. Dutton, 1987.
Sterrenberg, Lee. "The Last Man: Anatomy of Failed Revolutions." Nineteenth Century Fiction 33 (1978) 324-47.