Naslov
Mary Shelley's Gendered Apocalypse in The Last Man

Autori
Domines Veliki, Martina

Vrsta, podvrsta i kategorija rada
Poglavlja u knjigama, znanstveni

Knjiga
Re-examining Gender Concepts and Identities in Discourses and Practices across Periods and Disciplines

Urednik/ci
Ćirić Fazlija, Ifeta ; Đuliman, Selma

Izdavač
University of Sarajevo

Grad
Sarajevo

Godina
2022

Raspon stranica
205-219

ISBN
978-9926-491-07-9

Ključne riječi
Mary Shelley, The Last Man, Romanticism and gender

Sažetak
The apocalyptic vision of the world and the figure of the last man enter British literature with the 1806 translation of Jean-Baptiste de Granville's fantasy novel Le derniner homme (1805). It is less known, however, that Mary Shelley's last novel The Last Man (1826) takes up the same theme to talk about England in 2073 ravaged by a virus and leaving a single man on Earth. In writing this novel Shelley is trying to make sense of her own life riven with loss and death but she also questions gender relations in terms of seeing herself as the last man, widowed and abandoned by family and friends. In the complex network of human relations she presents in the novel, Shelley exposes both toxic masculinity and femininity and thus, complicates early-nineteenth-century notions of gender. Therefore, by analysing its central characters, this paper will use the methodology of the ethics of vulnerability (Gilson, Ganteau) and caring (Noddings) in order to talk about the intricate web of social relations Shelley presents in the novel. These terms have gained new momentum during the Covid-19 pandemic and show Shelley's universal engagement with everlasting questions of how vulnerable humanity is and why we should take care of each other.

Izvorni jezik
Engleski

Znanstvena područja
Filologija

POVEZANOST RADA