Sublimating an Apocalypse: An Exploration of Anxiety, Authorship, and Feminist Theory in Mary Shelley’s The Last Man

Mary Shelley was an early feminist writer, but she has not been recognized as such because of profound misinterpretation of her final novel, The Last Man. Set in the years 2090–2100, the novel is about a plague that obliterates humanity aside from the protagonist, Lionel Verney. As his family and friends perish, Verney journeys alone, and begins to experience psychological and literary anxiety. The novel failed within the conventions of female romance novels of the early 19th century, a category in which it is still often pigeon‐holed. But as the first modern work of apocalyptic fiction, which created a genre now dominated by Stephen King, it was a huge success, for which Mary Shelley is seldom credited. By critically analyzing the novel’s treatment of anxiety of illness and authorship in terms of psychoanalytic theory and juxtaposing these concepts with a long‐standing feminist approach, this article suggests that Mary Shelley’s literary innovations will remain influential in the continuously growing genre of post‐apocalyptic literature in the 20th and 21st centuries. Thematically, the novel also presents a new feminist vision of history, a millennial conflict that requires us to look forward and backward simultaneously. It is also about new ways of recognizing the authority of the female voice in that history, which is normally displaced by the insistence on male authority that comes from historical lineage. The Last Man contests that lineage by showing how apocalyptic narratives can reframe our sense of time and authority.