Frankenstein

Background Information  Parents: Radical free-thinking intellectuals and champions of the under-privileged: William Godwin, Mary Wollstonecraft, famous feminist writer, who dies from complications due to childbirth (of Mary Shelley-born 1797, who never forgives herself for “killing” her mother).  Mary meets Percy Shelley (argued by some to be England’s greatest poet) when she is 14 and they run off to France and Switzerland when she’s 16. He is still married at the time, and she is apparently pregnant (she loses the baby by miscarriage).  When they return to England, they find themselves financially ruined and at the center of an enormous public scandal regarding their relationship.

1816: Harriet Shelley, Percy’s wife, commits suicide as does Fanny Imlay, Mary’s half-sister (who purportedly had an affair with Percy). 1816: Percy then legally marries Mary Percy drowns July 8, 1822 at age 29 in a boating accident in Italy. Depressed and penniless with a son to raise alone, Mary forced to move back to England which she hated because of the lack of morality and the poor social conditions. She continued to be shunned by writers and the general public because of her scandalous relationship with Percy. At age 48 she became an invalid, and died in 1851 of a brain tumor.

Events of the Day which had major influence on Mary Shelley and Frankenstein:  1. The French Revolution  2. The Industrial Revolution  3. Science  4. The Romantic Era (in England):

The Birth of Frankenstein  In the summer of 1816, nineteen-year-old Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin and her lover, the poet Percy Shelley (whom she married later that year), visited the poet Lord Byron at his villa beside Lake Geneva in Switzerland. Stormy weather frequently forced them indoors, where they and Byron's other guests sometimes read from a volume of ghost stories. One evening, Byron challenged his guests to each write one themselves. Mary's story, inspired by a dream, became Frankenstein. When I placed my head upon my pillow, I did not sleep, nor could I be said to think.... I saw--with shut eyes, but acute mental vision--I saw the pale student of unhallowed arts kneeling beside the thing he had put together. I saw the hideous phantasm of a man stretched out, and then, on the working of some powerful engine, show signs of life, and stir with an uneasy, half-vital motion. Frightful must it be; for supremely frightful would be the effect of any human endeavor to mock the stupendous Creator of the world.Mary Shelley, from her introduction to the third edition of Frankenstein

Gothic Elements  1. Setting in a castle or in a remote setting. Isolation is extremely important  2. An atmosphere of mystery and suspense  3. An ancient prophesy or a mystery that needs to be explained  4.Omens, portents, visions, hallucinations  5.Supernatural/inexplicable events  6.Intense emotional experiences  7.Women in distress or threatened by tyrannical male  8. Language of Gloom and Horror

Major Gothic Themes Prevalent in the Novel  Humanity and Frailty  Reflections of the Human Psyche--The best and worst in us.  Natural Supernaturalism--Nature holds mystery and power.  Victimization—In the novel, who is the “victim”?  Nature as a Dark Force  The Loss of Innocence  The Dangers of Science and Technology

Motifs  Stifling Air/Suffocation  Supernatural Elements  The Monster as a Hero  Mechanization  Hands  Domestic Violence  Dreams/Visions/ Hallucinations  Forbidden Knowledge  Dangerous Science  Beauty

Characters  Victor Frankenstein  The Creature  Elizabeth  Henry  Justine  William  Alfonse  Caroline  The Peasants  Robert Walton  Drs. Waldman and Kempe