A short introduction to the genre The Gothic Novel A short introduction to the genre

Origins Gothic novel reaction against Augustan ideals (many feature fights between fathers and sons) Some elements found in earlier ballads (the supernatural, witches, ghosts, ghouls, drowned sailors knocking on girls’ windows) Violence of Renaissance drama which was then coming back in vogue The rise of Methodism, wilder than Anglicanism Influence of Rousseau: nature and primitives

Gothic versus Mainstream Mainstream is realism, Gothic is emotional, extravagant, irrational Gothic plays on awe, ectasy, disorder and is often deliberately anti-intellectual or nonintellectual Gothic refers to a form that is frowned upon in architecture….

Mary Shelley Father Godwin celebrated writer, champion of justice for all, proposes that Man is perfectable Mother Mary Woolstonecraft, feminist avant la lettre, dies 11 days after Mary is born Mary feels guilt about Mother’s death Meets married Shelley when she is 16, affair, more guilt, miscariage of daughter, even more guilt Percy Shelley advocates free love, pair elopes with sister-in-law Claire Clairmont in tow Mary is very intelligent and interested in science

Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein Snowy summer of 1816 Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin, age 19, and her husband-to-be Percy Bysshe Shelley, visited Lord Byron at the Villa Diodati by Lake Geneva Reading Fantasmagoriana, an anthology of German ghost stories, Byron challenged the Shelleys and his personal physician John William Polidori to each compose a story of their own, the contest being won by whoever wrote the scariest tale.

Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein Mary’s idea after nightmare during which she saw "the pale student of unhallowed arts kneeling beside the thing he had put together." This was the germ of Frankenstein. Byron wrote a short bit on the vampire legends heard while travelling Balkans, from this Polidori created The Vampyre (1819), the progenitor of the romantic vampire literary genre.

Influences Recent experiments and philosophies Mary’s mind much on still-born child Guilt about suicide of Shelley’s wife The feeling of being cast out by society (all three were..) Mary’s father had written a gothic novel about a man who was hounded (Caleb Williams) The Rime of the Ancient Mariner (the obsessed narrator)

What’s new about Frankenstein? Not a supernatural ghost but a real, ‘created’ monster Much of story takes place in society, not in dungeons or castles No barely hidden sexuality in the story Legend of Prometheus (violation of the contract between God / the gods and Man)

Very short plot Captain Walton discovers a Dr Frankenstein in the Arctic Through letters he recounts the doctor’s life Monster created in chapter 5! Monster created with ‘materials’ and imbued with ‘the spark of life’, no mention here of thunder and electricity Frankenstein abhors his creation, it escapes

Very short plot Frankenstein’s brother is killed, Justine accused and hanged but Frankenstein knows whodunnit Monster tries to befriend villagers but fails as they get frightened Frankenstein meets monster again in the Alps, agrees to make him a mate, but reneges Monster vows revenge, on F.’s wedding night: it kills F.’s friend Clerval, and after the wedding Elisabeth, F’s wife, too.

Very short plot Frankenstein wants revenge He follows the monster everywhere, finally to the Arctic region After telling Walton his story, he asks him to kill the monster if he dies before he can do it himself. F. dies. Just after his death, the monster arrives finds his creator is dead and decides to build a funeral pile for himself, leaves the ship and disappears on his ice-raft in the darkness.