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Mary Shelley’s most famous novel, Frankenstein, was written when she was 18. Shelley was frequently compared to her famous mother, Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, who died when Shelley was 10 days old. Her father remarried, and Shelley never attained a positive relationship with her stepmother. She had run off with an already married man, much to the disdain of her famous father, and was spending the summer at Lake Geneva. This particular summer was historically significant, as 1816 was called “The Year Without a Summer,” due to the catastrophic results of the eruption of Mount Tambora. During this gloomy season, Shelley and her friends decided to write horror tales. Shelley’s was terrifying, and her friends encouraged her to continue writing it. Shelley’s life was shrouded in tragedy. Along with her mother dying and her father remarrying, Shelley witnessed several of those close to her committing suicide. First, Shelley’s half-sister, Fanny, committed suicide. Then, her husband’s former wife also died by drowning herself. It was in this era of back-to-back tragedy that Shelley completed her novel. As a result, the novel is rich with the idea of grief and loss. The main character, Dr. Frankenstein, feels an enormous sense of guilt over the deaths of those around him. Additionally, the novel is quite dark, reflecting the state of mind that Shelley was in at the time.

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Mary Shelley's Haunted Life
By Caroline Macon Fleischer

This article was originally written for Lookingglass Theatre Company's production of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein.

Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley was born in 1797 to two exceptional writers. Her father, William Godwin, was an acclaimed journalist and political philosopher. Her mother, Mary Wollstonecraft, was the author of the radical book, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, among other celebrated works.

Mary's mother developed an infection during childbirth. She survived the birth, but tragically died ten days after. The death of Mary's mother left a profound impact on her life-as she grew up, she was frequently compared to her in beauty and personality.

When Mary was four years old, her father remarried a woman who was not fond of Mary. The woman, Jane Clairmont, moved in with her two children. When she gave birth to a third child in 1803, Mary's alienation became amplified. She felt removed from her family and from her father's affection.

When Mary grew into a teenager-and began to act and look more like her mother-Jane became fed up and sent her away for two years to Scotland. In her later writing, Mary described Scotland as a "blank and dreary" time of her childhood, but the bleak and boring days allowed her to begin creating fictional tales. In spite of her own lack of excitement, she started to explore other identities in her imagination.

In 1812, Mary returned to England to visit her father. During the trip, she met Percy Bysshe Shelley, a young poet her father had befriended and mentored. During this stay in England, Percy was accompanied by his wife, Harriet Westbrook. Despite Percy's marriage, he and Mary had an obvious interest in one another.

When Mary returned to England in 1814 and saw Percy again, they swiftly fell in love. They ran away together to travel around Europe, leaving Harriet, Percy's wife, heartbroken. Mary's father adamantly disapproved of their union, and it wounded his life-long, tumultuous relationship with Mary.

Mary and Percy believed in the concept of free-love, which in the Romantic era was specifically anti-marriage. Followers of free-love believed that anyone should be allowed to love anyone, even outside legal and societal constraints. Although idealistically on board, this put some strains on their relationship. For instance, it was suspected that Mary's stepsister Claire Clairmont and Percy had a child together.

Besides the calamity that surrounded their relationship, Mary and Percy felt passionately for one another. Percy was a Romantic poet who encouraged Mary to write.

In 1815, Mary gave birth to her first daughter prematurely. The girl only lived two weeks before she died. Stricken with grief, the Shelleys moved to Bishopsgate, but Mary soon became pregnant again. In 1816, she gave birth to a son, William, who she named after her father.

1816 was called "The Year Without a Summer." The eruption of Mount Tambora caused a global catastrophe. Heavy smoke and volcanic ash disrupted the stratosphere, blocking sunlight. The loss of sun caused cold temperatures, darkness, and a food shortage around the world.

During this gloomy season, the Shelleys traveled for a vacation in Lake Geneva. There, they stayed with their friends-Lord Byron, Dr. John Polidori, and Mary's stepsister, Claire Clairmont. (These five make up the characters of our play). During their trip to Geneva, the group resided in the Villa Diodati, and stayed up late discussing scary German ghost stories. At Lord Byron's suggestion, the friends competed in a competition of original ghost stories.

In the end, Mary's was the most hauntingly successful, and grew into the tale we now know as Frankenstein, or The Modern Prometheus. But as Mary set off to continue working on the novel, she received the news that her half-sister, Fanny, had committed suicide. Then, just one month later, the Shelleys heard that Harriet, Percy's former wife, drowned herself at age 21.

Notwithstanding her grief, Mary worked on the book for two more years. Frankenstein was published on New Year's Day in 1818. Though it should have been a happy time, death continued to follow Mary. In September, her youngest daughter died at one year old, and the following year, her son William died as well.

All told, Mary had five children with only one surviving-Percy Florence, named after her beloved and the city he was born. Despite his love for Percy Florence, Percy Shelley experienced chronic nervousness and panic attacks due to all the death in his life. During a dark spell in 1822, he traveled out on a sailboat and drowned to death in a storm. After his death, Mary tried to continue to write, but cycles of depression and sorrow kept her from it.

From 1827-1840, Mary was able to write prolifically again. She worked as both a writer and editor. She published several original works in those years, and edited the writings of Percy Shelley and her father. In the 1840s, Percy Florence married a woman who Mary adored, so she was surrounded by loved ones as she aged.

In 1851, Mary died of a brain tumor. After she died, her family cleared the contents of her writing desk. In it, they found locks of her dead children's hair, as well as a parcel of Percy's cremated heart, wrapped in one of his last poems, Adonais.

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Mary Shelley's Haunted Life By Caroline Macon Fleischer This article was originally written for Lookingglass Theatre Company's production of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley was born in 1797 to two exceptional writers. Her father, William Godwin, was an acclaimed journalist and political philosopher.

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Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein occurs at an unspecified moment in the late 1700s. However, Shelley conceived the novel at the height of the Romantic period. During this time period, there were many political, economic, scientific, and social changes. Frankenstein is in conversation with many of these subjects. Mary Shelley showed interest in John Locke’s work, wherein he is shown to believe that character is acquired through experiences, not as a result of biological factors. This is reflected in Shelley’s writing since she writes Frankenstein’s Creation as changing continually through his experiences. She also employs Rousseau’s idea that “the child is the father of the man,” meaning that children are often considered superior in wisdom and spirit, due to their innocence of spirit. This is reflected in Shelley’s initial representation of the character of the Creature, who initially “was benevolent” (Shelley 89), but strayed toward evil as his kind actions were not reciprocated. Furthermore, there was a fascination with gothic, dark, and mysterious themes during the Romantic period. This gloomy outlook is undoubtedly reflected in Shelley’s work, as the novel contains very dark themes. Furthermore, Shelley wrote about scientific advancement in her book. In the novel, Frankenstein’s Creature comes to life through Dr. Frankenstein’s obsessive scientific labor.

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Mary Shelley conceived her creature at the height of the literary and philosophical period called Romanticism. The forces that marked this period were the many changes that were being carried out, such as political (French and American revolutions), economic (from rural to urban economy and the beginnings of the industrial revolution), scientific (discoveries in medicine, neurology, electricity, and chemistry), and social (growing importance of education of the masses).

Mary Shelley introduces her very original story in the midst of this historical turmoil, and her story is closely involved with most of these changes in some way or another. Romanticism permeates all of Mary's life and work.

Her father, William Godwin, and her mother, Mary Wollstonecraft, were crucial exponents of this era. Both were very famous thinkers representing the philosophical values of their time with a highly revolutionary nature.

Her mother, Mary Wollstonecraft, was a feminist militant. She had written 'A Vindication of the Rights of Woman' (1792), where she asserted that intellectual companionship is the ideal of marriage and pleaded for equality of education and opportunity between the sexes.

Moreover, her 'Vindication of the Rights of Men' (1790) clearly shows Mary Shelley's mother's deep feelings to fight for the rights of human beings and the abolition of all sorts of human slavery, something that our writer later takes on again so as to defend her creature's position and to make us, readers, ponder about how cruel scientist Victor Frankenstein was to leave his creature all by himself, depriving the fiend of the bare essentials: "But where were my friends and relations? No father had watched my infant days, no mother had blessed me with smiles and caresses... I had never yet seen a being resembling me, or who claimed any intercourse with me. What was I?" (Frankenstein 110)

Similarly, Mary Shelley's father, William Godwin, voiced the political ideas of the French Revolution in his 'Enquiry concerning Political Justice' (1793). Here, Godwin also presents his objections to the social order of the times and expresses his profound belief in human beings' power of reason.

In the meantime, Mary Shelley showed great interest in John Locke's 'Essay Concerning Human Understanding' (1689), which can be clearly seen in her novel, since Locke considered that character is acquired rather than innate "and we can surely perceive this principle in Mary's conception of the creature. What is more, she had also read Rousseau's Emile" (1759).

In it, Rousseau held the idea that we had to "educate for the development of natural virtue", where nurture is more important than nature (Jean Jackes Rousseau 37-38).

Lilian Furst, in her book 'Romanticism' provides a definition of Romanticism which particularly suits the creature Frankenstein: "In general a thing is romantic when, as Aristotle would say, it is wonderful rather than probable; in other words, when it violates the normal sequence of cause and effect in favour of adventure... the savage, the peasant, and above all the child."

Frankenstein is a vivid example of the Romantic spirit of the wild, the rough, and the innocent. However, all these characteristics we find in the creature are later twisted in the wrong direction by society, which changes the creature for the worse and turns him into a fiend.

Another romantic principle that permeates the story is, "The child is the father of the man" (Rousseau 38). Children (in much the same way as the creature Frankenstein) are conceived as superior in spirit and wisdom when compared to adults. Because of their ingenuity and innocence, they are far purer than the mature beings that compose society.

For the romantics "the return to Nature" (Rousseau 38) was crucial. In Frankenstein this is clearly seen since the creature turns to and depends on Nature for survival. Having been deprived of nurture and the motherly love that every child is entitled to, Nature is for him the main way to learn on its own about the outside world.

The laws of nature were considered by the romantics to be the best and safest choice to avoid mistakes. In his search for a cure to all illnesses, Victor also claims to be following the laws of nature. But in the creation of the monster, however, he contradicts himself because what he is trying to do, looking at his work from a different perspective, is to violate the natural death of people and play God by giving life to a very "unnatural" creature. Therefore, when the creature turns to nature, he should be good-natured and benevolent, but in fact, he is not so because he is missing the nurturing from his creator (Rousseau, in Emile).

As Victor Hugo mentions in the 'Preface to Cromwell' (1827), romanticism mingles "the grotesque with the tragic or sublime" (65). This is also true in Mary Shelley's case, since her mingling of the grotesque with the sublime is evident in the portrayal of this "gross" creature and the sublime spirit she allotted to it.

The romantics showed a fascination with the Gothic, the demonic, and the mysterious. Lilian R. Furst puts it so: "Strange though it seems beside the traditional romantic cult of beauty, this penchant towards the darkly mysterious aspects of life represents another facet of the romantic interest in the exceptional and also the urge to explore the uncharted." (29)

This fascination for the gothic and the mysterious is also present in Mary Shelley's novel.

We can assert that Frankenstein is a truly romantic story, conceived by a truly romantic author whose own life was fully romantic as well. When she wrote 'Frankenstein' in 1818, Mary Shelley was only twenty. However, she had already eloped, at the age of sixteen, with a married man and famous writer, Percy B. Shelley, thus, showing her truly free spirit devoid of all pre-established rules and conventions.

On the other hand, however, Frankenstein also reveals that Mary Shelley was well acquainted with the scientific materialism that permeated her times. Her work presents both the romantic and the materialistic views, very subtly.

A further conception of the creature can be described as a product of the scientific advances of the moment, when scientists, like Victor Frankenstein, attempted to be like God, with the terrible consequences this dreadful sin carried out for the creature and his creator.

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The Cultural Historical Context of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein - Atmostfear Entertainment

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Mary Shelley conceived her creature at the height of the literary and philosophical period called Romanticism, and Frankenstein became the spirit of the wild, the rough, and the innocent

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This painting was created in 2018 by Spanish artist Maja Hydbom. The work depicts an androgynous person whose face is obscured by a bird singing into its ear. The bird’s tail is tucked under the person’s necklace, resulting in the appearance of the bird and the person being one entity. This relates to the essential question, as it deals with the issue of nature versus nurture. In this case, the artist depicts a person who has not been nurtured. The name of the painting, “Nature Without Nurture,” implies that if a person is not nurtured, their “nature” will take over. This painting is powerful, as it reminds us that our biological predispositions do count for something. Although how people are raised certainly impacts in how they turn out, people are not necessarily born with tabula rasa - the idea that we are born as a blank slate, and solely a product of our experiences.

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Pablo Neruda was a Nobel Prize-winning poet. His poem, “Keeping Quiet,” relates to the idea of how humanity has the ability to live in peace with one another. Neruda writes that “perhaps a huge silence / might interrupt this sadness / of never understanding ourselves / and of threatening ourselves with / death.” Neruda believes that humans are not necessarily born evil. Still, the community we are surrounded by is not facilitative to us understanding ourselves, so instead we start “threatening ourselves with death.” Neruda’s view is that the way we are treated and our experiences drive our lives, not our biological predispositions. He writes that humans are driven by duty - to themselves, to their countries - but if we took a break, we could all be brothers. This relates to the Creature’s view of what nurture should be in Shelley’s Frankenstein. The Creature holds the belief that “they would be disgusted, until, by my gentle demeanour and concilitating words, I should first win their favour, and afterwards their love” (Shelley 103). The Creature holds the same belief as Neruda, that the world can be more nourishing if we are able to look past our previous cold-blooded arguments and prejudices, if we were able to “stop for a second, / and not move our arms so much.”

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"Beyond Nature vs. Nurture, What Makes Us Ourselves?" - Non-Fiction

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"Beyond Nature vs. Nurture, What Makes Us Ourselves?" - Non-Fiction

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This article reviews David J. Linden’s non-fiction work, Unique, which is in conversation with the idea of upbringing v. biology. The issue of nature vs. nurture has been a fascinating ongoing debate for hundreds of years. David J. Linden, a researcher who has spent years polling about and researching this issue, believes that the answer lies somewhere in between. Linden’s book, Unique, explores the idea that “while there might be a genetic tendency to develop in a particular way, there’s a wide range of influences, beginning in fetal life, that help determine how and whether our genes are expressed.” Furthermore, the article mentions that Linden makes it clear that “there is no evidence for significant average differences in intelligence-related genes between ‘races’ . . . Not only that, there is no evidence for racial group differences in genes that have been linked to any behavioral or cognitive trait.” This is significant, as it illustrates just how much our environment can affect how we turn out. Perceived differences of behavior or cognition in cultural groups is as a result of our experiences. Humans can be born into any culture, and adopt the norms of their birth culture. This is illustrated in Frankenstein, as the first culture that the Creature becomes engrossed with is one that values kindness. Therefore, he declares, “This trait of kindness moved me sensibly.” The Creature’s first interaction with the subculture of a nuclear family made him believe that kindness was the primary human trait. However, if the Creature had initially been spying on a cruel family, he could have easily adopted their ideals. Eventually, this does become the case. Frankenstein is only treated with cruelty, so he believes he must inflict this same treatment on others.

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Beyond Nature vs. Nurture, What Makes Us Ourselves? (Published 2020)

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In “Unique,” David J. Linden distinguishes those traits that are entirely genetic from the murkier category of qualities that are a combination of heredity and experience.

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Us (2019) is a widely revered psychological horror film. While the film can withstand several interpretations, one that is extremely noticeable is the concept of nature versus nurture. The film centers around a family, the Wilsons, who learn that they (along with the rest of the United States populace) have genetic counterparts. These genetic counterparts, called “The Tethered,” are genetically identical to their non-tethered companions. The only difference between the Tethered and the humans is their upbringing. However, the viewer can see an immense difference between the two identities. The Tethered, having been raised underground, have nothing but animosity towards their counterparts. The humans, having been raised to have the whole world at their disposal, do not feel the same rage that the Tethered do. The differences in personality of these split-personalities is not due to genetic differences. In the nature v. nurture debate, this film lies solely in the realm of nurture. Frankenstein also deals with the idea of a person who has been simply wronged by circumstance seeking revenge. The Creature seeks revenge on his creator as the Tethered aim to murder their halves in the film.

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This article was published in Scientific American, written by Robert Plomin, an American-British psychologist and geneticist. Plomin argues that “in the Nature-Nurture war, Nature wins,” and that “environmental influences are important, too, but they are largely unsystematic, unstable, and idiosyncratic.” The writer believes that our experiences don’t drive our lives, our genetic makeup does. Furthermore, Plomin argues, our environments have a largely genetic impact. He states, “We select, modify and even create our environments in line with our genetic propensities . . . For example, parental negativity correlates with their children’s antisocial behavior, but this doesn’t mean the parents cause their children’s antisocial behavior. Instead, this correlation is substantially caused by parents responding negatively to their children’s genetically-driven propensities.” This alluring idea is clearly on the “nature” side of the debate. Plomin further believes that studies on twins reared apart have shown that we would essentially be the same person had we been raised in a different family. Also, since these differences are “unstable and idiosyncratic,” they can not be accounted for. In contrast, our DNA is the “consistent, lifelong source of psychological individuality, the blueprint that makes us who we are. A blueprint is a plan.” Plomin goes on to argue that while our environment does matter, it matters far less than we think it does. On the other hand, genetics matter far more. This particular scientific case argues that genetics mark people for life, and are far more impactful than their “nurture” counterparts. While this may be true, many scientists tend to argue that both nurture and nature factor significantly into how a person develops.

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In the Nature-Nurture War, Nature Wins

Environmental influences are important, too, but they are largely unsystematic, unstable and idiosyncratic

By Robert Plomin
This article was published in Scientific American's former blog network and reflects the views of the author, not necessarily those of Scientific American
When psychology emerged as a science in the early 20th century, it focused on nurture, the environmental causes of behavior. Environmentalism-not the ecological kind, but rather the view that we are what we learn-dominated psychology for decades. From Freud onward, the family environment was assumed to be the key factor in determining who we are. In the 1960s geneticists began to challenge this view. Psychological traits such as mental illness clearly run in families, but there was a gradual recognition that family resemblance could be due to nature (genetics) rather than nurture (environment) alone, because children are 50 percent similar genetically to their parents.

During the past four decades, scientists have conducted long-term studies on special relatives like twins and adoptees to test the effects of nature and nurture. This research has built a mountain of evidence showing that genetics contributes importantly to all psychological differences between us. In fact, inherited DNA differences account for about 50 percent of the differences between us, in our personality, mental health and illness, and cognitive abilities and disabilities.

The word "genetic"can mean several things, but here it refers to differences in DNA sequence, the 3 billion steps in the spiral staircase of DNA that we inherit from our parents at the moment of conception. It is mind-boggling to think about the long reach of these inherited differences that formed the single cell with which we began life. They affect our behavior as adults, when that single cell with which our lives began has become trillions of cells, all with the same DNA. They survive the long and convoluted developmental pathways between genes and behavior, pathways that meander through gene expression, proteins and the brain. The power of genetic research comes from its ability to detect the effect of these inherited DNA differences on psychological traits without knowing anything about the intervening processes.

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Understanding the importance of genetic influence is just the beginning of the story of how DNA makes us who we are. Studying genetically informative cases like those of twins and adoptees led to some of the biggest findings in psychology because, for the first time, nature and nurture could be disentangled.

One of the most remarkable discoveries is that even most measures of the environment that are used in psychology-such as the quality of parenting, social support and life events-show significant genetic impact. How is this possible when environments have no DNA themselves? Genetic influence slips in because the environment is not randomly "out there" independent of us and our behavior. We select, modify and even create our environments in line with our genetic propensities. Correlations between such so-called environments and psychological traits don't necessarily mean that the environments cause the traits. For example, parental negativity correlates with their children's antisocial behavior, but this doesn't mean that the parents cause their children's antisocial behavior. Instead, this correlation is substantially caused by parents responding negatively to their children's genetically-driven propensities.

A second crucial discovery is that the environment works completely differently from the way environmentalists thought it worked. For most of the 20th century, environmental factors were called nurture because the family was thought to be crucial in determining environmentally who we become. Genetic research has shown that this is not the case. We would essentially be the same person if we had been adopted at birth and raised in a different family. Environmental influences are important, accounting for about half of the differences between us, but they are largely unsystematic, unstable and idiosyncratic-in a word, random.

The DNA differences inherited from our parents at the moment of conception are the consistent, lifelong source of psychological individuality, the blueprint that makes us who we are. A blueprint is a plan. It is obviously not the same as the finished three-dimensional structure. The environment can alter this plan temporarily, but after these environmental bumps we bounce back to our genetic trajectory. DNA isn't all that matters, but it matters more than everything else put together in terms of the stable psychological traits that make us who we are.

These findings call for a radical rethink about parenting, education and the events that shape our lives. It also provides a novel perspective on equal opportunity, social mobility and the structure of society.

The nature-nurture war is over. Nature wins, hands down.

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Environmental influences are important, too, but they are largely unsystematic, unstable and idiosyncratic

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Does nature or nurture shape children into adulthood? - TedTalk, Autumn Wang

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Does nature or nurture shape children into adulthood? - TedTalk, Autumn Wang

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In her TedTalk, Autumn Wang argues that nurture is what truly shapes who we become. Wang has spent her childhood ferried between China and North America, moving 7 times in 14 years. Over the course of her life (so far), Wang has noticed just how much her environments have affected her. Wang states that children are more shaped by their experiences. She provides an example, citing that her education in North America taught her to value creativity and to see making mistakes as a part of the process, but her experience in China taught her to seek perfection and to value hard work over creativity. It is easy to see how different schooling environments could raise a child who values creativity, or one that values hard work. While Wang is aware of the different circumstances that she has been raised in, many people are very unaware of just how different their set of values would be if they were raised in a different environment. She states, “nurture is what makes you you.” In a different environment, she argues, we would be totally different people. Wang’s idea is in line with the psychological theory of tabula rasa, which essentially means that people are born as blank slates, and our experiences mold us like clay.

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Autumn Wang: Does nature or nurture shape children into adulthood?

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Adolescence is the paved walkway to everybody's maturity. Maturity is not an event; it is a process that is affected by every factor pushing our growth into adulthood. Through the understanding of our own growth processes, we can better analyze ourselves, and the world around us.