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Frankenstein inspired by suicide of Mary Shelley’s half-sister, book reveals

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New collection of author’s diary entries provides tragic insight

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Some thoughts on Mary Shelley and Frankenstein.

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Department of English, Arizona State University

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“Mothering Monsters: Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein” by Anne K. Mellor

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⚡ Frankenstein: The Creation, the Monster, and the Tragedy of Ambition! 👁️✨

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The Infinite Monkey Cage - Series 14 - 200 Years of Frankenstein - BBC Sounds

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Catch up on your favourite BBC radio show from your favourite DJ right here, whenever you like. Listen without limits with BBC Sounds.

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Frankenstein complete graphic audiobook read by Steve Parker

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Frankenstein: Birth of a Monster Documentary

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Frankenstein: Birth of a Monster Documentary

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BBC Documentary: Frankenstein: Birth of a Monster (2003)

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Every Monday through Friday, AudioFile 's editors recommend the best in audiobook listening. We keep our daily episodes short and sweet, with audiobook clips to give you a sample of our featured listens.

Perfect Halloween listening, guaranteed to give you chills. Host Jo Reed and AudioFile's Robin Whitten share their thoughts on a classic adapted for the stage-Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. It's a riveting adaptation of a story within a story, as told by Mary Shelley, that is startlingly different from more familiar movie adaptations. Stacy Keach's deep voice is perfect for the monster, who is self-educated and sophisticated, but still a creature of Dr. Frankenstein. Seamus Dever's placid tones recall Captain Walton's rescue of the doctor in the arctic, while smooth-voiced Adhir Kalyan becomes Frankenstein himself, mad scientist and giver of life.

***

To listen to the rest of the episode, as well as the whole archive of Behind the Mic with AudioFile Magazine, subscribe and listen on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play, or wherever else you find your favorite podcasts.

Support for Behind the Mic comes from Blackstone Publishing, a 30-years plus strong independent audiobook publisher that is now also publishing print books and ebooks. This fall, Blackstone is publishing an array of stellar titles-Cecilia Aragon's memoir Flying Free, which tells the odds-defying story of how she became the first Latina pilot on the US Aerobatic Team; the historical fiction novel Escaping Dreamland by NY Times bestselling author Charlie Lovett; the YA dystopian thriller The Key to Fear from NY Times bestselling author Kristin Cast, and Don't Move -a horror novel from Darren Wearmouth and television star James S. Murray. Learn about these and more titles from Blackstone's Fall 2020 list at BlackstonePublishing.com.

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Mary Shelley's Frankenstein Adapted by Kate McAll, Read by Full Cast

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Every Monday through Friday, AudioFile 's editors recommend the best in audiobook listening. We keep our daily episodes short and sweet, with audiobook clips to give you a sample of our featured listens. Perfect Halloween listening, guaranteed to give you chills.

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As the story goes, eighteen-year-old Mary Shelley came up with the idea for Frankenstein one dreary summer night in 1816 while she and the poet Percy Shelley (her then lover, later husband), were vacationing in the Swiss Alps with Lord Byron, who suggested that they pass the time by each writing their own ghost story. "Perhaps a corpse would be re-animated," mused Mary, and the rest is literary history.

When she unleashed Frankenstein upon the world two years later, she did so anonymously. Nevertheless, word got out that the book's author was a woman ( gasp), and the ensuing early reviews were incredibly critical. One particularly misogynistic critic wrote, "The writer of it is, we understand, a female; this is an aggravation of that which is the prevailing fault of the novel; but if our authoress can forget the gentleness of her sex, it is no reason why we should; and we shall therefore dismiss the novel without further comment."

The year before it was released, in anticipation of the myopic critical backlash, Percy Shelley wrote a rave review (sadly unpublished until 1832, ten years after had Percy drowned in the Gulf of La Spezia) of his new wife's remarkable debut.

Take note, literary couples: this is what supporting your spouse in their creative endeavors looks like.
Beware; for I am fearless, and therefore powerful.
"The novel of Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus, is undoubtedly, as a mere story, one of the most original and complete productions of the age. We debate with ourselves in wonder as we read it, what could have been the series of thoughts, what could have been the peculiar experiences that awakened them, which conducted in the author's mind, to the astonishing combination of motives and incidents and the startling catastrophe which compose this tale ... it is conducted throughout with a firm and steady hand. The interest gradually accumulates, and advances towards the conclusion with the accelerated rapidity of a rock rolled down a mountain ... We are held breathless with suspense and sympathy, and the heaping up of incident on incident, and the working of passion out of passion ... The pathos is irresistible and deep ... In this the direct moral of the book consists; and it is perhaps the most important, and of the most universal application, of any moral that can be enforced by example. Treat a person ill, and he will become wicked ... It is impossible to read this dialogue-and indeed many other situations of a somewhat similar character-without feeling the heart suspend its pulsations with wonder, and the tears stream down the cheeks! ... The general character of the tale indeed resembles nothing that ever preceded it ... an exhibition of intellectual and imaginative power, which we think the reader will acknowledge has seldom been surpassed."

-Percy Shelley, Athenaeum, November 10, 1832

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Read Percy Shelley's review of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein.

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As the story goes, eighteen-year-old Mary Shelley came up with the idea for Frankenstein one dreary summer night in 1816 while she and the poet Percy Shelley (her then lover, later husband), were vacationing in the Swiss Alps with Lord Byron, who suggested that they pass the time by each writing their own ghost story.

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Honestly . . . maybe.

It was Mary Shelley's birthday yesterday, and to celebrate her, let's pause for a moment to unpack one of the most frequently-circulated stories about her: that she had sex for the first time on top of her own mother's grave, with Percy Shelley. As sensational as this might sound, it isn't entirely apocryphal-it is a longstanding, accepted hypothesis. But there is also a much deeper context for why the teenage writer would have lost her virginity in this location (beyond her possessing a cool morbidity that has crowned her the Internet's favorite early-nineteenth-century Goth).

The story of this moody consummation actually begins on the night Mary Shelley was born: August 30th, 1797. Mary's mother, the brilliant nonconformist writer Mary Wollstonecraft, would die from complications following the childbirth. Wollstonecraft had been one of the most important writers of the eighteenth century-her 1792 treatise, A Vindication of the Rights of Women, which argues for the equal education of women and men, is the first English-language feminist text, and because of it, she is considered to be "the aesthetic foremother of feminist expository prose," to quote literary scholar Susan Gubar. She had already had a three-year-old daughter, Fanny, from a previous affair with an American businessman named Gilbert Imlay.

According to biographer Diane Jacobs, Little Mary, delivered by an esteemed midwife named Mrs. Blankensop from the Westminster Lying-In Hospital, had been born safely and successfully, but four hours after the birth, Wollstonecraft's placenta still had not been expelled. By now, she was at risk of a fatal hemorrhage, and so Wollstonecraft's lover (and husband of four months), the celebrated political philosopher William Godwin, summoned Mrs. Blankensop's colleague, Dr. Poignard, to assist with the extraction. Wollstonecraft's placenta had not only gotten stuck inside her, but it had also shattered, and Poignard had to remove the pieces, one-by-one, manually. It is understood by historians that he did not wash his hands before this, since this was not the practice at the time, and although he eventually removed all the debris and saved her from hemorrhaging, he also likely introduced bacteria into Wollstonecraft's body which caused the infection that killed her, eleven days later. Little Mary was raised by her father, understanding that her birth was, somehow, what killed her brilliant, famous, spectacular mother at the young age of thirty-eight.

Mary's literary career would be spent reckoning with her complicated relationships with both of her parents; in fact, the literary scholar Sandra Gilbert has famously argued that Frankenstein isn't simply a masculine-focused re-reading of Paradise Lost, as it has long been considered, but a retelling of Mary Shelley's own origin story, as a monstrous baby who wants to be loved by the parent whose life it has also destroyed.

Mary didn't simply grow up without a mother, she grew up with a dead mother. These are very different things. She was taken to her mother's gravestone in the Saint Pancras' Churchyard at a young age, and since they shared the same first name, Mary learned how to write her name from tracing the engraving on her mother's headstone. Indeed, as Gilbert writes, her "only real 'mother' was a tombstone." Thus, Wollstonecraft's grave was the place Mary would turn into her own safe haven. Muriel Spark notes that she lugged her books there, and would read, by herself. Gilbert notes that she fervently re-read her mother's writings, over and over. Her installation at her mother's grave seems to have been an attempt to commune with her mind-to learn from her, as much as possible. As Bess Lovejoy notes in JSTOR Daily, Mary would especially spend time there when her father wound up marrying their annoying next-door neighbor Mary Jane Clairmont in December of 1801, when she was four years old. It was her private, peaceful place. And it was the place where, many years later, she brought the poet Percy Shelley when she wanted to declare her love for him.

Percy Shelley met Mary Godwin in 1812. He was nineteen, she was fourteen. He was a great admirer of Mary's father's work, and joined the family for dinner. The two didn't meet again for two more years, when Mary was sixteen, Percy was twenty-one and by now married to another sixteen-year-old girl named Harriet, with whom he already had a child. It didn't matter. Mary was completely enchanted by Percy, the literary world's up-and-coming bad boy-some of whose poetic compositions were rejected for publication for being too edgy. He was a big spender, and a big believer in free love (excuse me while I roll my eyes forever). Mary's stepmother had been leery of him; according to biographer William St. Clair, she believed that Percy had been flirty with all three young women in their home: Mary, her half-sister Fanny, and their stepsister Claire "Jane" Clairmont, who was only eight months younger than Mary. She believed all three girls had fallen for the handsome poet, whom his good friend Thomas Jefferson Hogg famously claimed looked "wild, intellectual, unearthly."

But Percy and Mary would often sneak off together, taking secret walks. They frequently walked through the churchyard, and read together in Mary's favorite place. On Sunday, June 26th of that same year, Mary Godwin took Percy to the cemetery again. She told him that she loved him first, and he immediately reciprocated. It seems that they did have sex shorty thereafter, since the following day, in Percy's own journals, he wrote that a fantastic thing happened that made him consider that day his new, real "birthday."

Scholars believe that they did have sex for the first time in this place (with Mary's biographer Martin Garrettt acknowledging the long-held "tradition" of this assumption), since the grave was the location for much of their courtship. Indeed, as Gilbert notes, it was the place for most of Mary's emotional activity: "reading, writing, or love-making." But, as Lovejoy notes in her article, it was hardly a macabre setting for them: "the cemetery was not merely a repository of rotting corpses, but a site of knowledge and connection: It was a place where she read to deepen her literary education and her communion with her mother, and a place where she was inducted into mysteries of sexuality. Literary, familial, and carnal knowledge were all bound together in one place." After all, it wasn't only Mary Wollstonecraft's burying ground, but it was also the location of her marriage to Godwin, which took place a mere four months before her death. For mother and daughter, and their lovers, this was a place which collapsed disparate observances of the flesh, where abstract bonds could be made real-new lives, and afterlives, beginning, alike.

On 28 July 1814, Percy left his wife Harriet and eloped with Mary, though they didn't technically wed, since (I'm just going to stress this again) Percy already had a wife. They traveled to France, bringing along Mary's stepsister Claire Claremont, for some reason. William Godwin, Mary's father, an anarchist writer who had once condemned marriage as imprisonment, was not pleased with this situation, especially after he learned about Percy's issues with debt. It seems that Mary had believed her engagement to Percy, and their embracing progressive ideas of free love, would be in line with the radical ideologies held by her own parents, when they had been young. But Godwin grew very distant from his daughter, after she absconded for France, which tortured Mary more.

During their honeymoon, Mary became pregnant, which became relatively joyless after Percy and her stepsister Claire (who went by "Jane") began to spend a lot of time together, and in all likelihood began an affair. They traveled slowly from Calais across the continent, shaking off the pursuit of Mary's stepmother, who had attempted to join them and eventually convince them to return home. They didn't want to go back, but sooner or later, they ran out of money. And when Mary wrote to her father to ask for assistance, she was dismayed when he flatly refused to help.

When they returned to England, they learned that Percy's wife Harriet had given birth to a son. But in February of the following year, 1815, Mary herself gave birth to a little girl, two-months premature. She was dead by the beginning of March, and this plummeted Mary into a deep depression. According to St. Clair, she was haunted by the specter of her dead baby. But when Percy's received a large inheritance that summer, from a dead relative, he took their whole coterie to Bishopsgate, to rest. It's unknown how she spent that time (her journal from this period has been lost), but in January of 1816, Mary gave birth to a boy, whom she named William, after her father. That summer, the group all traveled to Geneva, where they convened with Percy's friend Lord Byron (who had by now gotten Jane pregnant), John William Polidori and others. This is the famously rainy, unpleasant summer where the group, stuck inside too long, began to tell ghost stories, and where Mary would begin to write the story that would become Frankenstein. Evidently, Mary was tormented by her lack of ideas, frustrated that every night she had not come up with a story to tell the crowd. But then she had an idea, for a story about a body that could come back to life (makes a lot of sense, given the amount of time spent with her mother's corpse, doesn't it?). According to biographer Emily Sunstein, this was the moment she, the eighteen-year-old Shelley, felt herself "first [step] out from childhood into life."

The inspired Mary and her company returned to England in September, but they could not have imagined the heartbreak that would meet them there. In October of 1816, Mary recieved several terrifying letters from her half-sister Fanny (who had always been left at home during these adventures) expressing suicidal intent, which sent Percy on a quest to try to find her before something dreadful happened. He was unsuccessful, and the following day, Fanny's body was found in a hotel room in Swansea, Wales, next to a suicide note and a bottle of laudanum. Two months later, Percy's wife Harriet was also found dead of suicide, drowned in the Serpentine, a lake in London's Hyde Park. Her family prevented Percy and Mary from taking custody of his two children. His counsel suggested to him that he might present as a more viable guardian of the children if he had a more responsible domestic arrangement, so he proposed to Mary, who was pregnant, again.

They finally got married on December 30th, 1816, two and a half years after they first announced their love for one another in the shadow of Mary Wollstonecraft's grave.

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Did Mary Shelley actually lose her virginity to Percy on top of her mother's grave?

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Honestly . . . maybe. It was Mary Shelley's birthday yesterday, and to celebrate her, let's pause for a moment to unpack one of the most frequently-circulated stories about her: that sh...

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Birth of Frankenstein

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Robert Symes investigates the background to Mary Shelley's novel Frankenstein. (1986)

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When Mary Shelley first unleashed Frankenstein on the world, just over 200 years ago, it was met with a few pretty mixed reviews. (With the exception of this glowing rave from her husband, the poet Percy Shelley, who had anticipated the backlash and wanted to sing the praises of his wife's masterpiece like a good, supportive husband.)

But the best bad review by far goes to this anonymous critic (COWARD!) who wrote in The British Critic in 1818:

We need scarcely say, that these volumes have neither principle, object, nor moral; the horror which abounds in them is too grotesque and bizarre ever to approach near the sublime, and when we did not hurry over the pages in disgust, we sometimes paused to laugh outright; and yet we suspect, that the diseased and wandering imagination, which has stepped out of all legitimate bounds, to frame these disjointed combinations and unnatural adventures, might be disciplined into something better. We heartily wish it were so, for there are occasional symptoms of no common powers of mind, struggling through a mass of absurdity, which well nigh overwhelms them; but it is a sort of absurdity that approaches so often the confines of what is wicked and immoral, that we dare hardly trust ourselves to bestow even this qualified praise. The writer of it is, we understand, a female; this is an aggravation of that which is the prevailing fault of the novel; but if our authoress can forget the gentleness of her sex, it is no reason why we should; and we shall therefore dismiss the novel without further comment.

Excuse you, sir.

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Oh, look: an early misogynistic review of Frankenstein.

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When Mary Shelley first unleashed Frankenstein on the world, just over 200 years ago, it was met with a few pretty mixed reviews. (With the exception of this glowing rave from her husband, the poet...

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On 17 June 1816, John William Polidori recorded in his diary that "The ghost stories are begun by all but me." Polidori was Lord Byron's physician and had accompanied the poet and hypochondriac to Switzerland, where Byron rented the Villa Diodati on the banks of Lake Geneva. They had been joined there by the poet Percy Shelley, his lover Mary Godwin (whom Percy married later that year) and her half-sister Claire Clairmont. The weather in Switzerland-indeed across the globe-was atrocious. The year 1816 was "The Year Without A Summer": due to a gigantic volcanic eruption on the Indonesian island of Tambora the previous year, volcanic ash had been hurled into the stratosphere and remained there for years, blotting out sunlight and drastically altering weather patterns. Daytrips were out of the question for much of their stay, and so the previous evening, while watching storms thundering across the lake, Byron had suggested to the assembled company that they should each write a ghost story.

The next day, Polidori recorded "Began my ghost story after tea." Mary Shelley later recalled:

Poor Polidori had some terrible idea about a skull-headed lady who was so punished for peeping through a keyhole-what to see I forget-something very shocking and wrong of course; but when she was reduced to a worse condition than the renowned Tom of Coventry, he did not know what to do with her, and was obliged to dispatch her to the tomb of the Capulets, the only place for which she was fitted.

This story-if it ever existed-has not survived, but Polidori may well have been distracted by what happened later that evening. At midnight, he noted, as Mary breastfed her four-month-old baby child, the group

really began to talk ghostly. L[ord] B[yron] repeated some verses of Coleridge's "Christabel", of the witch's breast; when silence ensued, and Shelley, suddenly shrieking and putting his hands to his head, ran out of the room with a candle. Threw water in his face and gave him ether. He was looking at Mrs. S[helley], and suddenly thought of a woman he had heard of who had eyes instead of nipples, which, taking hold of his mind, horrified him.

The following day he again noted "began my ghost-story"-presumably a different story, and perhaps influenced by the Christabel fiasco the previous night. The new story became his unregarded novel Ernestus Berchtold; or, the Modern Oedipus, published in 1819.
"Daytrips were out of the question for much of their stay, and so the previous evening, while watching storms thundering across the lake, Byron had suggested to the assembled company that they should each write a ghost story."
Byron had abandoned his own story after a few pages, although nevertheless it was published (without his permission) in 1819 as "A Fragment." "A Fragment" returns to the Turkish vampire figure of The Giaour, describing the mysterious Augustus Darvell, who is in the grip of some curious and undiagnosed wasting disease. Darvell and the unnamed narrator travel to Turkey, intending to visit the Greek ruins at Ephesus, and their journey takes them through a desolate landscape of Greek, Christian and Islamic ruins to a remote cemetery. Darvell disconcertingly murmurs, "I have also been here before" and states that he will soon die. He demands that the narrator conceal the news of his death, throw an Arabic ring he has into certain springs on the ninth day of the month at noon, and the following day wait at a ruined temple. A stork with a live snake writhing in its beak contemplates Darvell as he makes these plans, and Darvell asks to be buried where the bird is perched. The moment it flies away he dies and begins to turn black and decompose with unnatural rapidity; the narrator buries him as instructed, and there the text ends.

"A Fragment" is a curtailed vampire narrative. The metamorphosis of the flesh, the burial ground and the abnormal post-mortem state link it to the earlier 18th-century history of vampires, and doubtless Darvell would have risen from the dead. But Byron also introduces calculatedly exotic elements, notably the spell with the ring, and the stork and snake-a familiar enough pairing, but here suggesting a disturbing inversion of the ancient lore that storks deliver new babies. Although "A Fragment" hardly has a prominent place in the Byron canon, its mood was transfused into Polidori's next story.

Polidori had studied medicine at Edinburgh and had written a treatise on somnambulism, and his professional interest was clearly piqued by the serious scientific interest afforded to vampires in the previous century. A shadow of vampirism lies upon his aborted story about the "skull-headed lady" who ends up, like Juliet, in the tomb of the Capulets-Juliet of course rises vampire-like from this tomb, before discovering that Romeo, believing her to be dead, has already killed himself. Polidori would have been familiar with the notes to Southey's Thalaba and to Byron's own Giaour (if only through Byron's recollection of them) and Christabel presumably provoked talk of the seductive powers of the undead. So it was that Polidori discussed Byron's aborted vampire narrative at the villa with the countess of Breuss, who urged him to write his own version. The results-Polidori's third story undertaken at the villa-were to be far from forgettable.

Polidori commenced work, but then his situation changed rapidly. As the Swiss trip drew to a close in early September, an exasperated Byron fired his cantankerous physician; Polidori consequently used his tale to revenge himself on his former employer. He aimed to expose the haughty lordling as a cruel seducer-Mary Shelley's half-sister Claire Clairmont being pregnant at the time with Byron's child, and hardly the first victim to fall for his diabolical charms. His portrait of Lord Ruthven was therefore of a sexual delinquent and predator, powerfully attracted to the virtuous and the virginal. He drew on anti-heroes such as the rapist Robert Lovelace from Samuel Richardson's epistolary novel Clarissa (1747-48), the malevolent monk Schedoni of Ann Radcliffe's novel of terror The Italian (1797), and the repugnant libertines who inhabit the Marquis de Sade's repellent novel Juliette (1797-1801), such as the cannibal giant Minski (who has furniture made of human bones) and the obsessive necrophiliac and criminally depraved Cordelli. He also drew on Lady Caroline Lamb's scandalous novel Glenarvon (1816). Byron had deserted Lamb in the midst of their passionate affair, and Lamb exacted her revenge by basing the novel's pitiless anti-hero on her former lover; Lord Glenarvon's name is Clarence de Ruthven.
"As the Swiss trip drew to a close in early September, an exasperated Byron fired his cantankerous physician; Polidori consequently used his tale to revenge himself on his former employer."
Polidori's portrait is not conventionally erotic: Ruthven has a "dead grey eye" that seems not to perceive character or humanity; he is cadaverous and the "deadly hue" of his face is never lit with vivacity; and he all but ignores women as an inferior species. Yet he has strong features and a compelling voice, and his apparent indifference to women carries a masochistic allure. He is also wealthy and perversely generous, sharing his wealth in the most decadent ways possible: by financing the dissolute in their pursuit of vice and leading them into disgrace-or to the gallows. He is a lone wolf, subverting morals. And then his dead eyes fall upon women, his tender prey.

Ruthven dies in Greece after being shot by robbers. He has already started rotting before his death, but has time to swear his companion, the protagonist Mr Aubrey, to keep silent about him for a year and a day. His body is placed on a summit to catch the first rays of the moon, whereupon it disappears. Aubrey then discovers through forensic deduction that Ruthven must have killed his Greek paramour Ianthe, who was found with blood on her neck and breast, "and upon her throat were the marks of teeth having opened the vein." As Aubrey sinks into delirium, Ruthven rises from the dead and seduces Aubrey's innocent young sister, who is likewise found to have glutted his thirst for fresh blood. As if in ironic sympathy to the plight of both his lover and his sister, Aubrey dies from a hemorrhage. Lord Ruthven, meanwhile, escapes; he is, as is clear from the title of the story, "The Vampyre."

Inspired by Gothic poetries, then, Polidori literally romanticizes the vampire into an enthralling outrage of sexual bloodlust. But that was not the end of it. Polidori's tale was delivered to the countess of Breuss and nothing was heard of it for two-and-a-half years. Then, on 1 April 1819, it was published in the New Monthly Magazine as "A Tale by Lord Byron." It had been sent to the publisher Henry Colburn with a note that certain tales had been written by Byron, Polidori and Mary Shelley; Colburn inferred that the story in question was by Byron and, in order to capitalize on his notorious reputation, published it as such.
"Polidori's portrait is not conventionally erotic: Ruthven has a "dead grey eye" that seems not to perceive character or humanity; he is cadaverous and the "deadly hue" of his face is never lit with vivacity; and he all but ignores women as an inferior species."
Polidori was livid: Byron had apparently stolen his story. He immediately wrote to Colburn, insisting it is " not Lord Byron's, but was written entirely by me at the request of a lady." Polidori admitted that Byron's "Fragment" had provided particular incidents-"his Lordship had said that it was his intention of writing a ghost story, depending for interest upon the circumstances of two friends leaving England, and one dying in Greece, the other finding him alive, upon his return, and making love to his sister"-although, of course, Byron's "Fragment" never reached the point of the dead man rising and seducing the sister. Polidori accordingly requested a correction, proper attribution and compensation, and insisted that any further publication be suppressed. He himself supplied a statement correcting the claims made about the tale. Notwithstanding this, "The Vampyre" continued to be attributed to Byron throughout the century-and was celebrated across the continent as further proof of his wayward genius.

"The Vampyre" was not only attributed to Byron, though; it was also supplemented in the New Monthly Magazine and subsequent reprintings by prefatory material about Byron and the Villa Diodati retreat (including the episode regarding the effect of Christabel on Percy Shelley), together with an account of vampirism. This description of vampires locates them in Arabia and Greece (following Southey and Byron), as well as in Hungary, Poland, Austria and Lorraine (following Ossenfelder and Bürger). It gives details of blood-engorged corpses taken from the earlier medical reports, and the account of Paole given in Britain in The Craftsman (1732). The sexual content of the tales is underlined-they rise from their graves to "feed upon the blood of the young and beautiful"-and instructions for slaying vampires are provided: staking, decapitation and cremation. This self-proclaimed "monstrous rodomontade" concludes with a long quotation from The Giaour, and references to Thalaba, "the veracious Tournefort" and Calmet-again. It has to be said that the concise details given in this note concerning "this singularly horrible superstition" were to prove at least as influential as Polidori's narrative.

Polidori, in presenting the vampire as a depraved and amoral English aristocrat, triggered a cultural sensation. Rather than being at the borders of Europe, the vampire was at the debauched edges of society, a Byronic anti-hero. But although he was careful not to over-stress the medical aspects of vampirism, Polidori's vampire nevertheless helped to reignite interest in the scientific phenomenon of vampirism from a new perspective. In 1819, the Imperial Magazine published a feature on vampires that discussed Polidori's tale, reprinted Polidori's letter and the account of vampirism given by the New Monthly, and considered whether vampires were fictitious or not. The anonymous author argues that the leading idea of the literary vampire is that the vampire is a supernatural fiction, but a thread of fey doubt runs through the language:

The Vampyre is represented as a mere creature of the imagination; to which have been ascribed fictitious powers, corresponding, in their application, with those which we attribute to sylphs, fairies, elves and genii . . . Under its imposing aspect, the mind of the reader is insensibly transported into a region of enchantment . . . Awakened from this poetic delirium, when we reach the conclusion of the tale, reason once more regains its dominion over fancy; but, unfortunately, instead of following that steady light, which is necessary to all just discrimination, we suddenly fall into an opposite snare, and hastily conclude that the Vampyre has no kind of existence, except in the dreams of poets, and the fables of romance.

The writer is aware that literature inoculates readers against vampires, but recognizes that despite this they maintain some sort of presence, a state of unbeing that carries a trace of reality. They are more than mere fictions.

__________________________________

From The Vampire: A New History. Courtesy of Yale University Press. Copyright © 2018 by Nick Groom.

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On the Very Scary Rise of the First Literary Vampire

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On 17 June 1816, John William Polidori recorded in his diary that "The ghost stories are begun by all but me." Polidori was Lord Byron's physician and had accompanied the poet and hypochondriac to Switzerland, where Byron rented the Villa Diodati on the banks of Lake Geneva.

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Women as the Submissive Sex in Frankenstein

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Women as the Submissive Sex in Frankenstein

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In Mary Shelley's , the author characterizes each woman as passive, disposable and serving a utilitarian function. Female characters like Safie, Elizabeth, Justine, Margaret and Agatha provide nothing more but a channel of action for the male characters in the novel. Events and actions happen to them, usually for the sake of teaching a male character a lesson or sparking an emotion within him. Each of Shelley's women serves a very specific purpose in Frankenstein.

First, Justine's character is a very passive, seldom vocal character in the novel. She is tossed back and forth between her family and the Frankensteins, until she is ultimately framed for the murder of William Frankenstein. Justine defies the expectations of one wrongfully accused of manslaughter, remaining tranquil and peaceful. In her own words, she explains

"God knows how entirely I am innocent. But I do not pretend that my protestations should acquit me; I rest my innocence on a plain and simple explanation of the facts..." (65).

Not only do her speech and actions demonstrate passivity, but the simple act of being framed proves this to be the purpose behind her character: "But I have no power of explaining it...I am only left to conjecture concerning the probabilities by which it might have been placed in my pocket" (66). Thus, Justine becomes an inactive, docile victim of circumstance.

The next female character encountered is the young cottager's daughter Agatha, whom the monster studies. Agatha's purpose, as a kind and gentle female, is to exhibit and embody all virtue and sensitivity. These are the first lessons learned by the monster; he has never seen such tenderness before now. Agatha most moves him in her interactions with her blind father:

"Agatha listened with respect, her eyes sometimes filled with tears, which she endeavored to wipe away unperceived" (93).

Agatha's female character, through its inactive and tender nature, serves to teach the monster his first lessons on healthy human relationships and love.

The monster's next lesson comes from another female close to Agatha. When Safie arrives at the cottagers' from Arabia, she must be tutored to learn English. As the monster continues his observances of the happy family, Safie's lessons become his own as well. Thus, because of a passive female, the monster's first academic education results:

"My days were spent in close attention...and I may boast that I improved more rapidly than the Arabian...I could imitate almost every word that was spoken...I also learned the science of letters" (99).

It is inconsequential to the novel whether Safie herself learns the language, as long as the lessons being taught to her are influencing and furthering the monster. She is a means to his educational end, becoming yet another passive, action-channeling female character.

Perhaps the most important emotional channel in the novel is Frankenstein's betrothed Elizabeth. Described as a submissive, gentle character from the beginning, Elizabeth has always been a soft spot for her fiancé. Frankenstein views her as a possession: "I looked upon Elizabeth as mine - mine to protect, love and cherish. All praises bestowed on her I received as made to a possession of my own" (21).

Frankenstein's monster, well aware of this weakness and filled with the madness that results from parental neglect, murders Elizabeth in order to hurt his creator as deeply as possible. Even when her life is threatened, however, Frankenstein still holds the game of wits between himself and his monster above protecting Elizabeth. Instead of staying with her and guarding her on his wedding night, he patrols the premises:

"She left me, and I continued some time walking up and down the passages of the house and inspecting every corner that might afford a retreat to my adversary...when suddenly I heard a shrill and dreadful scream" (173).

Elizabeth has become another inert victim in this game of insanity and male-centered mayhem. She has been demeaned and reduced to a simple tool of revenge, along with the other female characters appearing in Frankenstein.

Lastly, Margaret's character has perhaps the most passive role of all. She is useful to us as an audience because without her, there is no reason for Walton to relay his story. Yet, we never meet this character nor do we know if she really exists, if she ever reads the story and gets the letters, or if she has anything to say about it. She is the most distant and passive female character in the novel and also the most necessary to the novel as a whole.

Though all of the female characters mentioned were created by a female author, each of them has a very demeaning characterization. Shelley's women are objectified, used, abused, and easily discarded. None of them, save Margaret, survive the novel and all of them live their fictional lives to serve a very specific function and impact a man's life.

Shelley, Mary Wollstonecraft. Frankenstein, or, The modern Prometheus. London: Penguin Books, 2003.

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Women as the Submissive Sex in Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein"

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In Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein", the author characterizes each woman as passive, disposable and serving a utilitarian function. Female characters like Safie, Elizabeth, Justine, Margaret and Agatha provide nothing more but a channel...

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Sex and Sexual Violence in Mary Shelley’s “Frankenstein”

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Anyone in pursuit of knowledge is bound to encounter sex somewhere along the way. In the early 19th century, a period during which sex was unspeakable, fiction writers developed a distinct penchant for the unknown.[2] Mary Shelley…

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The Romantics - Eternity (BBC documentary)

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Frankenstein's Monster Real Story Full Documentary

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History Channel

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Mary Shelley's Frankenstein - A Documentary (FULL MOVIE)

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Here are some of the most important quotations from the text:
Walton's Narrative

'I shall satiate my ardent curiosity with the sight of a part of the world never before visited, and may tread a land never before imprinted by the foot of man'.

'...ascertaining the secret of the magnet...'.

'...my father's dying injunction had forbidden my uncle to allow me to embark on a seafaring life'.

'...I preferred gory to every enticement that wealth placed in my path'.

'...but I bitterly feel the want of a friend'.

'What can stop the determined heart and resolved will of man?'

'I never saw a man in so wretched condition'.

'He must have been a noble creature in his better days, being even now in wreck so attractive and amiable'.

'One man's life or death were but a small price to pay for the acquirement of the knowledge which I sought for the dominion I should acquire and transmit over the elemental foes of our race'

'Unhappy man! Do you share my madness? Have you drunk also of the intoxicating draught? Hear me- let me reveal my tale, and you will dash the cup from your lips!'

'Will you smile with the enthusiasm I express concerning this divine wanderer?'

'You seek for knowledge and wisdom, as I once did; and I ardently hope that the gratification of your wishes may not be a serpent to sting you, as mine have been.'

Victor's Narrative

'And when, on the morrow, she presented Elizabeth to me as her promised gift, I, with childish seriousness, interpreted her words literally and looked upon Elizabeth as mine - mine to protect, love, and cherish.'

'The world was to me a secret which I desired to divine.'

'No human being could have passed a happier childhood than myself. My parents were possessed by the very spirit of kindness and indulgence.'

'It was the secrets of heaven and earth that I desired to learn.'

'Natural philosophy is the genius that regulated my fate.'

'Wealth was an inferior object.'

'...electricity and galvanism ... was at once new and astonishing to me.'

'Destiny was too potent, and her immutable laws had decreed my utter and terrible destruction.'

'M Krempe was a little squat man, with a gruff voice and a repulsive countenance; the teacher, therefore, did not prepossess me in favour of his pursuits.'

'In a scientific pursuit there is continual food for discovery and wonder.'

'Whence, I often asked myself, did the principle of life proceed?'

'Learn from me, if not by my precepts, at least by my example, how dangerous is the acquirement of knowledge and how much happier that man is who believes his native town to be the world, than he who aspires to become greater than his nature will allow.'

'A new species would bless me as its creator and source; many happy and excellent natures would owe their being to me.'

'Who shall conceive the horrors of my secret toil as I dabbled among the unhallowed damps of the grave or tortured the living animal to animate the lifeless clay?'

'The dissecting room and the slaughter-house furnished many of my materials'.

'Sometimes I grew alarmed at the wreck I perceived that I had become...'

'It was on a dreary night of November, that I beheld the accomplishment of my toils'.

'...I had finished, the beauty of the dream vanished, and breathless horror and disgust filled my heart.'

'...I thought that I held the corpse of my dead mother in my arms...'

'His jaws opened, and he muttered some inarticulate sounds, while a grin wrinkled his cheeks. He might have spoken but he did not hear; one hand was stretched out, seemingly to detain me, but I escaped and rushed downstairs.'

'A flash of lightning illuminated the object, and discovered its shape plainly to me; its gigantic structure, and the deformity of its aspect, more hideous than belongs to humanity, instantly informed me that it was the wretch, the filthy daemon to whom I had given life.'

'During this whole wretched mockery of justice I suffered living torture.'

'Ever since I was condemned, my confessor has besieged me; he threatened and menaced, until I began to think that I was the monster that he said I was. He threatened excommunication and hell fire in my last moments if I continued to obdurate.'

'She was no longer that happy creature who in earlier youth wandered with me on the banks of the lake, and talked with ecstasy of our future prospects.'

'...men appear to me as monsters thirsting for each other's blood.'

'These sublime and magnificent scenes afforded me the greatest consolation that I was capable of receiving.'

'...its unearthly ugliness rendered it almost too horrible for human eyes.'

The Creature's Narrative

'All men hate the wretched.'

'How dare you sport thus with life?'

'Do your duty towards me.'

'Have I not suffered enough, that you seek to increase my misery?'

'I was benevolent and good; misery made me a fiend. Make me happy and I shall again be virtuous.'

'Believe me, Frankenstein: I was benevolent; my soul glowed with love and humanity; but am I not alone, miserably alone?'

'The guilty are allowed, by human laws, bloody as they are, to speak in their own defence before they are condemned.'

'The whole village was roused; some fled, some attacked me, until, grievously bruised by stones and many other kinds of missile weapons, I escaped to the open country...'

'..the barbarity of man.'

'He raised her, and smiled with such kindness and affection that I felt sensations of a peculiar and overpowering nature...'

'What chiefly struck me was the gentle manners of these people; and I longed to join them, but dared not.'

'I saw no cause for their unhappiness; but I was deeply affected by it. If such lovely creatures were miserable, it was less strange that I, an imperfect and solitary being, should be wretched.'

'A considerable period elapsed before I discovered one of the causes of the uneasiness of this amiable family: it was poverty, and they suffered that evil in a very distressing degree.'

'I often took his tools, the use of which I quickly discovered, and brought home firing sufficient for the consumption of several days.'

'I viewed myself in the transparent pool! At first I started back, unable to believe that it was indeed I who was reflected in the mirror; and when I became fully convinced that I was in reality the monster that I am...'

The table below describes the relevance of the key quotatations:

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Quotations - Frankenstein by Mary Shelly - Revision World

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Here are some of the most important quotations from the text: Walton's Narrative 'I shall satiate my ardent curiosity with the sight of a part of the world never before visited, and may tread a land never before imprinted by the foot of man'. '...ascertaining the secret of the magnet...'.

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"to curdle the blood and quicken the beatings of the heart" - Shelley

Unhappy man! Do you share my madness? Have you drank also of the intoxicating draught?

The whole series of my life appeared to me as a dream

I sometimes doubted if indeed it were all true, for it never presented itself to my mind with the force of reality

I was absorbed by a gloomy and black melancholy that nothing could dissipate. The image of Clerval was forever before me, ghastly and murdered.

Who shall conceive the horrors of my secret toil as I dabbled among the unhallowed damps of the grave or tortured the living animal to animate the lifeless clay?

I perceived in the gloom a figure...a flash of lightning illuminated the object, and...instantly informed me that it was the wretch, the filthy demon

Beware; for I am fearless, and therefore powerful

Thus spoke my prophetic soul, as, torn by remorse, horror, and despair I beheld those I loved spend vain sorrow upon the graves of William and Justine

Devil...do you dare approach me?...Begone, vile insect! Or rather, stay, that I may trample you to dust!

I saw an insurmountable barrier placed between me and my fellow-men; this barrier was sealed with the blood of William and Justine.

I am the assassin of those most innocent victims; they died by my machinations.

I preferred glory to every enticement that wealth placed in my path (W)

What can stop the determined heart and resolved will of man? (W)

chord after chord was sounded, and soon my mind was filled with one thought, one conception, one purpose.

pioneer a new way, explore unknown powers, and unfold to the world the deepest mysteries of creation.

I had desired it with an ardour that far exceeded moderation; but now that I had finished, the beauty of the dream vanished, and breathless horror and disgust filled my heart.

Think not, Walton, that in the last moments of my existence I feel that burning hatred and ardent desire of revenge I once expressed

seek happiness in tranquillity and avoid ambition

Remember me with affection, should you never hear from me again (W)

So strange an accident has happened to us that I cannot forbear recording it (W)

Hear me - let me reveal my tale, and you will dash the cup from your lips.

Life and death appeared to me ideal bounds, which I should first break through, and pour a torrent of light into our dark world.

NOTE: I didn't learn all of these for the exam, neither should this be considered a total, complete list. Just a handy selection of quotes that I found covered most of the main themes of Frankenstein!

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Frankenstein Quotes by Key Gothic Themes

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"to curdle the blood and quicken the beatings of the heart" - Shelley Unhappy man! Do you share my madness? Have you drank also of the intoxicating draught?

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TES Frankenstein Context & Quote Analysis

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TES Frankenstein Context & Quote Analysis

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Book Riot

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Mary Shelley's Frankenstein is 200 years old, but the story is as fresh as a...reanimated corpse? Wait. Let me start over.

Through many adaptations, retellings, and reimaginings, and with the Mary Shelley biopic hitting theaters this month, the story of Victor Frankenstein and the monster he gives life remains one that is known throughout our culture, even outside of literary circles.

I went back to the text to see how relevant it is in its original form, and pulled these 40 quotes to show how truly great Frankenstein is. Please note: these Frankenstein quotes are pulled from the 1818 edition of the novel; Shelley edited it significantly for a new edition in 1831, which is the version that was most widely available until not too long ago. I chose to go back to the original (though edited by Percy Shelley) text for this project. These Frankenstein quotes are from Volume One of the book only; it was difficult not to copy out the entire text, as it is so beautifully written, so I chose instead to highlight the best quotes from the first third.

Frankenstein Quotes About Friendship

You may deem me romantic, dear sister, but I bitterly feel the want of a friend.

I never saw a more interesting creature: his eyes have generally an expression of wildness, and even madness; but there are moments when, if one performs an act of kindness towards him, or does him any the most trifling service, his whole countenance is lighted up, as it were, with a beam of benevolence and sweetness that I never saw equalled.

I once had a friend, the most noble of human creatures, and am entitled, therefore, to judge respecting friendship.

I, who had ever been surrounded by amiable companions, continually engaged in endeavouring to bestow mutual pleasure, I was now alone.

[...] I believed myself totally unfitted for the company of strangers.

Nothing could equal my delight on seeing Clervel [...]. I grasped his hand, and in a moment forgot my horror and misfortune; I felt suddenly, and for the first time during may months, calm and serene joy.

Study had before secluded me from the intercourse of my fellow-creatures, and rendered me unsocial; but Clervel called forth the better feelings of my heart; he taught me again to love the aspect of nature, and the cheerful faces of children.

"How sweet is the affection of others to such a wretch as I am!"

"Farewell, sweet lady, dearest Elizabeth, my beloved and only friend; may heaven in its bounty bless and preserve you; may this be the last misfortune that you will ever suffer. Live, and be happy, and make others so."

Frankenstein Quotes About Nature & Science

I try in vain to be persuaded that the pole is the seat of frost and desolation; it ever presents itself to my imagination as the region of beauty and delight.

What may not be expected in a country of eternal light?

How slowly the time passes here, encompassed as I am by frost and snow [...]

Even broken in spirit as he is, no one can feel more deeply than he does the beauties of nature. The starry sky, the sea, and every sight afforded by these wonderful regions, seems still to have the power of elevating his soul from earth.

It may appear very strange, that a disciple of Albertus Magnus should arise in the eighteenth century; but our family was not scientifical, and I had not attended any of the lectures given at the schools of Geneva. My dreams were therefore undisturbed by reality; and I entered with the greatest diligence into the search of the philosopher's stone and the elixir of life.

The natural phaenomena that take place every day before our eyes did not escape my examinations.

When I was about fifteen years old, [...] we witnessed a most violent and terrible thunder-storm. [...] I remained, while the storm lasted, watching its progress with curiosity and delight.

"Chemistry is that branch of natural philosophy in which the greatest improvements have been and may be made [...]. A man would make but a very sorry chemist, if he attended to that department of human knowledge alone."

The summer months passed while I was thus engaged, heart and soul, in one pursuit. It was the most beautiful season; never did the fields bestow a more plentiful harvest, or the vines yield a more luxuriant vintage: but my eyes were insensible to the charms of nature.

It was a divine spring; and the season contributed greatly to my convalescence.

I contemplated the lake: the waters were placid; all around was calm, and the snowy mountains, "the palaces of nature," were not changed.

[...] vivid flashes of lightning dazzled my eyes, illuminating the lake, making it appear like a vast sheet of fire; then for an instant every thing seemed of a pitchy darkness, until the eye recovered itself from the preceding flash.

Frankenstein Quotes About Life & Death

I never saw a man in so wretched a condition.

"Alas! I regret that I am taken from you; and, happy and beloved as I have been, is it not hard to quit you all? But these are not thoughts befitting me; I will endeavor to resign myself cheerfully to death, and will indulge a hope of meeting you in another world."

Yet from whom has not that rude hand rent away some dear connexion; and why should I describe a sorrow which all have felt, and must feel?

Whence, I often asked myself, did the principle of life proceed?

To examine the causes of life, we must first have recourse to death.

I do not ever remember to have trembled at a tale of superstition, or to have feared the apparition of a spirit. Darkness had no effect upon my fancy; and a churchyard was to me merely the receptacle of bodies deprived of life, which, from being the seat of beauty and strength, had become food for the worm.

After days and nights of incredible labour and fatigue, I succeeded in discovering the cause of generation and life; nay, more, I became myself capable of bestowing animation upon lifeless matter.

It was on a dreary night of November, that I beheld the accomplishment of my toils. With an anxiety that almost amounted to agony, I collected the instruments of life around me, that I might infuse a spark of being into the lifeless thing that lay at my feet.

Life and death appeared to me ideal bounds, which I should first break through, and pour a torrent of light into our dark world.

Who shall conceive the horrors of my secret toil, as I dabbled among the unhallowed damps of the grave, or tortured the living animal to animate the lifeless clay?

I collected bones from charnel houses; and disturbed, with profane fingers, the tremendous secrets of the human frame.

"His friends mourn and weep, but he is at rest: he does not now feel the murderer's grasp; a sod covers his gently form, and he knows no pain. He can no longer be a fit subject for pity; the survivors are the greatest sufferers, and for them time is the only consolation."

Frankenstein Quotes About Regret

Learn from me, if not by my precepts, at least by my example, how dangerous is the acquirement of knowledge, and how much happier that man is who believes his native town to be the world, than he who aspires to become greater than his nature will allow.

Unable to endure the aspect of the being I had created, I rushed out of the room, and continued a long time traversing my bed-chamber, unable to compose my mind to sleep.

The form of the monster on whom I had bestowed existence was for ever before my eyes, and I raved incessantly concerning him.

Nothing in human shape could have destroyed that fair child. was the murderer! I could not doubt it. The mere presence of the idea was an irresistible proof of the fact.

Alas! I had turned loose into the world a depraved wretch, whose delight was in carnage and misery; had he not murdered my brother?

A thousand times rather would I have confessed myself guilty of the crime ascribed to Justine; but I was absent when it was committed, and such a declaration would have been considered as the ravings of a madman, and would not have exculpated her who suffered through me.

The tortures of the accused did not equal mine; she was sustained by innocence, but the fangs of remorse tore my bosom, and would not forego their hold.

What are your favorite Frankenstein quotes?

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40 FRANKENSTEIN Quotes From Mary Shelley's Classic | Book Riot

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Mary Shelley's classic novel is just as relevant today. These 40 Frankenstein quotes to show how truly great this classic is.

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www.teachit.com

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Frankenstein Part 14: Fate Vs. Free Will

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Frankenstein Part 13: The Protagonist of Frankenstein

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Frankenstein Part 12: Shelley's Take on Advancements

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Frankenstein Part 11: Representation of Religion

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Frankenstein Part 10: Who is the Monster?

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Frankenstein Part 9: Does the Monster Have a Name?

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Frankenstein Part 7: Getting to Know Victor

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Frankenstein Part 5: The Purpose of Creation

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Frankenstein Part 3: Enlightenment Vs. Romanticism

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Frankenstein Part 2: The Narrative Structure of Frankenstein

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Frankenstein Part 1: Getting to Know Mary Shelley

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Frankenstein Teaching Series Video Three: The Genre of Frankenstein

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Dr David Higgins

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Frankenstein in Context pt2 David Higgins

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Mary Shelley's 'Frankenstein': Author Biography

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Mary Shelley's 'Frankenstein': The Genre

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Mary Shelley's 'Frankenstein': The Importance of the Title

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Mary Shelley's 'Frankenstein': Stranger than Fiction

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Frankenstein Teaching Series Video Five: Gender in Frankenstein

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Mr Bruff

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The 'Frankenstein' Quotations Song Explained

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Frankenstein Teaching Series Video Six: Education in Frankenstein

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Frankenstein Teaching Video Seven: Politics in Frankenstein

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Frankenstein Teaching Series Video Four: The Structure of Frankenstein

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Mr Bruff

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Similarities Between The Creature & Others

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Similarities Between The Creature & Others

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Mr Bruff

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Mary Shelley's 'Frankenstein': Similarities Between the Creature & Others

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Mr Bruff

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Mary Shelley's 'Frankenstein': Character Analysis of Dr Frankenstein

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Mr Bruff

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Mary Shelley's Frankenstein - Character Analysis of The Creature

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Mr Bruff

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Mary Shelley's 'Frankenstein': The Importance of Setting

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Frankenstein Teaching Series Video One: Mary Shelley and Frankenstein

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Frankenstein Teaching Series Video Two: Science and Knowledge

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Frankenstein Teaching Series Video Eight: Beauty and the Sublime

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University Lecture

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’Godlike Science?’ Frankenstein’s Critique of Reason

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Mr Bruff

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Mary Shelley's 'Frankenstein': Role of Women

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Mr Bruff

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Mary Shelley's 'Frankenstein': Nature vs Nurture

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Mary Shelley's 'Frankenstein': Importance of Context

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Frankenstein Part 3: Feminism in Frankenstein

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"Frankenstein" | Overview: Summary Analysis | 60second Recap®

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Benedict Cumberbatch

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Creating Frankenstein starring Benedict Cumberbatch | Drama - Arena: The National Theatre

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Doubling Frankenstein and The Creature | National Theatre at Home

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Dr David Higgins

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Frankenstein in Context pt1 Dr. David Higgins

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The Creature: A Character Study | Frankenstein | National Theatre at Home

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Victor Frankenstein: A Character Study | National Theatre at Home

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Audiobook - Narrated by Ian Gordon & Jennifer Gill

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Audiobook - Narrated by Ian Gordon & Jennifer Gill

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Mary Shelley: A Biography | Frankenstein | National Theatre at Home

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The myth of Prometheus - Iseult Gillespie

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Frankenstein Lecture at The Carnegie Library

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Frankenstein - full audiobook with rolling text - by Mary Shelley

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Frankenstein, by Mary Shelley, is a classic horror novel and a prime example of the Gothic genre. Published in 1818, tells the story of an ambitious scientist and the monster he creates. The unnamed creature is a tragic figure who becomes violent and murderous after being rejected by society. Frankenstein remains potent for its commentary on the potential consequences of a singleminded search for enlightenment, as well as the importance of family and belonging.

Fast Facts: Frankenstein

Plot Summary

Frankenstein tells the story of Victor Frankenstein, a scientist whose main ambition is to uncover the source of life. He succeeds at creating life from death-a creature in the semblance of a man-but is horrified by the result. The creature is hideous and deformed. Frankenstein runs away, and when he returns, the creature has fled.

Time passes, and Frankenstein learns that his brother, William, has been killed. He escapes to the wilderness to mourn, and the creature seeks him out to tell his story. The creature explains that after his creation, his appearance caused everyone he encountered to either hurt him or run away from him. Alone and desperate, he settled by the cottage of a family of impoverished peasants. He tried to befriend them, but they fled from his presence, and he killed William out of rage from neglect. He asks Frankenstein to create a female companion for him so that he may not be alone. Frankenstein agrees, but doesn't keep his promise, as he believes the experiment is immoral and disastrous experiment. Thus, the creature vows to ruin Frankenstein's life and proceeds to kill all whom Frankenstein holds dear.

The monster strangles Frankenstein's wife Elizabeth on their wedding night. Frankenstein then resolves to destroy the creature once and for all. He follows him north, chasing him to the North Pole, where he crosses paths with Captain Walton and reveals his entire story. In the end, Frankenstein dies, and the creature vows to travel as far north as possible to end his own tragic life.

Major Characters

Victor Frankenstein is the protagonist of the novel. He is an ambitious scientist obsessed with the search for scientific truth. The consequences of his discovery leads to a life of ruin and loss.

The creature is the unnamed monster Frankenstein creates. Despite his gentle and compassionate demeanor, he is rejected by society because of his grotesque appearance. He grows cold-hearted and violent as a result.

Captain Robert Walton is the narrator who opens and closes the novel. A failed poet turned captain, he is on an expedition to the North Pole. He listens to Frankenstein's tale and mirrors the reader as the receptor of the novel's warnings.

Elizabeth Lavenza is Frankenstein's adopted "cousin" and eventual wife. She is an orphan, yet she finds love and acceptance easily because of her beauty and nobility-a direct contrast to the creature's failed attempts to find a sense of belonging.

Henry Clerval is Frankenstein's best friend and foil. He loves to study the humanities and is concerned with morality and chivalry. He is ultimately strangled to death by the monster.

The De Lacey Family lives in a cottage close to the creature. They are peasants who have fallen on hard times, but the creature idolizes them and their gentle ways. The De Laceys serve as a prime example of familial support in the novel.

Major Themes

Pursuit of Knowledge. Shelley examines the anxieties surrounding technological and scientific advancement through the character of Victor Frankenstein. Frankenstein's discovery and its disastrous consequences suggest that the singleminded pursuit of knowledge is a dangerous path.

Importance of Family. The creature is shunned by everyone he encounters. Lacking familial acceptance and belonging, his relatively peaceful nature shifts to malice and hatred. In addition, the ambitious Frankenstein alienates himself from family and friends in order to focus on his work; later, several of his loved ones die at the hands of the creature, a direct result of Frankenstein's ambition. By contrast, Shelley's depiction of the De Lacey family shows the reader the benefits of unconditional love.

Nature and the Sublime.Shelley evokes images of natural landscapes in order to put human trials into perspective. In the novel, nature stands in opposition to humankind's struggles. Despite scientific breakthroughs, nature remains unknowable and all-powerful. Nature is the ultimate force that kills Frankenstein and the creature, and it is too dangerous a force for Captain Walton to conquer on his expedition.

Literary Style

Shelley wrote Frankenstein in the horror genre. The novel features Gothic imagery and is heavily informed by Romanticism. There are countless poetic passages on the power and beauty of natural landscapes, and the language often refers to questions of purpose, meaning, and truth.

About the Author

Born in 1797, Mary Shelley was the daughter of Mary Wollstonecraft. Shelley was 21 when Frankenstein was published. With Frankenstein, Shelleyset the precedent for monster novels and created an early example of the science fiction genre that remains influential to this day.

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Frankenstein, by Mary Shelley, is a classic horror novel and a prime example of the Gothic genre. Published in 1818, tells the story of an ambitious scientist and the monster he creates. The unnamed creature is a tragic figure who becomes violent and murderous after being rejected by society.

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A Vindication of the Rights of Woman - Summary

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A Vindication of the Rights of Woman - Summary

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Mary Wollstonecraft is sometimes called the "mother of feminism," as her main goal was to see women gain access to segments of society largely off-limits to them in the 18th century. Her body of work is primarily concerned with women's rights. In her 1792 book, "A Vindication of the Rights of Woman," now considered a classic of feminist history and feminist theory, Wollstonecraft argued primarily for the right of women to be educated. She believed that through education would come emancipation.

The Significance of the Home

Mary Wollstonecraft accepted that women's sphere is in the home, a common belief during her time, but she did not isolate the home from public life as many others had. She thought public life and domestic life were not separate but connected. The home was important to Wollstonecraft because it forms a foundation for social life and public life. She argued that the state, or the public life, enhances and serves both individuals and families. In this context, she wrote that men and women have duties to both the family and the state.

The Benefit of Educating Women

Mary Wollstonecraft also argued for the right of women to be educated, since they were primarily responsible for the education of the young. Before the "Vindication of the Rights of Man," Wollstonecraft mostly wrote about the education of children. In "Vindication," though, she frames this responsibility as a primary role for women, distinct from men.

Wollstonecraft went on to argue that educating women would strengthen the marital relationship. A stable marriage, she believed, is a partnership between a husband and a wife. A woman, thus, needs to have the knowledge and reasoning skills that her husband does to maintain the partnership. A stable marriage also provides for the proper education of children.

Duty Before Pleasure

Mary Wollstonecraft recognized that women are sexual beings. But, she pointed out, so are men. That means the female chastity and fidelity necessary for a stable marriage require male chastity and fidelity too. Men are required as much as women to put duty over sexual pleasure. Perhaps Wollstonecraft's experience with Gilbert Imlay, father of her eldest daughter, clarified this point for her, as he was not able to live up to this standard.

Putting duty above pleasure does not mean feelings are unimportant. The goal, for Wollstonecraft, was to bring feeling and thought into harmony. She called this harmony between the two "reason." The concept of reason was important to the Enlightenment philosophers, but Wollstonecraft's celebration of nature, feelings, and sympathy also made her a bridge to the Romanticism movement that followed. (Her younger daughter later married one of the best-known Romantic poets, Percy Shelley.)

Mary Wollstonecraft found that women's absorption in pursuits related to fashion and beauty undermined their reason, making them less able to maintain their role in the marriage partnership. She also thought it reduced their effectiveness as educators of children.

By bringing together feeling and thought, rather than separating them and dividing them along gender lines, Wollstonecraft was also providing a critique of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, a philosopher who defended personal rights but did not believe in individual liberty for women. He believed a woman was incapable of reason, and only a man could be trusted to exercise thought and logic. Ultimately, this meant women could not be citizens, only men. Rousseau's vision doomed women to a separate and inferior sphere.

The Link Between Equality and Freedom

Wollstonecraft made clear in her book that she believed women had the capacity to be equal partners to their husbands, and in society. A century after she advocated for women's rights, women enjoyed greater access to education, affording them more opportunities in life.

Reading "A Vindication of the Rights of Woman" today, most readers are struck with how relevant some parts are, while others read as archaic. This reflects the enormous changes in the value society places on women's reason today, as compared to the 18th century. However, it also reflects the many ways in which issues of gender equality remain.

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What Rights Did Mary Wollstonecraft Advocate for Women?

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Mary Wollstonecraft is sometimes called the "mother of feminism," as her main goal was to see women gain access to segments of society largely off-limits to them in the 18th century. Her body of work is primarily concerned with women's rights.

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Dates: April 27, 1759 - September 10, 1797

Known for: Mary Wollstonecraft's A Vindication of the Rights of Woman is one of the most important documents in the history of women's rights and feminism. The author herself lived an often-troubled personal life, and her early death of childbed fever cut short her evolving ideas. Her second daughter, Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin Shelley, was Percy Shelley's second wife and author of the book, Frankenstein.

The Power of Experience

Mary Wollstonecraft believed that one's life experiences had a crucial impact on one's possibilities and character. Her own life illustrates this power of experience.

Commentators on Mary Wollstonecraft's ideas from her own time until now have looked at the ways in which her own experience influenced her ideas. She handled her own examination of this influence on her own work mostly through fiction and indirect reference. Both those who agreed with Mary Wollstonecraft and detractors have pointed to her up-and-down personal life to explain much about her proposals for women's equality, women's education, and human possibility.

For instance, in 1947, Ferdinand Lundberg and Marynia F. Farnham, Freudian psychiatrists, said this about Mary Wollstonecraft:

Mary Wollstonecraft hated men. She had every personal reason possible known to psychiatry for hating them. Hers was hatred of creatures she greatly admired and feared, creatures that seemed to her capable of doing everything while women to her seemed capable of doing nothing whatever, in their own nature being pitifully weak in comparison with the strong, lordly male.

This "analysis" follows a sweeping statement saying that Wollstonecraft's A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (these authors also mistakenly substitute Women for Woman in the title) proposes "in general, that women should behave as nearly as possible like men." I'm not sure how one could make such a statement after actually reading A Vindication, but it leads to their conclusion that "Mary Wollstonecraft was an extreme neurotic of a compulsive type... Out of her illness arose the ideology of feminism..." [See the Lundberg/Farnham essay reprinted in Carol H. Poston's Norton Critical Edition of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman pp. 273-276.)

What were those personal reasons for Mary Wollstonecraft's ideas that her detractors and defenders alike could point to?

Mary Wollstonecraft's Early Life

Mary Wollstonecraft was born on April 27, 1759. Her father had inherited wealth from his father but spent the entire fortune. He drank heavily and apparently was abusive verbally and perhaps physically. He failed in his many attempts at farming, and when Mary was fifteen, the family moved to Hoxton, a suburb of London. Here Mary met Fanny Blood, to become perhaps her closest friend. The family moved to Wales and then back to London as Edward Wollstonecraft tried to make a living.

At nineteen, Mary Wollstonecraft took a position that was one of the few available to middle class educated women: a companion to an older woman. She traveled in England with her charge, Mrs. Dawson, but two years later returned home to attend her mother who was dying. Two years after Mary's return, her mother died and her father remarried and moved to Wales.

Mary's sister Eliza married, and Mary moved in with her friend Fanny Blood and her family, helping to support the family through her needlework -- another of the few routes open to women for economic self-support. Eliza gave birth within another year, and her husband, Meridith Bishop, wrote to Mary and asked that she return to nurse her sister whose mental condition had deteriorated seriously.

Mary's theory was that Eliza's condition was the result of her husband's treatment of her, and Mary helped Eliza leave her husband and arrange a legal separation. Under the laws of the time, Eliza had to leave her young son with his father, and the son died before his first birthday.

Mary Wollstonecraft, her sister Eliza Bishop, her friend Fanny Blood and later Mary's and Eliza's sister Everina turned to another possible means of financial support for themselves and opened a school in Newington Green. It is in Newington Green that Mary Wollstonecraft first met the clergyman Richard Price whose friendship led to meeting many of the liberals among England's intellectuals.

Fanny decided to marry, and, pregnant soon after the marriage, called Mary to be with her in Lisbon for the birth. Fanny and her baby died soon after the premature birth.

When Mary Wollstonecraft returned to England, she closed the financially-struggling school and wrote her first book, Thoughts on the Education of Daughters. She then took a position in yet another respectable profession for women of her background and circumstances: governess.

After a year of traveling in Ireland and England with the family of her employer, Viscount Kingsborough, Mary was fired by Lady Kingsborough for becoming too close to her charges.

And so Mary Wollstonecraft decided that her means of support had to be her writing, and she returned to London in 1787.

Mary Wollstonecraft Takes Up Writing

From the circle of English intellectuals to whom she'd been introduced through Rev. Price, Mary Wollstonecraft had met Joseph Johnson, a leading publisher of the liberal ideas of England.

Mary Wollstonecraft wrote and published a novel, Mary, a Fiction, which was a thinly-disguised novel drawing heavily on her own life.

Just before she'd written Mary, a Fiction, she'd written to her sister about reading Rousseau, and her admiration for his attempt to portray in fiction the ideas which he believed. Clearly, Mary, a Fiction was in part her answer to Rousseau, an attempt to portray the way that a woman's limited options and the serious oppression of a woman by circumstances in her life, led her to a bad end.

Mary Wollstonecraft also published a children's book, Original Stories from Real Life, again integrating fiction and reality creatively. To further her goal of financial self-sufficiency, she also took on translation and published a translation from French of a book by Jacques Necker.

Joseph Johnson recruited Mary Wollstonecraft to write reviews and articles for his journal, Analytical Review. As part of Johnson's and Price's circles, she met and interacted with many of the great thinkers of the time. Their admiration for the French Revolution was a frequent topic of their discussions.

Liberty in the Air

Certainly, this was a period of exhilaration for Mary Wollstonecraft. Accepted into circles of intellectuals, beginning to make her living with her own efforts, and expanding her own education through reading and discussion, she had achieved a position in sharp contrast to that of her mother, sister, and friend Fanny. The hopefulness of the liberal circle about the French Revolution and its potentials for liberty and human fulfillment plus her own more secure life are reflected in Wollstonecraft's energy and enthusiasm.

In 1791, in London, Mary Wollstonecraft attended a dinner for Thomas Paine hosted by Joseph Johnson. Paine, whose recent The Rights of Man had defended the French Revolution, was among the writers Johnson published -- others included Priestley, Coleridge, Blake, and Wordsworth. At this dinner, she met another of the writers for Johnson's Analytical Review, William Godwin. His recollection was that the two of them -- Godwin and Wollstonecraft -- immediately took a dislike to each other, and their loud and angry argument over dinner made it nearly impossible for the better-known guests to even attempt conversation.

The Rights of Men

When Edmund Burke wrote his response to Paine's The Rights of Man, his Reflections on the Revolution in France, Mary Wollstonecraft published her response, A Vindication of the Rights of Men. As was common for women writers and with anti-revolutionary sentiment quite volatile in England, she published it anonymously at first, adding her name in 1791 to the second edition.

In A Vindication of the Rights of Men, Mary Wollstonecraft takes exception to one of Burke's points: that chivalry by the more powerful makes unnecessary rights for the less powerful. Illustrating her own argument are examples of the lack of chivalry, not only in practice but embedded in English law. Chivalry was not, for Mary or for many women, their experience of how more powerful men acted towards women.

Vindication of the Rights of Woman

Later in 1791, Mary Wollstonecraft published A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, further exploring issues of women's education, women's equality, women's status, women's rights and the role of public/private, political/domestic life.

Off to Paris

After correcting her first edition of the Vindication of the Rights of Woman and issuing a second, Wollstonecraft decided to go directly to Paris to see for herself what the French Revolution was evolving towards.

Mary Wollstonecraft in France

Mary Wollstonecraft arrived in France alone but soon met Gilbert Imlay, an American adventurer. Mary Wollstonecraft, like many of the foreign visitors in France, realized quickly that the Revolution was creating danger and chaos for everyone, and moved with Imlay to a house in the suburbs of Paris. A few months later, when she returned to Paris, she registered at the American Embassy as Imlay's wife, though they never actually married. As the wife of an American citizen, Mary Wollstonecraft would be under the protection of the Americans.

Pregnant with Imlay's child, Wollstonecraft began to realize that Imlay's commitment to her was not as strong as she had expected. She followed him to Le Havre and then, after the birth of their daughter, Fanny, followed him to Paris. He returned almost immediately to London, leaving Fanny and Mary alone in Paris.

Reaction to the French Revolution

Allied with the Girondists of France, she watched in horror as these allies were guillotined. Thomas Paine was imprisoned in France, whose Revolution he had so nobly defended.

Writing through this time, Mary Wollstonecraft then published Historical and Moral View of the Origin and Progress of the French Revolution, documenting her awareness that the revolution's grand hope for human equality was not being fully actualized.

Back to England, Off to Sweden

Mary Wollstonecraft finally returned to London with her daughter, and there for the first time attempted suicide over her despondency over Imlay's inconsistent commitment.

Imlay rescued Mary Wollstonecraft from her suicide attempt, and, a few months later, sent her on an important and sensitive business venture to Scandinavia. Mary, Fanny, and her daughter's nurse Marguerite traveled through Scandinavia, attempting to track down a ship's captain who had apparently absconded with a fortune that was to be traded in Sweden for goods to import past the English blockade of France. She had with her a letter -- with little precedent in the context of 18th century women's status -- giving her legal power of attorney to represent Imlay in attempting to resolve his "difficulty" with his business partner and with the missing captain.

During her time in Scandinavia as she attempted to track down the people involved with the missing gold and silver, Mary Wollstonecraft wrote letters of her observations of the culture and people she met as well as of the natural world. She returned from her trip, and in London discovered that Imlay was living with an actress. She attempted another suicide and was again rescued.

Her letters written from her trip, full of emotion as well as passionate political fervor, were published a year after her return, as Letters Written during a Short Residence in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark. Done with Imlay, Mary Wollstonecraft took up writing again, renewed her involvement in the circle of English Jacobins, defenders of the Revolution, and decided to renew one particular old and brief acquaintance.

William Godwin: an Unconventional Relationship

Having lived with and borne a child to Gilbert Imlay, and having decided to make her living in what was considered a man's profession, Mary Wollstonecraft had learned not to obey convention. So in 1796, she decided, against all social convention, to call upon William Godwin, her fellow Analytical Review writer and dinner-party-antagonist, at his home, on April 14, 1796.

Godwin had read her Letters from Sweden, and from that book had gained a different perspective on Mary's thought. Where he'd formerly found her too rational and distant and critical, he now found her emotionally deep and sensitive. His own natural optimism, which had reacted against her seemingly-natural pessimism, found a different Mary Wollstonecraft in the Letters -- in their appreciation of nature, their keen insights into a different culture, their exposition of the character of the people she'd met.

"If ever there was a book calculated to make a man in love with its author, this appears to me to be the book," Godwin wrote later. Their friendship deepened quickly into a love affair, and by August they were lovers.

By next March, Godwin and Wollstonecraft faced a dilemma. They'd both written and spoken in principle against the idea of marriage, which was at that time a legal institution in which women lost legal existence, subsumed legally in their husband's identity. Marriage as a legal institution was far from their ideals of loving companionship.

But Mary was pregnant with Godwin's child, and so on March 29, 1797, they married. Their daughter, named Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin, was born on August 30 -- and on September 10, Mary Wollstonecraft died of septicemia -- blood poisoning known as "childbed fever."

After Her Death

Mary Wollstonecraft's last year with Godwin had, however, not been spent in domestic activities alone -- they had, in fact, maintained separate residences so that both could continue their writing. Godwin published in January 1798, several of Mary's works that she'd been working on before her unexpected death.

He published a volume The Posthumous Works along with his own Memoirs of Mary. Unconventional to the end, Godwin in his Memoirs was brutally honest about the circumstances of Mary's life -- her love affair with and betrayal by Imlay, her daughter Fanny's illegitimate birth, her suicide attempts in her despondency over Imlay's unfaithfulness and failure to live up to her ideals of commitment. These details of Wollstonecraft's life, in the cultural reaction to the French Revolution's failure, resulted in her near-neglect by thinkers and writers for decades, and scathing reviews of her work by others.

Mary Wollstonecraft's death itself was used to "disprove" claims of women's equality. Rev. Polwhele, who attacked Mary Wollstonecraft and other women authors, wrote that "she died a death that strongly marked the distinction of the sexes, by pointing out the destiny of women, and the diseases to which they are liable."

And yet, such susceptibility to death in childbirth was not something Mary Wollstonecraft had been unaware of, in writing her novels and political analysis. In fact, her friend Fanny's early death, her mother's and her sister's precarious positions as wives to abusive husbands, and her own troubles with Imlay's treatment of her and their daughter, she was quite aware of such distinction -- and based her arguments for equality in part on the need to transcend and do away with such inequities.

Mary Wollstonecraft's final novel Maria, or the Wrongs of Woman, published by Godwin after her death, is a new attempt to explain her ideas about the unsatisfactory position of women in contemporary society, and therefore justify her ideas for reform. As Mary Wollstonecraft had written in 1783, just after her novel Mary was published, she herself recognized that "it is a tale, to illustrate an opinion of mine, that a genius will educate itself." The two novels and Mary's life illustrate that circumstances will limit the opportunities for expression -- but that genius will work to educate itself. The ending is not necessarily going to be happy because the limitations that society and nature place on human development may be too strong to overcome all attempts at self-fulfillment -- yet the self has incredible power to work to overcome those limits. What more could be achieved if such limits were reduced or removed!

Experience and Life

Mary Wollstonecraft's life was filled with both depths of unhappiness and struggle, and peaks of achievement and happiness. From her early exposure to abuse of women and the dangerous possibilities of marriage and childbirth to her later blossoming as an accepted intellect and thinker, then her sense of being betrayed by both Imlay and the French Revolution followed by her association in a happy, productive and relationship with Godwin, and finally by her sudden and tragic death, Mary Wollstonecraft's experience and her work were intimately tied together, and illustrate her own conviction that experience cannot be neglected in philosophy and literature.

Mary Wollstonecraft's exploration -- cut short by her death -- of the integration of sense and reason, imagination and thought -- looks toward 19th century thought, and was part of the movement from Enlightenment to Romanticism. Mary Wollstonecraft's ideas on public versus private life, politics and domestic spheres, and men and women were, though too often neglected, nevertheless important influences on the thought and development of philosophy and political ideas that resonate even today.

More About Mary Wollstonecraft

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Where Did Mary Wollstonecraft Get Her Ideas?

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Dates: April 27, 1759 - September 10, 1797 Known for: Mary Wollstonecraft's A Vindication of the Rights of Woman is one of the most important documents in the history of women's rights and feminism. The author herself lived an often-troubled personal life, and her early death of childbed fever cut short her evolving ideas.

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Mary Shelley (August 30, 1797-Feb 1, 1851) was an English writer, famous for penning the horror classic Frankenstein (1818), which has since been regarded as the first science fiction novel. Though much of her fame is derived from that classic, Shelley left a large body of work that spanned genres and influences. She was a published critic, essayist, travel writer, literary historian, and editor of the work of her husband, the Romantic poet Percy Bysshe Shelley.

Fast Facts: Mary Shelley

Mary Shelley was born in London on August 30, 1797. Her family was of reputable status, as both her parents were prominent members of the Enlightenment movement. Mary Wollstonecraft, her mother, is well-known for writing A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792), a pivotal feminist text that frames women's "inferiority" as a direct consequence of a lack of education. William Godwin, her father, was a political writer equally famed for his anarchist Enquiry Concerning Political Justice (1793) and his novel Caleb Williams (1794), which is widely considered to be the first fictive thriller. Wollstonecraft died on September 10, 1797, days after giving birth to her daughter, leaving Godwin to look after the infant and her three-year-old half sister, Fanny Imlay, the result of Wollstonecraft's affair with the American author and businessman Gilbert Imlay.

Mary's parents and their intellectual inheritance would prove to be a vital influence throughout her life. Mary revered her mother and her work from a young age, and was greatly shaped by Wollstonecraft despite her absence.

Godwin did not remain a widower for long. When Mary was 4, her father remarried his neighbor, Mrs. Mary Jane Clairmont. She brought along her two children, Charles and Jane, and gave birth to a son, William, in 1803. Mary and Mrs. Clairmont did not get along-there was some ill will concerning Mary's likeness to her mother and her close relationship with her father. Mrs. Clairmont subsequently sent her stepdaughter to Scotland in the summer of 1812, ostensibly for her health. Mary spent the better part of two years there. Though it was a form of exile, she thrived in Scotland. Later she would write that there, in her leisure, she was able to indulge in her imagination, and her creativity was born in the countryside.

As was custom during the early 19th century, Mary, as a girl, did not receive a rigorous or structured education. She only spent six months at Miss Pettman's Ladies' School in Ramsgate in 1811. Yet Mary had an advanced, unofficial education because of her father. She had lessons at home, read through Godwin's library, and would have been privy to the intellectual debates of the many important figures who came to talk with her father: the research chemist Sir Humphry Davy, the Quaker social reformer Robert Owen, and the poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge were all guests of the Godwin household.

On a visit home to England in November of 1812, Mary met the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley for the first time. Godwin and Shelley had an intellectual but transactional relationship: Godwin, always money poor, was Shelley's mentor; in return, Shelley, the son of a Baronet, was his benefactor. Shelley had been expelled from Oxford, along with his friend Thomas Jefferson Hogg, for publishing the pamphlet The Necessity of Atheism, and then estranged from his family. He sought out Godwin in admiration of his political and philosophical ideas.

Two years after Mary had left for Scotland, she arrived back in England and was reintroduced to Shelley. It was March of 1814, and she was almost 17 years old. He was five years her senior and had been married to Harriet Westbrook for nearly three years. Despite his matrimonial ties, Shelley and Mary grew close, and he fell madly in love with her. They would meet in secret at Mary's mother's grave, where she often went to read alone. Shelley threatened suicide if she did not reciprocate his feelings.

Elopement and Authorial Beginnings

Mary and Percy's relationship was especially tumultuous at its inauguration. With part of the money Shelley had promised Godwin, the couple eloped together and left England for Europe on July 28, 1814. They took Mary's stepsister Claire along with them. The three traveled to Paris and then continued on through the countryside, spending six months living in Lucerne, in Switzerland. Though they had very little money, they were very much in love, and this period proved to be extremely fruitful for Mary's growth as a writer. The couple read feverishly and kept a joint journal. This diary was the material Mary would later fashion into her travel narrative History of a Six Weeks' Tour.

The trio left for London once they had completely run out of money. Godwin was upset and wouldn't allow Shelley to enter his home. There was a nasty rumor that he had sold Mary and Claire to Shelley for 800 and 700 pounds each. Godwin did not approve of their relationship, not only because of the financial and social turmoil it caused, but he also knew that Percy was irresponsible and prone to volatile moods. In addition, he was aware of Percy's fatal character flaw: he was generally selfish, and yet he wanted always to be believed as both good and right.

To Godwin's judgment, Percy did cause quite a bit of trouble. He was, per his Romanticism beliefs and intellectual pursuits, primarily concerned with radical transformation and liberation, the centering of knowledge through the individual and emotive response. Yet this philosophical approach that begot his poetry left many broken hearts in his wake, apparent from the start of his relationship with Mary-he left his pregnant wife penniless and in social collapse in order to be with her.

Once in England again, money was still the most pressing problem Shelley and Mary faced. They partly remedied their situation by moving in with Claire. Shelley made do by asking others-lawyers, stockbrokers, his wife Harriet and his school friend Hogg, who was very much enchanted with Mary-to lend him money with the promise of retribution, given his ties to the baronetcy. As a result, Shelley was constantly away hiding from the debt collectors. He also had the habit of spending time with other women. He had another son with Harriet, born in 1814, and was often with Claire. Mary was frequently alone, and this period of separation would inspire her later novel Lodore. To add to this misery was Mary's first cross with maternal loss. She had become pregnant while touring Europe, and gave birth to an infant girl on February 22, 1815. The baby died days later on March 6.

Mary was devastated and fell into a spell of acute depression. By the summer she had recovered, in part due to the hope of another pregnancy. Mary and Shelley went to Bishopsgate, as Shelley's finances stabilized a bit after his grandfather passed away. Mary had her second child on January 24, 1816, and named him William after her father.

Frankenstein (1816-1818)

That spring, in 1816, Mary and Percy traveled with Claire again to Switzerland. They were going to spend the summer at the Villa Diodati with Lord Byron, the famed poet and pioneer of the Romantic movement. Byron had had an affair with Claire in London and she was pregnant with his child. Along with baby William and Byron's physician John William Polidori, the group settled in Geneva for a long, wet, and dreary season in the mountains.

Shelley and Byron took to each other immediately, building a friendship upon their philosophical views and intellectual work. Their discussions, including talk of Darwin's experiments, would directly influence Mary's Frankenstein, which was conceptualized that June. The group had been entertaining themselves by reading and discussing ghost stories, when Byron posed a challenge: each member was to write their own. Not long after, on a fateful, fitful night, Mary witnessed a frightful vision in her dreams, and the idea struck her. She began to write her ghost story.

The group parted ways on August 29. Back in England, the following few months were filled with tragedy: Fanny Imlay, Mary's half-sister by way of her mother, committed suicide on October 9, 1816, by overdosing on laudanum in Swansea. Then came the news that Harriet, Percy's wife, drowned herself in Hyde Park on December 10.

This death, painful as it was, left Percy legally viable to wed Mary, who was pregnant at the time. He also wanted custody of his older children, which he was deemed unfit for, and he knew that marriage would improve his public perception. The two were wedded on December 30, 1816, at St. Mildred's Church in London. The Godwins were present at the event, and their union ended the rift within the family-although Percy never did get custody of his children.

Mary continued writing her novel, which she finished in the summer of 1817, a year after its inception. However, Frankenstein would not be her first published novel-that inaugural work is her History of a Six Weeks' Tour. While finishing Frankenstein, Mary revisited her diary from her elopement with Percy and started to organize a travelogue. The finished piece consists of journalized narrative, letters, and Percy's poem Mont Blanc, and includes some writing on her 1816 trip to Geneva as well. This form of literature was fashionable at the time, as European tours were popular among the higher classes as educative experiences. Met with a Romantic strain in its enthusiastic tone for experience and taste, it was favorably received, although poorly sold. History of a Six Weeks' Tour was published in November of that year, two months after Mary gave birth to her daughter Clara Everina Shelley. And just over a month later, on New Year's Day, 1818, Frankenstein was published anonymously.

Frankenstein was immediately a best seller. It tells the tale of Dr. Frankenstein, a student of science, who masters the mystery of life and creates a monster. What follows is a tragedy, as the monster struggles to be accepted by society and is driven to violence, destroying the life of his creator and all he touches.

Part of its draw at the time was perhaps the speculation surrounding who had written the book-many believed Percy was the author, as he penned the preface. But regardless of this gossip, the work was groundbreaking. At the time, nothing of its sort had been written. It had all the trappings of the Gothic genre, as well as the emotional swells of Romanticism, but it also delved into the scientific empiricism that was gaining popularity at the time. Mixing visceral sensationalism with rational ideologies and technology, it has since been considered as the first science fiction novel. Mary successfully made a potent funhouse-mirror of the culture of thought during her lifetime: Godwin's ideas on society and mankind, the scientific advancements of Darwin, and the expressive imagination of poets like Coleridge.

Italian Years (1818-1822)

Despite this success, the family was struggling to get by. Percy was still evading the duns, and the threat of losing custody of their children was hanging over the couple's heads. Because of these reasons, along with poor health, the family left England for good. They traveled with Claire to Italy in 1818. First they went to Byron to pass on Claire's daughter Alba for him to raise. They then traveled throughout the country, reading and writing and sightseeing as they had on their elopement tour, while enjoying the company of a circle of acquaintances. Tragedy, however, struck again with the deaths of Mary's children: Clara died in September in Venice, and in June, William died of Malaria in Rome.

Mary was devastated. In a similar pattern as her previous experience, she fell into a pit of depression that was alleviated with another pregnancy. Despite recovering, she was severely impacted by these losses, and her mental and physical health would never quite recover. During her period of mourning, she poured all her attention into her work. She wrote the novella Mathilda, a gothic tale of an incestuous relationship between a father and his daughter, which wouldn't be published until 1959, posthumously.

Mary was overjoyed to give birth again to her fourth and last child, Percy Florence, named for the city they were residing in, on November 12, 1819. She started to work on her novel Valperga, diving into historical scholarship for the first time with her fiction. She also wrote two blank-verse adaptations from Ovid for children, the plays Proserpine and Midas in 1820, though they were not published until 1832 and 1922 respectively.

During this period, Mary and Percy moved around frequently. By 1822, they were living at Villa Magni in the Bay of Lerici in Northern Italy, with Claire and their friends Edward and Jane Williams. Edward was a retired military officer, and his wife, Jane, became the subject of Percy's utter infatuation. Mary had to cope with both this digression of Percy's attention as well as another miscarriage that was nearly deadly. Things, however, were about to get much worse.

Percy and Edward had bought a boat to take sailing trips along the coast. On July 8, 1822, the two were set to return back to Lerici, accompanied by boatman Charles Vivan, after meeting with Byron and Leigh Hunt in Livorno. They were caught in a storm and all three were drowned. Mary received a letter addressed to Percy, from Leigh Hunt, regarding the bad weather and expressing his hope that the men had arrived home safely. Mary and Jane then rushed to Livorno and Pisa for news, but were only met with the confirmation of their husbands' deaths; the bodies washed up to shore near Viareggio.

Mary was completely heartbroken. Not only had she loved him and found an intellectual equal in him, she had given up her family, friends, her country and financial security to be with Percy. She had lost him and all of these things in one swoop, and was in financial and social ruin. There were little prospects for women to make money at this time. Her reputation was in shambles, as there were rumors regarding her relationship with her late husband-Mary was often condemned as a mistress and Percy's personal killjoy. She had her son to provide for and was unlikely to remarry. Things were quite dire.

Widowhood (1823-1844)

Mary had to figure out how to deal with the financial pressures that now fell on her shoulders alone. She lived for a bit with Leigh Hunt in Genoa, and then returned to England in the summer of 1823. Byron helped her out monetarily, but his generosity was short lived. Mary was able to work out an agreement with her father-in-law, Sir Timothy, to support her son. He paid her an allowance with the stipulation that Mary would never publish a biography of Percy Shelley. When Charles Bysshe Shelley, the direct heir to Sir Timothy, died in 1826, Percy Florence became the heir to the baronetcy. Suddenly finding themselves with much greater financial security, Mary traveled to Paris. She met several influential people in this time period-including the French writer Prosper Merimee, with whom she continued an epistolary correspondence. In 1832, Percy went to school at Harrow, to return to his mother after he completed his education. He was not like his parents in terms of intellectual capacity, but his disposition left him a much more contented, devoted person than his restless, poetic parents.

Apart from her son, writing became Mary's life's focus. It also became her means to support herself before she had the security of Percy's baronetcy. In 1823, she wrote her first essays for the periodical The Liberal, which had been founded by Percy, Byron and Leigh Hunt. Mary's already completed historical novel Valperga was also published in 1823. The story follows 14th-century despot Castruccio Castracani, who became the lord of Lucca and conquered Florence. The Countess Euthanasia, his enemy, must choose between her love for her nemesis or political liberty-she ultimately chooses liberty and dies a tragic death. The novel was received positively, although in its time, its political themes of liberty and imperialism were neglected in favor of the romance narrative.

Mary also began editing Percy's remaining manuscripts for publication. He had not been widely read during his lifetime, but Mary championed his work after his death and he became substantially more popular. Posthumous Poems of Percy Bysshe Shelley was published in 1824, the same year that Lord Byron died. This devastating blow spurred her to begin working on her post-apocalyptic novel The Last Man. Published in February 1826, it is a thinly veiled fictionalization of her inner circle, with characters as mirrors of Percy, Lord Byron, and Mary herself. The plot follows the novels' narrator, Lionel Verney, as he describes his life in the far future, after a plague has devastated the world and England has fallen into an oligarchy. Though it was reviewed negatively and sold poorly at the time for its anxious pessimism, it was revived by a second publication in the 1960s. The Last Man is the first English apocalyptic novel.

In the successive years, Mary produced a wide range of work. She published another historical novel, The Fortunes of Perkin Warbeck, in 1830. In 1831, a second edition of Frankenstein came out for which she wrote a new preface-the 1823 theatrical treatment of the novel, called Presumption, stirred up continuous enthusiasm for the story. Proserpine, the verse drama she had written back in 1820, was finally published in the periodical The Winter's Wreath in 1832. Mary's next critical success was her novel Lodore, published in 1835, which follows the wife and daughter of Lord Lodore, as they face the realities of life for single women after his death.

A year later, William Godwin died, on April 7, 1836, which spurred her to write Falkner, published the following year. Falkner is another rather autobiographical novel, centered around the protagonist Elizabeth Raby, an orphan who finds herself under the paternal care of the domineering Rupert Falkner. During this time, Mary also notably wrote for the Cabinet Cyclopedia with Dionysius Lardner, completing five author biographies during the years 1835-1839. She also began a complete edition of Shelley's poems The Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley (1839), and published, also by Percy, Essays, Letters From Abroad, Translations and Fragments (1840). She toured the continent with her son and his friends, and wrote her second travelogue Rambles in Germany and Italy, published in 1844, about her travels from 1840-1843.

By the time she had reached the age of 35, Mary obtained a comfortable level of intellectual satisfaction and financial security, and was not wanting for relationships. During these years of work, she traveled and met many people who gave her the fulfillment of friendship, if not more. The American actor and author John Howard Payne proposed to her, though she ultimately declined, as he was essentially just not stimulating enough for her. She had an epistolary relationship with Washington Irving, another American writer. Mary also may have had a romantic relationship with Jane Williams, and moved to be near her in 1824 before they had a falling-out.

Literary Style and Themes

Literary Pioneer

Mary Shelley effectively created a new genre-science fiction-in writing Frankenstein. It was revolutionary to fuse the already established Gothic tradition with Romantic prose and modern issues, namely the scientific ideals of the Enlightenment thinkers. Her work is inherently political, and Frankenstein is no exception, in meditating upon Godwinian radicalism. Concerned with the age-old theme of hubris, questions of societal progress and aspiration, and the visceral expression of the sublime, Frankenstein remains to this day a touchstone of modern cultural mythology.

The Last Man, Mary's third novel, was also revolutionary and far ahead of its time, as the first apocalyptic novel written in English. It follows the last man on an earth that has been ravaged by a global plague. Concerned with many sobering societal anxieties, such as disease, the failure of political ideals, and the fallibility of human nature, it was deemed too dark and pessimistic by her contemporary critics and peers alike. In 1965, it was reprinted and revived, as its themes seemed again relevant.

Social Circle

Mary's husband Percy Shelley was a major influence. They shared journals and discussed their work and edited each other's writing. Percy was, of course, a Romantic poet, living and dying upon his beliefs in radicalism and individualism, and this movement is exhibited in Mary's oeuvre. Romanticism followed the idealist philosophers, the likes of Immanuel Kant and Georg Friedrich Hegel, as Europe began to conceptualize sense as it arose from the individual to the external world (instead of the other way around). It was a way of thinking about art, nature and society through the paramount filters of emotion and personal experience. This influence is most present in Frankenstein through the sublime -a kind of pleasurable terror that comes from confronting something bigger than you, like the huge heights of the Swiss mountains and the endless panorama they afford.

It is also nearly impossible to ignore the politics in Mary's work, although many critics did during her lifetime. As her father's daughter, she absorbed much of his ideas and the ideas of his intellectual circle. Godwin is labeled as the founder of philosophical anarchism. He believed that the government was a corrupting force in society, and would only become more unnecessary and impotent as human knowledge and understanding grew. His politics are metabolized in Mary's fiction, and threaded through, notably, Frankenstein and The Last Man.

Mary's work is also regarded as largely semi-autobiographical. She took inspiration from her friends and family. It is well known that The Last Man's cast of characters were simulations of herself, her husband, and Lord Byron. She also wrote extensively on the father-daughter relationship, thought to be expressive of her own complicated relationship with Godwin.

Mary Shelley was also remarkable in the range in her body of work. Her most famous novel, Frankenstein, is an exercise in horror, in the gothic tradition as well as the harbinger of the science fiction genre. But her other novels extend throughout the gamut of literary traditions: she published two travelogues, which were fashionable during her lifetime. She also wrote historical fiction, short stories, essays, dabbled in verse and drama, and contributed author biographies to Lardner's Cabinet Cyclopedia. She also edited and compiled her late husband's poetry for publication and was responsible for his posthumous recognition. Lastly, she began but never finished an extensive biography on her father, William Godwin.

From 1839 on, Mary struggled with her health, frequently enduring headaches and bouts of paralysis. However, she did not suffer alone-after Percy Florence finished his schooling, he returned home to live with his mother in 1841. On April 24, 1844, Sir Timothy died, and the young Percy received his baronetcy and fortune and he lived then on very comfortably with Mary. In 1848, he married Jane Gibson St. John and had a happy marriage with her. Mary and Jane much enjoyed each other's company, and Mary lived with the couple in Sussex, and accompanied them when they traveled abroad. She lived the last six years of her life in peace and retirement. In February of 1851, she passed away in London at the age of 53, from a suspected brain tumor. She was buried at St. Peter's Church, Bournemouth.

Mary Shelley's most obvious legacy is Frankenstein, a masterpiece of a modern novel that spurred a literary movement to engage with the complicated web of societal mores, individual experience, and the technologies one faces in an uncompromisingly "progressive" civilization. But the beauty in that work is its flexibility-its ability to be read and applied in multiple ways. By our current cultural thought, the novel has been revisited in discussions ranging from the French Revolution to motherhood to enslavement to Silicon Valley. Indeed, partly due to its theatrical and cinematic iterations, Mary's monster has evolved with pop culture for centuries and remains an enduring touchstone.

Frankenstein was listed by BBC news in 2019 as one of the most influential novels. There has been a plenitude of plays and movies and TV adaptations of the book, such as the play Presumption (1823), Universal Studios' Frankenstein (1931), and the film Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (1994)-not including the extended franchises that involve the monster. Several biographies have been written on Mary Shelley, notably the 1951 study by Muriel Spark and Miranda Seymour's biography from 2001. In 2018, the movie Mary Shelley was released, which follows the events that led up to her completion of Frankenstein.

But Mary's legacy is wider than just this one (terrific) achievement. As a woman, her work was not given the same critical attention that male writers received. It has even been hotly debated whether or not she wrote-or was capable of writing- Frankenstein. Only recently has much of her work been revived and even published, nearly a century after its completion. However, despite facing these enormous biases, Mary made a successful career of writing in a variety of genres for more than 20 years. Her legacy is perhaps then the continuation of her feminist mother's legacy, in making her opinions and experiences known at a time when women were not readily educated, and advancing the entire literary field with her words.

Eschner, Kat. "The Author of 'Frankenstein' Also Wrote a Post-Apocalyptic Plague Novel." Smithsonian Magazine, Smithsonian Institution, 30 Aug. 2017, www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/author-frankenstein-also-wrote-post-apocalyptic-plague-novel-180964641/.

Lepore, Jill. "The Strange and Twisted Life of 'Frankenstein.'" The New Yorker, The New Yorker, 9 July 2019, www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/02/12/the-strange-and-twisted-life-of-frankenstein.

"Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley." Poetry Foundation, Poetry Foundation, www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/mary-wollstonecraft-shelley.

Sampson, Fiona. In Search of Mary Shelley. Pegasus Books, 2018.

Sampson, Fiona. "Frankenstein at 200 - Why Hasn't Mary Shelley Been given the Respect She Deserves?" The Guardian, Guardian News and Media, 13 Jan. 2018, www.theguardian.com/books/2018/jan/13/frankenstein-at-200-why-hasnt-mary-shelley-been-given-the-respect-she-deserves-.

Spark, Muriel. Mary Shelley. Dutton, 1987.

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Biography of Mary Shelley, English Novelist, Author of 'Frankenstein'

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Mary Shelley (August 30, 1797-Feb 1, 1851) was an English writer, famous for penning the horror classic Frankenstein (1818), which has since been regarded as the first science fiction novel. Though much of her fame is derived from that classic, Shelley left a large body of work that spanned genres and influences.

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This website is for sale! speedread.io is your first and best source for all of the information you're looking for. From general topics to more of what you would expect to find here, speedread.io has it all. We hope you find what you are searching for!

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Alienation and Loneliness

Mary Shelley's emphasis on the Faust legend, or the quest to conquer the unknown
at the cost of one's humanity, forms a central theme of the novel. The reader
continually sees Victor favor his ambition above his friendships and family. Created
by a German writer named Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, the Faust myth suggested
that the superior individual could throw off the shackles of traditional conventions
and alienate himself from society. English Romantic poets, who assumed the status
of poet-prophets, believed that only in solitude could they produce great poetry. In
Frankenstein, however, isolation only leads to despair. Readers get the distinct
feeling that Victor's inquisitive nature causes his emotional and physical peril
because he cannot balance his intellectual and social interactions. For instance,
when he leaves home to attend the University of Ingolstadt, he immerses himself in
his experiment and forgets about the family who lovingly supported him throughout
his childhood. Victor actually does not see his family or correspond with them for
six years, even when his father and Elizabeth try to keep in touch with him by
letters. Shelley's lengthy description of Victor's model parents contrasts with his
obsessive drive to create the creature.

Margaret's correspondence with Walton at the beginning of the novel also compares
with Shelley's description of Victor's home life; both men were surrounded by
caring, nurturing individuals who considered the welfare of their loved ones at all
times. Not surprisingly, Walton's ambition to conquer the unknown moves him, like
it does Victor, further away from civilization and closer to feelings of isolation and
depression. The creature, too, begins reading novels such as Goethe's The Sorrows
of Werter and John Milton's Paradise Lost, claiming that an "increase of knowledge
only [showed] what a wretched outcast I was." For the creature, an increase in
knowledge only brings sorrow and discontent. Victor and Walton ultimately arrive
at these two states because of their inquisitive natures.

Nature Vs. Nurture

The theme of nurturing, or how environment contributes to a person's character,

truly fills the novel. With every turn of the page, another nurturing example
contrasts with Victor's lack of a parental role with his "child," the creature.
Caroline nurtures Elizabeth back to health and loses her own life as a result.
Clerval nurtures Victor through his illness when he is in desperate need of a care-
taker after the creature is brought to life. The De Lacey's nurturing home becomes
a model for the creature, as he begins to return their love in ways the family
cannot even comprehend. For instance, the creature stopped stealing the De
Lacey's food after realizing their poverty. In sympathy, he left firewood for the
family to reduce Felix's chores. Each nurturing act contrasts strongly with Victor's
gross neglect of the creature's needs. And by showing the affection between
Caroline Frankenstein and her adopted daughters Elizabeth and Justine, Shelley
suggests that a child need not have biological ties to a parent to deserve an
abundance of love and attention.
Appearances and Reality

Victor's inquisitive probing causes him to delve beneath the appearances of

"acceptable" science and create an animate being from inanimate materials.
Nevertheless, he forgets to extend this inquiring sensibility toward his creature.
The creature's physical appearance prompts Victor to flee from his creation; Victor
never takes the time to search beneath the creature's ugliness to discover the very
human qualities that the creature possesses. While Victor easily manipulates
nature and natural laws to suit his own intellectual interests, he lacks an
understanding of human nature, as proven throughout the novel.

In addition to the importance of the creature's appearance, Shelley emphasizes the

magnificent landscape throughout the novel. This demonstrates her loyalty to the
Romantic movement of her time, which often glorified nature. Although Victor
often turns to nature to relieve his despondent thoughts, Clerval notices the
intimate interaction between nature and humans in Switzerland. He says to Victor,
"Look at that group of labourers coming from among their vines; and that village
halfhid in the recess of the mountain." Clerval looks beyond nature's surface
appearance, drawing Victor's attention to the harmonious interaction between
nature and a productive society. Victor praises his friend as having a "wild and
enthusiastic imagination [which] was chastened by the sensibility of his heart," a
sensibility Victor ironically lacks. In the isolated Arctic, when Walton's ship is
trapped by mountains of ice, he respects nature's resistance to his exploration and
eventually leaves the untamed region. Like Clerval, Walton experiences life by
interacting harmoniously with nature and people, as he proves when he honors his
crew members' request to return home.

Duty and Responsibility

Victor's inability to know his creature relates directly to his lack of responsibility
for the creature's welfare or the creature's actions. The role of responsibility or
duty takes many shapes throughout the story, but familial obligations represent one
of the novel's central themes. Whether Caroline nurses Elizabeth or Felix blames
himself for his family's impoverished condition, Victor's dismissal of his parental
duties makes readers empathize with the creature. Victor only feels a sense of
duty after the creature says the famous line, "How dare you sport thus with life? Do
your duty towards me, and I will do mine towards you and the rest of mankind."
The creature compares himself to Adam - thus comparing Victor to God - and
claims that Victor owes him a certain amount of happiness. Even though the
creature temporarily convinces Victor to grant him his rights, Victor never really
learns the virtues of parental or ethical responsibility.

Justice Vs. Injustice

By showing how Victor ignores his responsibilities while those around him do not,
Shelley invites the reader to judge his character. Themes of justice and injustice
play a large role in the novel, as the author develops issues of fairness and blame.
Usually those characters who take responsibility for others and for their own
actions are considered fair and just. For example, Elizabeth pleads Justine's case in
court after Justine is accused of William's murder. Victor knows the creature
committed the crime, yet he does not - or cannot - reveal the creature's
wrongdoing.
However, the most important aspect of the trial is Justine's confession. Elizabeth
claims, "I believed you guiltless until I heard that you had yourself declared your
guilt." When Justine explains that she confessed after being found guilty because
that was the only way to receive absolution from the church, Elizabeth accepts her
at her word and tells her, "I will proclaim, I will prove your innocence." Making
confessions, listening to others, and offering verbal promises all signal the highest
truths in this novel. Elizabeth accepts Justine's guilt only if Justine says she is
guilty; never mind the facts or evidence, never mind intuition - words reveal true
belief. Except for Victor, every character listens to others: Mr. Kirwin listens to
Victor's story, the creature listens to the De Lacey family, Felix listens to Safie's
father, Margaret listens to Walton, and Walton listens to Victor and to his crew.
Listening helps all of these characters distinguish fair from unfair. Victor's refusal to
listen impartially to his creature says much about his character. Shelley suggests
that Victor not only played God when he created the creature; he also unfairly
played the role of judge and accuser.

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Edexcel A-Level English Literature: Frankenstein Themes

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Mary Shelley's emphasis on the Faust legend, or the quest to conquer the unknownat the cost of one's humanity, forms a central theme of the novel. The readercontinually sees Victor favor his ambition above his friendships and family.

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Frankenstein - GCSE English Literature Revision - BBC Bitesize

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GCSE English Literature Frankenstein learning resources for adults, children, parents and teachers.