TO PLUNGE = to throw or cast
CHILLING = scary
TO CRAFT = to elaborate, to make with skill
TO BANISH = to force to leave, drive away
TO TAMPER = to alter improperly
PLIGHT = a distressing condition
EERIE = inspiring fear
ELOPEMENT = an act of running away with a lover
TORRENT = a stream

1. What were the effects of the eruption of Mont Tambora in 1815?
2. Who and where did Mary and Percy Shelley visit that summer?
3. What challenge did Lord Byron propose to his guests?
4. How old was Mary at that time?
5. What idea did the challenge spark in Mary?
6. Was Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein different from the monster of the popular imagination?
7. How could the plot of the book be summarized?
8. What was the book’s original title?
9. What Greek myth does it refer to?
10. What characterized the Romantic period?
11. Why was the Greek mythology important for the Romantics?
12. How did the Romantics perceive science and how did this attitude manifest in Frankenstein?
13. What are some of the qualities of gothic genre?
14. Did Mary Shelley’s gothic leanings have to do with her own biography?
15. Who were her parents?
16. Why was Mary’s relationship with her mother traumatic?
17. What was Mary’s own experience as a mother?
18. How is birth characterized in Frankenstein?
19. What is Frankenstein’s fatal flaw?
20. What does the story of Frankenstein say about the power of ideas?