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3 Cards in this Set
- Front
- Back
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Mary Shelley
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Born in 1797, Mary was the daughter of William Godwin - a famous writer with revolutionary ideas - and Mary Wollstonecraft, herself a writer and arguably the world's first feminist.
Her mother died days after giving birth to her - the first of many tragedies in Shelley's life. Some of these tragedies would later inspire events in Frankenstein. In 1812, Mary met the poet Percy Shelley. Percy and his wife Harriet were frequent visitors to the London home of Mary's father. Mary ran off to France with Percy in 1814. She gave birth to his child in 1815 - but the baby died just 12 days later. Harriet drowned herself in 1816, allowing Percy to marry Mary soon after. The general public was outraged. After coming up with the idea for her novel in Switzerland, Frankenstein was published two years later in 1818 - Mary was still only 20. Mary's second son, William, died aged three in 1821. Percy drowned in 1822. Mary and Percy's great friend, the writer and poet Lord Byron, died in 1824. Mary was devastated by this, and the loneliness caused by the death of so many of her friends and family. Mary died in 1851. Although she wrote many other books, none matched the success of Frankenstein. |
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Age of revolution
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Mary Shelley was born into a world of scientific, artistic and political revolution. Her father and husband were famous radical thinkers and writers, and both of them (along with other important philosophers of the day) had a large influence on Mary and her novel.
One of her father's main ideas was that everyone should act only for the good of mankind; otherwise, selfishness would lead to the breakdown of society. This view influenced Frankenstein in that Victor largely thinks and acts only for himself, ignoring the wishes of the Monster (for example, by not creating a wife for it), thereby endangering mankind by giving it a reason to do harm. Victor is also a bad parent, deserving punishment for abandoning his creature. Many people see this book as promoting the revolutionary ideas that dominated the political world at the time, since Victor challenges authority (God) by creating life himself. The Monster is also revolutionary in its hostility towards authority (its 'father'). Yet both the Monster and Victor are punished with death - leading other people to conclude that Shelley is critical of political revolution. When writing this book, Mary was influenced by the scientific revolution of the time. She had heard about one man, Galvani, who had supposedly re-animated dead tissue, and another, Aldini, who had wired up a criminal's corpse to a battery so that his jaw appeared to move and a fist to clench. Such discoveries were discussed at the holiday home of the Shelleys in the weeks before Frankenstein was written. |
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Literary background
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The most important literary style to influence the novel was Gothic horror. Mary said her story was born out of long days and nights on holiday with Percy, Byron and another friend, when persistent rain had kept them indoors with only the works of German Gothic writers for amusement. This led to the idea of a ghost-story contest, for which the young Mary wrote her initial draft, inspired by a nightmare she'd had. The Gothic features of the story include its horrific descriptions, use of overpowering emotions and exotic, often remote, settings.
Other writers to influence Mary were Samuel Taylor Coleridge, who had read his poem The Rime of the Ancient Mariner to Mary when she was four. She later remembered being terrified by this, but used similar themes of discovery and isolation in her story. Another poem, Paradise Lost by John Milton, also inspired her. In Frankenstein, the Monster compares himself to the main character, Satan (the devil). |
