Essay On Contemporary Criticisms Of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein

Contemporary criticisms of Mary Shelley 's Frankenstein appeared first after 1970. The story tells of a man named Victor Frankenstein who attends university and is consumed by aspiration to discover the "secret of life". When he is convinced he 's found it he creates a monster in the privacy of his apartment (SparkNotes). By choosing play God he ends up creating a creature who inevitably ruins his life and everyone 's that he loves. Before 1970 a majority of critics discussed Mary Shelley as a person rather than the novel she wrote. Subsequent to 1970 critical attention questions Frankenstein 's role in "established literary traditions" and the status of said traditions themselves (Smith 273). Feminist critics particularly asked why women authors were often excluded from the Romantic texts. Critical focus took a different direction after 1990 concentration on whether the novel had attained high-culture status (Smith 237). In Mary Shelley 's novel, Frankenstein, the main protagonist Victor concocts an intelligent but grotesque monster. Frankenstein plays God calling forth contemporary criticisms such as cultural, …show more content…
Shelley and her husband, Percy Bysshe Shelley, moved from city to city never staying in one place for long. While on an Italian adventure to Rome and Venice, Mary was overcome with severe depression after the deaths of both her children, Clara and William within a year. Freudian psychoanalysis helps readers of Shelley 's novel analyze the many layers of significance in the perpetually layered and affluent text (Psychoanalysis). The monster that is created is driven to his violent tendencies because of the way he is shunned by society and his creator. Analyzing the text psychoanalytically shows how the monsters first experiences in the world that lead to the development of his violent nature