Frankenstein

Frankenstein

Frankenstein was written by Mary Shelly. We can tell by Mary Shelly’s

back ground, were she has incorporated some of her social experiences

in to her novel. Mary was the daughter of an anarchist father (William

Godwin) and a feminist mother (Mary Wollstonecraft). In today’s terms

this could be thought as a ‘wild upbringing’. Mary grew up in an

environment that suggested she needed to question the way society was

being run.

Mary’s mother died ten days after giving birth to her, an act that

Mary’s father was never quick to forgive; in fact he blamed Mary for

his wife’s death and this often forced Mary to attempt to take her

place. This was often in the form of sitting on literary discussions

and meeting her father’s estranged guests. At the age of 17 Mary would

often write at her mother’s grave side at St Pancras Churchyard in

London; where the couple had married. Mary includes her fascination

with death into Frankenstein. An example is, in chapter 24 pages 217

Victor says “as night approached, I found myself at the entrance to

the cemetery.” His random wonderings have led him to be with his dead

family, where he feels alone and maybe wants to join them. It was

through Mary’s fascination with the cemetery that she met her soon to

be husband, the poet Percy Bysshe Shelly. He followed her there upon

her father’s instruction and declared his love for her; it was to

become their meeting place. In the novel Mary uses the cemeteries a

few times, when Victor goes to the cemetery to collect dead bodies to

create his monster.

There are clearly some important dates in the life of Mary Shelly that

no doubt influence the subject matter of the novel. In 1805 there was

the Napoleonic Wars lasting unti...

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... experience. This

becomes important when we assess her bohemian lifestyle; living a life

that is almost a work of art. She wrapped her novel with images of the

liberating power of art and portrayed an admiration of nature at its

most impressive.

There is a sense of fear and fascination with the creature. He is a

man with abnormal strength; he has a face full of scars and together

gives people a sense of fear when they see him. The people are scared

of him and declare him as being some sort evil, so immediately see him

as being a threat to them and instinctively attack him. This makes the

readers feel sorry for the creature and keeps the reader waiting for

what he will do when all mankind wants to kill him. Mary uses imagery

and nature to reflect this. She uses the weather to show how he is

feeling, like when he first runs away and it is raining heavily.