The Different Meanings of Monstrous in the Text Frankenstein

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The Different Meanings of Monstrous in Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

In the 19th century, Mary Shelley wrote the text ‘Frankenstein’. Many

different themes are explored in this text; one of the main themes was

‘Monstrous’. In this book a doctor named ‘Victor Frankenstein’ makes a

being out of different body parts he had stolen from graveyards. Mary

Shelly came up with the basic idea of the book from a dream, but this

was then developed into a story when she was challenged by ‘lord

Byran’ to write a ghost story while she had gone to visit Lord Byran’s

villa. The outline of the story was parallel to her own life, as in

her own life, Mary Shelley has seen a lot of deaths; Mary Shelley’s

Mother died giving birth to her; Mary Shelley lost two of her children

after being born; she also lost her husband ‘Percy Shelley’ who was a

poet, and the book ‘Frankenstein was originally published under his

name as women were not allowed to publish books, this is because this

didn’t go along with the women’s role, women were expected to stay at

home and work., also because if it was published in her name, as most

women didn’t under the philosophy of science, she would’ve been though

of as a witch, so all these precious lives taken away from her

could’ve given her the idea of bringing back the dead. Mary Shelley

uses embedded narrative, this means a story inside another story; at

first we se that Robert Walton is the one telling the story and then

another story about Victor Frankenstein is started. In this text, it

is not clear as to who the actual monster is; there are many monsters

e.g. the creator created by Victor Frankenstein, Victor Frankenstein

himself; the society of Geneva. Therefore Mary Shelley explores the

mean...

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...he was from the inside. I believe that Victor

Frankenstein is the real monster as, if he hadn’t abandoned his

responsibility, ay of this wouldn’t have happened, but I don’t blame

him for curiosity and ambition to find out about science, he was doing

everything right but for the wrong purpose; he should have been

finding a way to bring back life to tissues to help mankind develop,

he cannot be called monstrous for that, as just recently the doctors

had carried out a face transplant to a woman whose face had been

bitten by a dog, these doctors had also brought the tissues back to

life to replace it, the only reason Victor Frankenstein could be

called Monstrous is for using it for the wrong intentions. Overall

Mary Shelley uses a lot of different ways to explore the meaning of

‘Monstrous’ but the main way in which she does this is though Victor

Frankenstein.

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