Mary ShelleyFrankenstein Background

Mary Shelley

1797 – 1851

Daughter of William Godwin and Mary Wollstonecraft – two of England’s leading intellectuals

No formal education – read from father’s library and spent time around many writers, philosophers, and thinkers

Hid under couch to hear Coleridge recite The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.

Mary Shelley – continued

Percy Shelley was friends with her dad

Eloped with Percy to France at age 16

They traveled – Switzerland, Germany, Italy

Gave birth to 4 children in 5 years – three died

Mary’s name not on 1818 publication of Frankenstein – Percy wrote preface, so everyone assumed it was him.

Mary wrote intro and put name on 1831 version

How Frankenstein Was Imagined

Rainy, stormy night, perhaps under the influence…Lord Byron suggests they tell ghost stories

Byron proposes that each person present write a ghost story.

Mary is stumped until she hears a conversation regarding galvanism and weird science…then she gets her idea

Writes it in a year

The Gothic Novel

Popular 1760s – 1820s

Gothic has two main meaningsHarsh, cruel…like the Gothic tribes of middle ages

Castles, knights, and armor

The Gothic Tradition

Goes all the way back to Middle Ages and still exists today

Description of a fallen world

Written to evoke terror

Connected with the Romantic movement

Recipe for a Gothic Novel

A 1797 pamphlet in The Spirit of the Public Journalists gave “recipe” for a gothic novel:

Ingredients = An old castle

Long gallery with secret doors

Three freshly murdered bodies

Assorted skeletons

“noises, whispers, and groans”

Other “Ingredients”

Midnight

Rain/lightning

Historical landmarks

Ghosts/spirits/monsters

Antique furniture

Main character should suffer for “sin”

More Gothic Elements

Unbridled space (cathedrals, heights)

Ruins

Doubles (twins, foils, doppelgangers)

Dream experience

Mob violence

Mood (manic-depressive)

Themes:Cosmic struggle of polar opposites

Over-reacher – sin of pride

Guilt

Violence

Death

Gothic NovelMystery

Horror

Supernatural

Brooding, gloomy atmosphere

Emphasis on the unknown

Wild, remote settingsHaunted castles, misty moors

Violent, mysterious events

1800s

Were a time of scientific breakthroughs

Electricity

GalvanismLuigi Galvani – prof. of anatomy in Italy

Experimented putting electricity to flesh….it moves!

Allusions

John Milton – Paradise Lost

Coleridge – Rime of the Ancient Mariner

Myth of Prometheus

Structure of NovelFrame Narrative

Letters – Walton to Sister

Victor’s StoryCreature’s Story (Ch. 11-16)

Back to Victor’s Story

Back to Walton at end

What is the effect of the epistolary/frame structure?

Walton

Victor

Creature