Introduction to Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus

To properly understand Shelley’s Frankenstein (published in 1818), we have to understand the whirlwind of historical events that shaped her

consciousness.

Science trumps Religion

Nature is Worshiped

Spontaneous Creativity

trumps Logic and Reason

Freedom and Equality trump Obedience and subservience

The first of these events is known as the Scientific Revolution.

Science Challenges Religion

• In 1543 Nicolaus Copernicus proves universe was heliocentric (sun-centered) not geocentric (earth-centered) and that the earth and other planets revolve around sun.

• This went against Church teaching (Psalm 93:1 says "the world is firmly established, it cannot be moved.") that the Earth was center of universe and all planets revolved around it.

Galileo Galilei used a telescope to support the Copernican system.

• Because he went against Church teaching, Galileo was imprisoned in 1633.

• 1667-1687 Sir Isaac Newton writes Principia Mathematica, which explains law of gravity.

• This proved the universe is governed by knowable and predictable laws.

By the 1770s many philosophers began to believe that science could positively transform society.

• This exclusive focus on living life according to scientific principles made some people uneasy.

• They felt that other aspects of the human experience (emotional passion) were being neglected, and much creative potential was being stifled.

In France, the champion of passionate living was Jean-Jacques Rousseau.

• Rousseau believed that humans are born good but are corrupted by civilization.

• Rousseau believed that virtue could only be maintained by living in nature.

• Rousseau's theories about the power of nature were tested when a Victor, a “wild child,” was caught in Aveyron France.

New thoughts about government and freedom clashed with how France was ruled.

• French society was based on feudal system in which the common people were expected to obey the nobles.

• Taking America as a model, many French people began to feel dissatisfied with monarchy.

• July 1789: Paris crowd storms the Bastille. French Revolution begins.

• King Louis XVI was put on trial for treason and cut off his head.

The political reaction to oppression was the French Revolution; the cultural reaction to oppression was

the Romantic Literary Movement.

• For Romantic thinkers, the imagination (not rational analytical thinking) was the ultimate creative power.

• Nature viewed as an escape from “corrupt and confining” civilization.

• Romantic writers depicted their heroes as creative artists, striving to “advance” beyond the moral restrictions of society.

Frankenstein begins with a series of 4 letters written by Arctic explorer Robert Walton to his

sister.

• Walton will encounter Victor Frankenstein in the frozen wastes and will take him aboard.

• He will hear Frankenstein’s account of his misadventures.