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FRANKENSTEIN - MARY SHELLEY (CONTEXT & INFLUENCES (In 1814, Mary met…
FRANKENSTEIN - MARY SHELLEY
THEMES
Religion
Nature vs Science
Morality
Family
loneliness
Nature vs Nurture
identity
Role of Women
Judgement
(+ Appearance)
discrimination + prejudice
CONTEXT & INFLUENCES
Born in 1797
to William Godwin who was a radical philosopher and to Mary Wollstonecraft who was an author of 'Vindication of the Rights of Women' (early feminist)
Mother died
11 days after she gave birth to Shelley (lack of female role in life)
In 1814
, Mary met and fell in love with
Percy Shelley
Ran away w/ Percy & married in 1816 after Percy's wife committed suicide
Percy = a prominent poet in the Romantic Movement
Mary was exposed to the same influences at Percy -
Romanticism influenced her work
Frankenstein was written when Lord Byron, Percy and Mary were competing to see who could write the best ghost story when being trapped in their lodgings when they went away to the Swiss Alps.
Father remarried - Shelley could never accept her stepmother - (grudge against her father)
Shelley fell pregnant -
father neglected her for 2.5 years -
grudge against males
Her
first child died at 2 wks old
- her creation didn't succeed and her baby was also unnamed like the Creature - she also dreamt that she resurrected her child
French Revolution
- 1789 - mother was a big advocate for the rights of the working class
The Enlightenment Era
- nature vs nurture
Enlightenment VS the Romantic Movement
First idea of Frankenstein cam to Shelley in a
nightmare
Percy Shelley edited Frankenstein - strong influence from Shelley's Romanticism
Prometheus
- made man from clay
Rime of the Ancient Mariner-
Samuel Coleridge - romantic poet- Walton said 'i shall kill no albatross' = personal struggles
Dante's Inferno
- Victor - "something even Dante could not have envisaged"- danger in selfish pursuit - i.e knowledge
Paradise Lost-
John Milton - epic poem - religion - Creature= Adam / Devil - both were created - Creature turned from Adam into the Devil - Devil= rejected by God
Mary Shelley experienced a lot of loss in her life
- baby, mother and sister all died - and father rejected her
Imagery influenced by the places in which she stayed
- Swiss Alps - glaciers - mountains - rivers - lakes - forests etc
ROMANTICISM
1st Wave of the Movement=
William Blake, William Wordsworth and Coleridge
2nd Wave of the Movement=
Mary Shelley, Robert Browning, Byron
Strong emotion - love, hate and fear
Individualism- countering social expectations - e.g slavery, feminism, education etc
Sublime Nature
Rejection of the industrialisation & the enlightenment - 'scientific ideals'
ENLIGHTENMENT