Essay on Frankenstein: Reflecting Mary Shelley’s Life Experiences

Mary Wollstonecraft was a pioneer in feminist thinking and writing. She was influenced by Thomas Paine that all women should have equal rights. When Wollstonecraft was younger she witnessed her mom being verbally and physically abused by her father. Her father referred to her mother as a piece of property who cannot have the same future as him due to her sex. After her mother’s death, Wollstonecraft decided to make her own livelihood with her sister Eliza and her best friend Fanny.

Frankenstein, a novel first published in the year 1818, stands as the most talked about work of Mary Shelley’s literary career. She was just nineteen years old when she penned this novel, and throughout her lifetime she could not produce any other work that surpasses this novel in terms of creativity and vision. In this novel, Shelley found an outlet for her own intense sense of victimization, and her desperate struggle for love. Traumatized by her failed childbirth incidents, troubled childhood, and scandalous courtship, many of Shelley’s life experiences can be seen reflected in the novel. When discussing the character and development of the monster, Shelley launches an extensive discussion on the

After her mother’s death in 1782, Mary lived with her friend Fanny Bloods but left soon after to help her sister Eliza and her new born baby. As problems arose between her sister, Eliza, and her husband, Wollstonecraft took action. Then after, Eliza’s child died.

Mary Wollstonecraft was born on April 27, 1759. She was the second of seven children born to Edward and Elizabeth Wollstonecraft. Her father inherited a large sum of money but he eventually lost it all because he did not know how to make a profit in farming. As he moved the family from one failed farm to another Edward became a bitter and unstable drunkard. He favored his oldest son and terrorized the rest of the family (Todd, Revolutionary 326-417). Elizabeth submitted to her husband’s abuse without protecting the children from his cruelty. Her mother’s submission brought out Mary’s protective instincts and she became the protector of the family during her father’s rages (Bailey 563). Edward’s abuse I love and her mother’s withdrawal caused Mary to dislike abuse in any form. (Todd, Revolutionary 351).

Ronald Britton is the writer and editorial manager of the article: Mary Shelley 's Frankenstein: What Made the Monster Monstrous. Throughout this article Britton will talk about the genesis of the renowned story of Frankenstein, which emerged from a fantasy experienced by Mary Shelley while on an occasion imparted to her spouse and her stride sister. The creator talked upon Shelley expressing that “She emphasizes that she was not confined to her own identity in these daydreams, she became others and so peopled them with creatures far more interesting than her own sensations” (Britton 2). As a kid Shelley composed stories that were sensible, fabulous, and pleasing; they were her shelter when irritated and her most profound joy when free. One night as Shelley is asleep, she has a striking dream. In the fantasy she sees a revolting apparition of a man extended and after that, on the working of some capable motor, hint at life. Shelley portrays how she is controlled by her wild creative energy. She expresses that “This clearly was no daydream. I would call it a night terrors a sleep-induced visual hallucination that persists on waking” (Britton 3). Shelley then builds up the thought that what frightened her will frighten others. She needs to depict the apparition which frequents her midnight pad, so the next day she started to recount to her story.

In her early life, Mary had moved from place in Britain, due to her father’s unsuccessful attempts to become a noble farmer. Doing so he squandered much of his inheritance and wealth. Her father was a drunk, and often times would attack Mary’s mother in a drunken fit of rage. Mary often had to protect

Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (1797-1851) wrote the novel, Frankenstein, in her late teens to her early twenties. It was her most famous work and was published in early 1818 it was to become the most famous Gothic Horror story ever written. Shelley lived in a time where the field of science progressed immensely. Science, because of its links to the supernatural, then became part of the emergence of Gothic Horror as a genre. Since then it has been frequently used in Gothic Horror when using the connection to the unexplained and supernatural. In Gothic Horror the unexplained is built in with emotion. The emotion brings a bit of realism to the story; otherwise it would sound to far-fetched. Also the introduction of emotions makes the novel

Her mother, Mary Wollstonecraft, identified as a feminist, and raised “fundamental questions of freedom and education for half of the human race” (Johnson xi). When she perished after giving birth to Mary, the baby’s care went into William Godwin’s hands. Shelly’s father was a radical-anarchist philosopher who often exclaimed ideas of atheism in his writings. Godwin eventually published Memoirs of the Author of the Vindication of the Rights of Women, depicting the life of his deceased wife. This account of Wollstonecraft’s life revealed her multiple suicide attempts and impiety during her illness, ultimately affecting her reputation (Mellor 3).

The interpretation of the young girl’s ghastly nightmare, fashioned by her own imagination derived the novel “Frankenstein: The Modern Prometheus.” Mary Shelley began, putting pen to paper reveling her cautionary tale, a moral lesson hidden within a horrifying story that would awaken thrill and terror in her audience. Mary felt that if this was not accomplished, the novel would not live up to its title “The Modern Prometheus.” She relates to geographic elements that are subsequent the French Revolutionary era, with a strong connection to Greek mythology. In metaphor she illustrates how creature and creator are one in the same and with the symbolic use of sickness and nature creating the foreshadowing for events to come. Mary Shelley

Frankenstein was a gruesome creature created in a laboratory out of old, miscellaneous body parts. Victor, Frankenstein’s creator, feels that he is omniscient in the field of science and irrational attempts to “play God” in order to create his monster. Shelley uses supernatural elements in the novel by having Victor construct a monster and “raise him from the dead.” This dreadful creature provides an intense element of fright and terror to the novel which contributes to its gothic aspects.

Nineteen-year-old Mary Shelley didn’t know when she began it that her “ghost story” would become an enduring part of classic literature. Frankenstein is an admirable work simply for its captivating plot. To the careful reader, however, Shelley’s tale offers complex insights into human experience. The reader identifies with all of the major characters and is left to heed or ignore the cautions that their situations provide. Shelley uses the second person narrative style, allusions both to Coleridge’s “Rime of the Ancient Mariner” and the legend of Prometheus, and the symbols of both light and fire to warn against the destructive thirst for forbidden knowledge.

Sometimes considered one of the first science fiction novels of supernatural terror, Frankenstein proved itself an instant success when released anonymously in 1818. The mad scientist Victor Frankenstein and his creation provoke readers with the fear of the unknown and the power of natures forces. A deeper look into the character of Victor Frankenstein, the role of scientific experimentation and the intricate settings of nature in which the story evolves, prove Mary Shelley's novel, Frankenstein , a worthy example of both Romantic and Gothic representation in nineteenth century British Literature.

     The daughter of an active feminist, Mary Woolstonecraft Shelley eloped with the famous poet Percy Bysshe Shelley at the age of 15, and after was continually and profoundly influenced by his words and writings. Her novel Frankenstein is named among the best written and most meaningful of the gothic works, and is one of the few still popularly read today. A precursor to the Romantic trend in art and intellect, gothic novels rejected of the precepts of order, balance, idealization, and rationality that typified Classicism in general and late 18th-century Neoclassicism in particular. The gothic tradition grew out of disillusionment with the Enlightenment and 18th-century rationalism and physical materialism.

Throughout the past two centuries, many novelists have tried and failed to recapture the true horror and remorse that Mary Shelley's Frankenstein accomplished. Through firsthand accounts of fictional events, the story of Frankenstein and his creation stirs up emotions of empathy, turmoil, and fear. Based on the scientific discoveries of Darwin, Shelley brought forth an idea of reviving dead substance to life and proclaimed, "I have found it! What terrified me will terrify others; and I need only describe the spectre which had haunted my midnight pillow." (Shelley ix) Shelley published Frankenstein anonymously and did not live to see its ascent to popularity. This novel, a byproduct of a ghost story writing contest among friends, went on to become one of the most famous horror novels of all time.

Mary was born in Spitalfields, London on April 27, 1759(www.biography.com).She lived with her family in Walkington Farm in Yorkshire for about six years, and then moved back to London due to the farm’s failure. The reason behind the family moving frequently from one place to another was Mary’s parent. Mary was raised by an unsuccessful father, Edward John. He was a farmer who came up with nothing, but disappointment. Edward’s failure in most of his works made him an alcoholic; it also made him abuse his wife, Elizabeth. During this time, Mary was trying to improve her knowledge as much as she could by reading historical and religious articles. She