How Does Mary Shelley Create A Living Hell?

The desire to belong is natural in most humans. Even though we understand the struggle of belonging, we, as humans still persecute others who are different. This exclusion is, in itself, a form of bullying. In her novel Frankenstein, Mary Shelley exemplifies this phenomenon of human behavior when she shows the maltreatment Frankenstein’s monster receives for his unattractive physical features and how he attempts to communicate with others in order to put an end to his isolation. Despite the monster’s benevolent nature, he is still alienated because he is different. Through the use of the monster and his discrimination, Mary Shelley shows that humans are not that different from the monster in the way we seek others; and those that persecute others are the real monsters.

Can you guess who was born during the 8th year of the French Revolution? It was a beautiful young women borned as Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin. Mary was born on August 30, 1797 in London, England. Mary was the child of Mary Wollstonecraft and William Godwin. She was later married to a man named Percy Bysshe Shelley. Mary’s parents were both writers which inspired her to later on in her life to write horror novels. Mary Shelley, the famous author of “Frankenstein”, used the experience of her hardships in life to create gothic and memorable novels that still can be appreciated by today’s readers.

Mary Shelley was a writer, novelist, and biographer, best known for her Gothic novel Frankenstein. She had already written many stories and short novels, and even edited and promoted the works of her husband, Percy Bysshe Shelley . But Frankenstein; the Modern Prometheus was her first work to achieve popularity and great success, despite the initial bad reviews, claiming the novel to be ''a tissue of horrible and disgusting absurdity''. Frankenstein recalls the events of the fictional Victor Frankenstein and of his becoming an unholy creator of life. When the novel was written, science was highly debated; and Frankenstein was the first novel to give the impression that one day, science will destroy mankind. The subtle mixture of the

of events. Victor only starts to realize the power of science when he is successful at reanimating

Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley was an English author who lived in London during the Romantic period. Born to radical intellectual parents Mary Wollstonecraft and William Godwin, Mary Shelley’s life was full of fascinating and tragic experiences, ones that no doubt inspired her while she was writing her gothic horror classic Frankenstein. Due to this, Frankenstein can be considered an indirect reflection of Shelley's own turbulent life, as well as the political, economic and sociologic beliefs of her time. One specific theme highlighted in Frankenstein was the concept of the death of an innocent child, William, which is reminiscent of the tragic deaths of two of Shelley’s own children. “William is dead...murdered!” (Volume I, Chapter VI, p 109).

To study his passion of natural philosophy, he, "..will pioneer a new way, explore unknown powers, and unfold to the world the deepest mysteries of creation." Victor is perspicacious and well prepared to gain knowledge from the professors he is soon to come in contact with. While Victor triumphs over his studies , his fervor and enthusiasm over, “Life and death... which I should first break through, and pour a torrent of light into our dark world. A new species would bless me as its creator and source; many happy and excellent natures would owe their being to me,” constraints his social life to a minimum, including the communication with his once inseparable family back in Geneva. His inspiration of creation consumed him as his, “... cheek had grown pale with study, and my person had become emaciated with confinement.” Victor prepares his animation to have the most handsome features , but awakens the horrid sight of the monsters transparent skin , black lips, and yellow eyes. To his appalled reaction, he leaves his apartment in hopes of freeing himself from the atrocity his own hands

In the summer of 1816, tensions began to lift long enough for the brilliant Mary to envision the story of Frankenstein. Shelley, Mary, and Claire rented a house in Lake Geneva, close to the Villa Diodati where Lord Byron, Percy's friend, lived. They would all spend nights together discussing topics in literature, philosophy, and science fiction. Reading and telling ghost stories to each other inspired Byron to challenge the members of this intellectual circle to create their own ghost stories. After a heated discussion on galvanism, which is the reanimation of a corpse through electricity, Mary went to sleep, not knowing that she would dream up the creation of Frankenstein. During that dream she had what she called a "waking nightmare." She had a dream that a student created a human being, and woke him up with machinery [5]. The novel will be completed and published in 1818; Mary was nineteen at the time of publication. At such a young age, this was an outstanding feat for a women writer of her time. She also finally married Percy in December of 1816, after Harriet committed suicide. Also during this summer, Mary's half-sister Fanny Imlay commits suicide as well. So it is apparently obvious that the tragic deaths of her relatives and her children had an effect on her

At this point Victor is responsible for two deaths and must keep this all to himself. By suffering through the guilt and the illness it is clear that his decisions that were made in order to deepen his knowledge of the scientific world are becoming dangerous to himself and the people close to him.

On the time of conception of Frankenstein, Mary and Percy Shelley were living outside Geneva at a cottage on water at Cologny. They were the visitors at a nearby “villa diosatui” where Lord Byron and his physician, Clair Clairmont and John Polidori were living at that time. The group remained indoors due to an incessant rainfall. One of the evenings, when they were sitting around reading ghost stories, they agreed to write their own terrible tale (Zimmerman, 2007, 65-123). Mary tried to imagine such a story for several days to come with Frankenstein. Provided the very unconventional group of friends assembles that June, there is no surprise that a unique story of Frankenstein was created.

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.

When Victor traveled to Ingolstadt to attend the university, he delved deeper into the sciences, specifically chemistry. Resulting from the profound involvement, and concentration Victor devoted to his studies, he began to lose contact with family, friends, and later, his professors. Victor labored arduously over his experiments and “two years passed in this manner, during which I paid no visit to Geneva” (Shelley 55). It became apparent that Victor’s research consumed him; his commitment to science eliminated the opportunity and will for social endeavors, or even communication with his family. If Victor were to encounter a problematic outcome with his studies, which would soon occur, he would have no prospect of receiving help. Although the effect of isolation was weighing down on Victor’s sanity, he was not the sole recipient of this loneliness. Victor’s experiments produced a monster, and Victor neglected his responsibility as a creator and left his creation to its own devices. The monster suffered from the symptoms of a solitary lifestyle, similar to the one led by Victor himself. Ultimately, the scientist realizes the hideousness of the result of his experiment and abruptly abandons the monster. The monster quickly becomes deadly to those surrounding Victor and he realizes he must pursue and destroy his creation. Victor’s health rapidly deteriorated during his pursuit of the

In the end, Victor finds himself in the company of Walton, where he tells him the misfortunes of his solitary life and about the monster that he created and in turn destroyed his life.

Born on the 30th of August 1797, Mary Shelley’s Mother died 11 days after birth. At 16 years of age Shelley was married to Percy Bysshe Shelley, a romantic poet, who was a follower of Mary’s philosophical father. In the summer of 1816, Mary and Percy visited the poet, Lord Byron, in Lake Geneva, Switzerland, where the idea of Frankenstein was conceived. During her stay at Byron’s villa, Shelley and other house guests was challenged by the poet to write a horror story, after reading one

wrote the story as the result of a challenge that was set to her, her

However, Victor is part of the problem throughout the novel, as his defiance of natural process exemplifies the need for humanity to control nature, through modification, identification, and oppression. Victor initially is inspired to create due to his unchecked foray into the sciences, to explore where "the principle of life proceed[ed]" (Shelley 31), and defy the natural courses of life and death. Victor's result, in that his creation subverts both humanity and nature through its actions, serves to illuminate the potential danger in attempting to control or modify nature for