Mary Shelley

This novel reflects Shelley’s own childhood, which consisted of her feeling obligated to rebel against her own father’s wishes and his choice for her marriage. Frankenstein is a way for Shelley to tell her own experiences with parental conflict and how she feels she was affected by her demanding father and the environment she grew up in, by comparing herself to Victor’s monster. Shelley analyzed her own characteristics, and the characteristics of her father, and placed them within Victor and the

Eleven days after Mary Shelley was born, Ms. Wollstonecraft died. Mary idolized her mother her entire life and even declared her love for future husband at her mother’s grave in London. Since Mary’s father was a philosopher and writer, Mary grew up around books and intellectual gatherings around the house. It was at one of these gatherings that Mary met Percy Shelley, a poet and avid follower of Mary’s father. Percy fell in love with Mary and they were wed after Percy’s first wife drowned herself. Following the death of her mother, Mary’s father married a widowed neighbor, which resulted in Mary gaining a stepsister named Claire Clairmont. Claire became a constant companion of Mary and Percy and in 1816; Claire proposed a summer in Geneva in order for Claire to continue a love affair with the English poet Lord Byron. During this retreat, “the friends kept themselves amused by reading ghost stories to each other and discussing the political and scientific topics of the day…finally the friends decided to write a ghost story each and see whose was the most chilling and terrifying. Mary came up with Frankenstein…” (Harwood 9)

Sherry Ginn’s “Science, Science Fiction, or Autobiography?” effectively uses Erik Erikson’s theory of psychosocial development and the story of Shelly’s life background, to explain how Marry Shelly’s absence of maternal and parental upbringing caused her to implement the philosophies in the novel Frankenstein. Erikson’s theory says that there are eight human steps one will face from infancy to adult hood. The steps will approach as one confronts a conflict. If he/she can overcome the conflict, it will lead the individual to a higher physic development and become turning points in the individual life. A closer look at the novel coupled with Marry Shelly’s history, leads one to believe that many of the major themes in the novel Frankenstein are adapted from Mary's own life. Sherry Ginn, in her critic identifies and refers to many examples to help illustrate her idea and portray the connection between the story of the novel and the life of the author.

The classic monster story, Frankenstein, was written in about 1818 and has been told and read for many generations and is worldly recognized. This is all thanks to the author Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley. Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley was just nineteen when she started on, Frankenstein, she lived in a very different time period than our own, and her story gives us a glimpse of just what kind of life she lived. Her novel, Frankenstein, has been interpreted in many different ways and have inspired several movies and also ideas. One major idea is her meaning on responsibility. Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley uses her epic novel of, Frankenstein, as a prime example of the drastic consequences of not taking responsibility for ones actions.

With her husband, Shelley shared the tragic losses of their children, leaving them only with one child. The losses didn 't end here, they endured an endless struggle with money, which is parallel with the monsters struggle to find food. "Frankenstein" is also defined as a rather feminist novel. The most fascinating concept in the story is the developing intention to form life. Victor takes the maternal role of a woman in producing life. He

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

Mary Shelley was raised in an intellectual environment as both of her parents, William Godwin and Mary Wollstonecraft, were the important radical thinkers. She was encouraged to read widely and was exposed to celebrated writers such as John Milton, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Percy Bysshe Shelley and classical writers including Ovid. She skillfully interweaves allusions and direct quotations from these writers’ works as deftly as Frankenstein creates his Monster. Just as he infuses ’a spark of being into the lifeless thing’ - Mary Shelley infuses her gothic novel with intertextuality.

Both situations where the mother died and the father took care of him/her happened when they were young. They also both had two sister join the family ascending the mother’s death. Mary Shelley’s father married into two girls and Victor had two sisters adopted into the family. This made a significant connection to Mary Shelley’s life. Mary Shelley and Victor both got married in an early age.

Mary Shelley was an English novelist and essayist who was born in 1979 in London, England. One of her most famous novel Frankenstein was published in 1818 and was widely considered as one of the best Gothic novels of all time. Nevertheless, as many critics have pointed out, Frankenstein is not only a Gothic literature that advocates the values of Romanticism, but also a feminist novel. The novel revolves around a male protagonist, Victor Frankenstein, who, driven by the desire to pursue forbidden knowledge, brings a monster to life and causes the deaths of his loved ones. Throughout the novel, there are many instances that demonstrate dominance over or ownership of women, which inevitably lead to abuse and misfortune for the female characters.

Mary Shelley's Frankenstein Mary Shelley is an author who wrote the novel of Frankenstein. Mary Shelley herself in her life, experienced many deaths of close friends and family. When she was first born her mother died, furthermore Mary had a baby, who died 12 days later and her husband Percy Shelly drowned. Maybe it was these experiences, which led Mary Shelley to write such a novel of great horror published in 1818. Frankenstein itself is called 'the modern Prometheus'.

Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin as she was born, was born August 30th, 1797 in London, England. Mary Shelley’s mother died exactly ten days after her birth so Shelley had a rather burdensome life. Her father was emotionally distant from her while her step-mother treated her cruelly as a result of what little relationship Mary did maintain with her father. Mary spoke three languages, English her primary language, French her second language of choice and Italian being the third. Although the disconnected relationships she had, Mary had always been intellectually intelligent, especially when it came to writing. Her father’s close friend who would often visit the Godwin’s home in London, Percy Bysshe Shelley, took Mary’s heart at a very young age.

The Monster is an artificial lifeform that is similar to humans in an emotional sense. Due to this emotional parallel between the Monster and people, Ronald Britton feels that the Monster is a vehicle used to give insight into Shelley’s tempestuous childhood, filled with rejection and isolation, starting with the death of her mother, that made her feel like a monster (1). He states that due to Shelley’s mother’s death and her father efforts at finding a new wife, but primarily a mother figure to Mary, lead to Mary’s dark view of the world. This frequent search for a mother figure may have impacted Shelley’s love life as well, which was tumultuous to say the least. This persistent search for relationships in her life led Mary to feel isolated and alone like the

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).

Mary Shelley was a young, well-educated woman from England. She was born on August 30th 1797, in London. Her mother Mary Wollstonecraft, was the author of “A Vindication of the Rights of Woman”. She died giving birth to Mary, leaving her daughter in the care of her husband, William Godwin. The atmosphere that Mary Shelley grew up in exposed her to cutting-edge ideas, which are shown all throughout the novel. Mary Shelley’s lover, Percy Shelley was a young poet, and as he was already married, her relationship with him wasn’t the smoothest.

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