By Mary Shelley
 Wrote Frankenstein
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when she was only 18
Published anonymously
Both parents were
famous writers.
Marriage to Percy
Shelley, a famous poet
“Romantic beyond
romance.”
 A passion for human emotion
 The belief that all humans are
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innately good
The advocacy of free thought
The idea that comfort is found in
healing elements of nature
An opposition to political authority
and social convention
A strong sense of human
individuality
A belief in the supernatural
The use of the morbid and grotesque
 The use of intense emotion
 The evocation of fear
 Using weather to depict a character’s mood
 Use of specific vocabulary (melancholy, wretched, etc.)
 Giving nature the power to destroy
 Victor as God, creator of
 Monster as the biblical
monster
 Victor as similar to his
creation, a “monster”
because of his actions
Adam because Adam was
the 1st creation, and was
thrown out of Paradise,
and so was the monster
 Monster as a satanic
representation because
Satan, banned from
heaven, vows revenge on
God, just as the monster
vows revenge on Victor
 Isolation
 Companionship
 Light
 Dark
 Day
 Night
 Handsome
VS
 Ugly
 Male
 Female
 Science
 Philosophy
 Knowledge
 Ignorance
 Mary Shelley originally did not name the novel,
Frankenstein.
 She was very literate and well-versed in classics.
 Allusions to Greek mythology.
 Allusions to famous literary works:
 Milton Paradise Lost
 Romantic Poets
 Coleridge “Kubla Khan”
 Coleridge “Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner”
 Written by Robert Walton in 1700s.
 Addressed to his sister, Margaret Saville.
 Arctic explorer (passage to North Pole)
 Wants to find the “secret of the magnet”
 Ship surrounded by ice, witnesses a dog sledge and a
gigantic man
 The next morning the ice breaks, and he rescues a
stranger stranded on a piece of ice
 This man is Victor Frankenstein (who then narrates
chapters 1-24).
 EXCITED for his expedition “I feel my heart glow with
an enthusiasm which elevates me to heaven, for
nothing contributes so much to tranquillise the mind
as a steady purpose…” (10)
 LONELY “but I bitterly feel the want of a friend. I have
no one near me, gentle yet courageous, possessed of a
cultivated as well as of a capacious mind, whose tastes
are like my own, to approve or amend my plans.” (13)
 COMPASSIONATE towards Victor “I should have been
happy to have possessed as the brother of my heart.”
(22)
 Is knowledge empowering or destructive?
 Is a creator obligated to his or her creation, even if the
creation is hateful and destructive?
 Does society create a monster through prejudice and
hate?
 Is revenge justified at all costs?
 Do “people’s” formative years dictate what they
become? Do they have hope of redemption once their
personalities form?
 “His limbs were nearly frozen, and his body dreadfully
emaciated by fatigue and suffering. I never saw a man
in so wretched a condition.” (20)
 “You may easily perceive, Captain Walton, that I have
suffered great and unparalleled misfortunes. I had
determined, at one time, that the memory of these
evils should die with me; but you have won me to alter
my determination.” (23)
 “You seek for knowledge and wisdom, as I once
did…you may deduce an apt MORAL from my tale…”
(23)