Frankenstein
at a Glance...
Frankenstein follows Victor Frankenstein's triumph as he reanimates a dead body, and then his guilt for creating such a thing. When the "Frankenstein monster" realizes how he came to be and is rejected by mankind, he seeks revenge on his creator's family to avenge his own sorrow. Mary Shelley first wrote Frankenstein as a short story after the poet Lord Byron suggested his friends each write a ghost story. The story so frightened Byron that he ran shrieking from the room.
Written by: Mary Shelley
Type of Work: novel
Genres: Gothic Literature; Romantic Movement
First Published: In 1818
Setting: Narration begins in Russia then transitions to Geneva, Switzerland where the events surrounding Victor Frankenstein and the Monster are chronicled. The setting switches often, but the majority is set in Europe.
Main Characters: Victor Frankenstein; The Monster; Elizabeth Lavenza; Justine Moritz; William Frankenstein; Henry Clerval; Margaret Saville; De Lacey Family; Robert Walton
Major Thematic Topics: treatment of the poor and uneducated; use of knowledge for good or evil purposes; invasion of technology into modern life; the restorative powers of nature in the face of unnatural events
Motifs: danger of knowledge; allusion to Goethe's Faust; obsession; revenge
Major Symbols: the monster; electricity; lightning; weather
Movie Version(s): Frankenstein (1931); Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (1994)
The three most important aspects of Frankenstein:
- Although Mary Shelley's Frankenstein is compelling in and of itself, it also functions on a symbolic level or levels, with Frankenstein's monster standing in for the coming of industrialization to Europe — and the death and destruction that the monster wreaks symbolizing the ruination that Shelley feared industrialization would eventually cause.
- The novel contains a number of "framing devices," which are stories that surround other stories, setting them up in one way or another. Robert Walton's letters to his sister frame the story that Victor Frankenstein tells to Walton, and Frankenstein's story surrounds the story that the monster tells, which in turn frames the story of the De Lacey family.
- Frankenstein is a gothic novel. Gothic novels focus on the mysterious or supernatural; take place in dark, often exotic, settings; and yield unease if not terror in their readers. The double is a frequent feature of the Gothic novel, and in a sense Frankenstein and his monster are doubles. Some literary historians also consider Frankenstein the first science fiction novel.
Forum at class:
1.
Describe Percy’s view of love
and marriage when he started his relation with Mary. When and why did the
relation change?
He
joked about marriage as being a socio-economic relationship which was merely
functional to get a mortgage and a huge debt load that ensured you had to stay
together. He also complaint about the lack of freedom; but actually he did not
have courage to admit that, in reality, there was nothing more significant that
a relationship, he wanted to be married. Mary got pregnant and they got married
five months before her birth indiscrete.
2.
Why is death relevant in Mary
Shelley’s life? Mention three events of this kind.
·
Ten
days after Mary's birth, Wollstonecraft died from complications, leaving Godwin
·
In
1816 Mary's half-sister Fanny committed suicide; weeks later, Percy's wife,
Harriet, drowned herself.
·
Mary
and Percy were married in London in an unsuccessful attempt to gain custody of
his two children by Harriet. Three of their own children died soon after birth,
and Mary fell into a deep depression that did not improve even after the birth
in 1819 of Percy Florence, her only surviving child.
3.
Why was Mary unable to print
Frankenstein? What does this tell about the role of women at that time?
Females
were consider lower than their husbands, they were a men possession and only
useful to have kids and wife, that’s why the first edition was printed
anonymously on Jan1st 1818
4.
How many of Mary’s children
die and how?
·
Mary Godwin
gives birth to the couple's first child, a daughter named Clara. The baby is
two months premature and dies only a few weeks after birth.
·
The Shelleys'
three-year-old son William dies of malaria in Italy. The couple now has no
living children, though Mary is pregnant with their fourth.
·
Clara Everina
her third child contracts dysentery and dies in Italy.
·
Mary Shelley
gives birth to the couple's son Percy Florence, the only one of their children
to outlive his parents.
5.
When and how did Percy die?
On
July 8th, 1822 Percy Shelley drowns in the Gulf of Spezia while
sailing with a friend. It was ten days before the bodies were found, and by
then Shelley was identifiable only by the clothes he wore, and the book of
Keats’ poems he had in his pocket. His face and hands had been completely eaten
away.
6.
What did Mary try to do with
Percy’s works after his dead?
Mary
Shelley begins editing a book of her late husband's poems for publication. She
is forced to stop when her father-in-law threatens to cut off support to her
and her son unless she pledges never to publish any of his son's works during
his lifetime.
7.
Was Frankenstein successful
while Mary was alive?
Frankenstein;
or, The Modern Prometheus,
conceived by nineteen-year old Mary Shelley, and published before she was
twenty, may be the most famous, most enduring imaginative work of the Romantic
era, even of the last 200 years.
8.
Describe Byron’s relation with
Claire.
In
1816, Claire spent some time away from the Shelley household, living in London
on Shelley’s funding. Her desire was to live like Mary: as the wife of a poet.
Clairmont began her conquest of Lord Byron by writing him letters, as many
young ladies did with famous poets. After Byron’s separation from his wife was
final, he traveled to Geneva, Switzerland. At the age of 18, Clairmont,
accompanied by the Shelleys and their young son William, followed Byron to
Geneva in May 1816 and remained through the summer. During this time, Clairmont
realized she was pregnant but also reluctantly comprehended that Byron was not
in love with her. Clairmont and the
Shelleys returned to England in September, and she continued to write to Byron
often.
9.
Mention three characteristics
of the romantic period reflected in Frankenstein.
·
Pessimist
tone: The Romantic poet and writer his fisted individual the poet and writer
may be dissatisfied with the circumstances of his own life…
‘‘This
breeze, which has traveled from the regions towards which I am advancing, gives
me a foretaste of those icy climes. Inspirited by this wind of promise, my day
dreams become more fervent and vivid.’’
(Pg – 9)
‘‘I may there discover the
wondrous power which attracts the needle; and may regulate a thousand celestial
observations that require only this voyage to render their seeming
eccentricities constant forever.’’ (pg – 10)
· Another characteristic of the Romantic Era is Individualism. People were believed in individualism. In this period Rousseau confesses that…‘‘I am not made like anyone I have seen; I sdare believe that I am not made like anyone in existence. If I am not superior, at least I am different.’’
0 comments:
Post a Comment