frankenstein= mary shelley

Mary Shelley Just as her fictional scientist found his name forever fused with the name of his greatest creation, so Mary Shelley is forever associated with her greatest creation: her novel Frankenstein. And why not? Shelly wrote it at an amazingly young age (19!), and it is one of the most influential novels of the last two centuries. However, two things are even more impressive than Shelley's age when she wrote it: that the creature she created has moved into our shared reference (like a modern myth), and that her work could speak to so many people and still be so deeply personal as the novel was to her. Frankenstein is rooted in Shelley's life, her family, her philosophies, and her loves.

Feminism in Mary Shelley's Frankenstein

Though it really doesn’t look it at first glance, Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein is edged with hints of the feminist viewpoint. Devoid of any strong female characters, Shelly inserted into Victor Frankenstein’s tale the role that society expects women to play, and shows the idealized powerless female of the romantic era. The first sign is when Caroline Beaufort marries Alphonse Frankenstein for his money, for their society had made it nigh impossible for a woman to be able to provide for herself. It sees women as possessions for men to protect; seen in Victor’s phrases, “She presented Elizabeth to me as her promised gift.” and, “Her whom I fondly prized before every other gift or fortune.” But Frankenstein doesn’t think of Elizabeth when his monster declares that, “I shall be with you on your wedding night,” and focuses instead on protecting himself, unwittingly leaving her to his creation. He doesn’t listen to Elizabeth’s various entreaties, virtually ignores her while working on his monster and anything else, and shows little or no consideration for her throughout the novel. Adding to the powerlessness bestowed on them, the women of Frankenstein are portrayed as good, angelic characters, and Victor refuses to trust Elizabeth with the secret of his creation, thinking that she cannot handle it and that in her "innocence", will refuse to believe it possible of him to have done. Most every female entrant into the storyline is a passive woman who suffers calmly and then expires, from Caroline Beaufort to Justine Moritz and even to Frankenstein’s aborted female “monster”, with none really attempting to delay their own deaths, the complete opposite of the feminist idea of women. Mary Shelley was greatly influenced by her mother and her feminist ideas, though in Frankenstein she chooses against showing the strength of women. Frankenstein is not a blatantly feminist novel as some are inclined to think, but rather an ironic portrayal of women for the daughter of Mary Wollstonecraft, for she shows them instead as weak, exhibiting to the audience how things ought not to be.

Victor and Percy Shelly? Related?

According to Wikipedia, there are many similarities between the Victor, the scientist in the novel, and Percy Shelley, Mary's Husband. The name victor is said to be a pen name of Percy Shelley's, as in the collection of peotry: Original Poetry by Victor and Cazire, written by him and his sister Elizabeth. Percy Shelly had also been associated with chemistry and experimenting, and had experimented with electricity, magnetism, gunpowder and other chemical reactions. His room was also filled with scientific equipment, just like Victor's in Frankenstein. Percy had a sister named Elizabeth, and Victor had an adopted sister also with that name. There was also an incident in 1815 when Mary delivered a premature baby who died two weeks later. Percy carelessly left with Claire, Mary's step-sister, leaving behind the premature infant. Likewise, when Victor saw the creature he created he fled from him, leaving him to survive on his own. This idea of the carelessness and irresponsibility towards the creature by the creator is expressed in the story.

Mary's Literature Encouraging for other Women

"Article abstract: As an innovative and politically subversive writer of novels, tales, and stories, Shelley was a significant contributor to the history of women’s writing and the development of prose fiction."

Shelley is considered one of the very first contributors of women authors. Women couldn't do anything men did which forced women to falsify names and publish their books with a mans name. Shelley encouraged other women to express their talent and ideas to others through their novels due to Shelley's novels. Shelley is the reason more women started writing more and more books were published with new novels to read and new ideas to feed the imagination as well as entertainment.

http://www.enotes.com/salem-history/mary-wollstonecraft-shelley

Mary Shelley's relation during the Enlightened and Romantic Era

"Just as her fictional scientist found his name forever fused with the name of his greatest creation, so Mary Shelley is forever associated with her greatest creation: her novel Frankenstein. And why not? Shelly wrote it at an amazingly young age (19!), and it is one of the most influential novels of the last two centuries. However, two things are even more impressive than Shelley's age when she wrote it: that the creature she created has moved into our shared reference (like a modern myth), and that her work could speak to so many people and still be so deeply personal as the novel was to her. Frankenstein is rooted in Shelley's life, her family, her philosophies, and her loves."

We could clearly see, Mary and her creation of the book Frankenstein, that she is recording a time in history as well as her personal life. This is evidence that very few people had the urge to explore new horizons; not many people wanted to bother "thinking outside the box". A lot of people during Mary's lifetime thought it was blasphemous to even start teaching others anything other than the bible and standard schooling. Mary definitely took her thoughts to another level and engraved her imaginations to all who have read it since and even now. We can now use this literature to embrace our knowledge and challenge ourselves mentally for life.

http://www.enotes.com/authors/mary-shelley

Mary's Quest to Create a Life

Mary and Percy continued loving each other despite his marrigae with Harriet.They spent eight years together, during which time she gave birth to four kids from five pregnacies. Unfortunately, however, only one child survived to adulthood. Her first daoughter, borned prematurely in 1815, died eleven days after birth; her second child died in 1819 from malaria at three years old; the third died from dysentry one year after birth in 1818. The fourth child survive in to adulthood, however she had a miscarriage on her fifth pregnancy and almost lost her life.

On top of all these tragedies in her life, her half-sister, Fannny Goodwin, and Harriet Shelley, her husband's ex-wife, committed suicide in 1816. With these deaths, and the death of her mother for which she blames herself, she must have been very preocccupied with the idea of death. Some critics, according to brandeis.edu, "pointed out the link between the themes of creation, birth, and death in Frankenstein and Mary Shelley 's real-life preoccupation with pregnancy, labor, maternity, and death."

In record of a dream she had after the death of her first child she wrote that she had a "Dream that my little baby came to life again--that it had only been cold & that we rubbed it before the fire & it lived." These anxieties she had about motherhood and the inability to give life may have led her to write the tale of Frankenstein, where a scientist succeeded in giving life.
More info at brandeis.edu

Quotes by Mary Shelley (1)

1.Nothing is so painful to the human mind as a great and sudden change.
2.No man chooses evil because it is evil; he only mistakes it for happiness, the good he seeks.
3.Invention, it must be humbly admitted, does not consist in creating out of void but out of chaos.
4.The beginning is always today.
5.If I cannot inspire love, I will cause fear!
6.The world to me was a secret, which I desired to discover; to her it was a vacancy, which she sought to people with imaginations of her own.
7.How dangerous is the acquirement of knowledge and how much happier that man is who believes his native town to be the world, than he who aspires to be greater than his nature will allow.
8.With how many things are we on the brink of becoming acquainted, if cowardice or carelessness did not restrain our inquiries.
9.Life, although it may only be an accumulation of anguish, is dear to me, and I will defend it.
10.once I falsely hoped to meet the beings who, pardoning my outward form, would love me for the excellent qualities which I was capable of unfolding.

Mary Shelley's early life (2)

The Godwins started a publishing firm called M. J. Godwin, which sold children's books as well as stationery, maps, and games. However, the business did not turn a profit, and Godwin was forced to borrow substantial sums to keep it going. He continued to borrow to pay off earlier loans, compounding his problems. By 1809, Godwin's business was close to failure and he was "near to despair". Godwin was saved from debtor's prison by philosophical devotees such as Francis Place, who lent him further money.

Though Mary Godwin received little formal education, her father tutored her in a broad range of subjects. He often took the children on educational outings, and they had access to his library and to the many intellectuals who visited him, including the Romantic poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge and the former vice-president of the United States Aaron Burr. Godwin admitted he was not educating the children according to Mary Wollstonecraft's philosophy as outlined in works such as A Vindication of the Rights of Woman , but Mary Godwin nonetheless received an unusual and advanced education for a girl of the time. She had a governess, a daily tutor, and read many of her father's children's books on Roman and Greek history in manuscript. For six months in 1811, she also attended a boarding school in Ramsgate. Her father described her at fifteen as "singularly bold, somewhat imperious, and active of mind. Her desire of knowledge is great, and her perseverance in everything she undertakes almost invincible."

Mary Shelley's early life (1)

Mary Shelley was born Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin in Somers Town, London, in 1797. She was the second child of the feminist philosopher, educator, and writer Mary Wollstonecraft, and the first child of the philosopher, novelist, and journalist William Godwin. Wollstonecraft died of puerperal fever ten days after Mary was born. Godwin was left to bring up Mary, along with her older half-sister, Fanny Imlay, Wollstonecraft's child by the American speculator Gilbert Imlay.[2] A year after Wollstonecraft's death, Godwin published his Memoirs of the Author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1798), which he intended as a sincere and compassionate tribute. However, because the Memoirs revealed Wollstonecraft's affairs and her illegitimate child, they were seen as shocking. Mary Godwin read these memoirs and her mother's books, and was brought up to cherish her mother's memory.

Mary's earliest years were happy ones, judging from the letters of William Godwin's housekeeper and nurse, Louisa Jones. But Godwin was often deeply in debt; feeling that he could not raise the children by himself, he cast about for a second wife. In December 1801, he married Mary Jane Clairmont, a well-educated woman with two young children of her own—Charles and Most of Godwin’s friends disliked his new wife, describing her as quick-tempered and quarrelsome; but Godwin was devoted to her, and the marriage was a success.Mary Godwin, on the other hand, came to detest her stepmother. William Godwin's 19th-century biographer C. Kegan Paul later suggested that Mrs Godwin had favoured her own children over Mary Wollstonecraft’s.

Percy's And Mary's Love Story

"In the summer of 1812 Godwin sent his precious only daughter to visit William Baxter, an acquaintance who lived in Dundee, Scotland. On her return to London in November 1812, Mary met for the first time Godwin's new, young, and wealthy disciple, Percy Bysshe Shelley, and his wife, Harriet Westbrook Shelley."(people.brandeis.edu)Percy Shelley, who shared much of his belief with Mary's father, started to dine with the family and soon fell in love with the beautiful, Mary Shelley. Mary was also fascinated by Percy's intellect and generosity.

About a month later, Percy and Mary declared their love for each other. Her father, though still accepting Percy's monetary gifts, forbade him from visiting the house. Mary Shelly, trying to obey her father stopped talking to Percy Shelley. Percy, however, attempted to commit suicide as a result and Mary was convinced of his love. The couple ran away to France in attempt to save their relationship. They spend the rest of Percy's life together, though he was still legally married to his first wife, Harriet.

More info at people.brandeis.edu

Frankenstein birth!

Mary Shelley And The Night That Birthed Frankenstein

" In the summer of 1816 a cold spell swept across Europe and North America. The unusual chill caused snowfall in July and unparalleled thunderstorms. Pamphlets were passed around predicting the end of the world.

Mary had spent her childhood haunted by the idea that she’d murdered her mother and was determined to prove her consequent life worthy. It had not been easy growing up the child of famed revolutionaries. Now, practically disowned by the father she adored, and in the company of the poetic geniuses, Byron and Percy, Mary felt an even greater need to prove herself.

Mary wrote, “I busied myself to think of a story,- a story to rival those which had excited us to this task. One which would speak to the mysterious fears of our nature, and awaken thrilling horror.” "

- Mary's sub-conscience of quilt and terrified that she had nothing else to live for decided to make something out of her life. Mary Shelley did regret in some ways her evil deed. She had to search deep and far deep into her soul and decided what she would do rather than agonize all her life about her mistake. Motivated from her disastrous past fueled the conception of Frankenstein.

http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://gypsyscarlett.files.wordpress.com/2009/02/mary-shelley1.jpg&imgrefurl=http://gypsyscarlett.wordpress.com/2009/02/09/mary-shelley-and-the-night-that-birthed-frankenstein/&h=398&w=280&sz=68&tbnid=ty1e-9txRG93yM:&tbnh=124&tbnw=87&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dmary%2Bshelley&hl=en&usg=__tf_KUtPXaZFlSGosH1Vnd6jRrAQ=&ei=PJ6dS8mzFsP58Ab_2pmsDg&sa=X&oi=image_result&resnum=5&ct=image&ved=0CCAQ9QEwBA

family facts

Mary Shelley's father was the writer and political journalist William Godwin, who became famous with his work An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice (1793). Godwin had revolutionary attitudes to most social institutions, including marriage. In feminism he found an "amazonian" element. Among his other books is Things as They Are, or The Adventures of Caleb Williams (1794).

Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley was born in London. Her mother, Mary Wollstonecraft, died of puerperal fever 10 days after giving birth to her daughter. Mary's labor lasted 18 hours and then it took four hours to remove the rest of the placenta. She was one of the first feminists, the author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792), and the novel The Wrongs of Woman, in which she wrote: "We cannot, without depraving our minds, endeavour to please a lover or husband, but in proportion as he pleases us." In the intellectual circles of London, her acquaintances included the painter Henry Fuseli, Erasmus Darwin, Charles's grandfather, and William Blake, who illustrated an edition of her book, Original Stories from Real Life.

More facts

“The idea for Frankensteincame to Mary Shelley as the result of a ghost story contest between Mary, her husband, the poet Lord Byron, and Dr. John Polidori. It came to her in a dream.”

Clearly we can tell how creative she was in comparison to her character, Dr Frankenstein, from her book Frankenstein. She shares this passion of creativity which helped her pursue and complete her dreams as a writer.

http://www.enotes.com/authors/mary-shelley

Mary Shelly - Couple of facts

"Shelley’s mother, Mary Wollstonecraft, was an influential feminist. Her A Vindication of the Rights of Women (1792) helped found the modern feminist movement and provided much of its early philosophical foundation." This is stating the initial push of women writers who were talented and ready to share their creativity with everyone. Thanks to her mother she was able to accomplish these goals as well as other goals. Just like Dr Frankenstein, he persevered until he woke the "monster" from his corruption.”

"When she was 16, Mary married Percy Bysshe Shelley, one of the greatest Romantic poets of all time. (They eloped.) Percy Shelley was a freethinker and a radical. He helped Mary complete her education...and tried to make her part of a free love community in which several people would share partners."

This is important to know because we can tell that she didn't have much access to information; yet, she was able to cultivate and harvest her ideas which helped her become a very creative and intellect woman.

http://www.enotes.com/authors/mary-shelley

Mary Shelley's Upbringing

According to Brandies.edu, Mary Shelley was born in 1797 to two great intellectual rebels of the 1790's. She was born to Mary Wollstonecraft, who died 11 days after her birth, and to father, William Goodwin. By the time Mary Shelley was 19, she published one of the most popular novels ever existed. Her book, Frankenstein, was first published in 1818 and it still stands as a powerful example of creative imagination. In addition to Frankenstein she wrote six other novels, a novella, mythological articles, and bibliography studies. She died in 1851 and by then had established a reputation as an excellent author.

Mary Shelley was raised solely by her father until age three when her father remarried. Her new stepmother resented the relationship that Mary had with her father and was jealous of the interest that visitors had in her. Because of the resentment held for her by her stepmother, she was subjected to doing house chores and did not recieve any formal education. She learned to read after following the advice of her father, which was that the proper way to learn is to read two or three books simultaneously.