Transcription
In Frankenstein, we can see how Shelley's exploration of gender roles, man's ambition and hubris, Humanity versus monstrosity, revenge, and nature and the sublime reflects aspects of her context. Did you know that the greatest science fiction horror story of all time also has a cool backstory? But be warned, Mary Shelley's tale of woe rivals Victor Frankenstein's.
Born in London in 1797, Mary Shelley was the daughter of two radical philosophers. Her father was William Godwin, a political anarchist and writer who had his own cult following, and her mother was Mary Wollstonecraft, a founding mother of feminism and the trailblazing author of *A Vindication of the Rights of Woman*. These intellectual heavyweights passed their gifts onto their daughter, who eventually outshone and outscandalized them both. Sadly, Mary Shelley's mother died two weeks after giving birth to her, which cast a sorrowful shadow over her life.
In July 1814, sixteen-year-old Mary eloped to Europe with 21-year-old Percy Bysshe Shelley, who was already a married man. He was one of her father's followers and a famous poet in the making. William Godwin was furious and refused to help his daughter when she returned to England a few months later, penniless and pregnant. In February 1815, Mary delivered a premature baby girl who died less than a fortnight later. This plunged her into deep depression, and for a while, she was haunted by visions of her dead child. Happily, she conceived again, and in January 1816, gave birth to a son named William.
In May 1816, the Shelleys, who were still unmarried, returned to Europe with baby William. They wanted to escape the stuffy conservatism of England and visit a notorious friend of theirs, Lord Byron, the poet. They spent the summer at Lake Geneva as Byron's neighbors and frequently his guests. Thus, a legendary literary clique formed at Villa Diodati, Byron's palatial rented pad. However, the summer that year turned into a wet and stormy one, which drove them all indoors. This may seem like a drag, but it fostered just the right atmosphere for creativity.
In the cozy, candlelit gloom of Byron's drawing room, many late-night talks were had. Most of the time, nineteen-year-old Mary Shelley sat in quiet absorption, enjoying the scintillating banter between Percy Bysshe Shelley, Lord Byron, and his personal physician, Dr. John Polidori. Oh, to have been a fly on the wall for those sessions! To keep things spicy, Lord Byron issued a challenge: they would each write a scary story. So, Mary Shelley committed herself to concocting something "to make the reader dread to look round, to curdle the blood, and quicken the beatings of the heart."
For days, she wracked her brains until one night, when the conversation turned to galvanism. This was the theory that organic matter, like frog's legs and even human corpses, could be reanimated using electricity and chemistry. Galvanism is the foundation of modern electrophysiology, but in the early 1800s, it was a wild idea. Mary Shelley and the gang at Villa Diodati chewed on this until around 3 A.M. one night, when they all finally went to bed.
Mary Shelley couldn't sleep. In her introduction to the 1831 edition of Frankenstein, she remembers how she saw "the pale student of unhallowed arts kneeling beside the thing he had put together. I saw the hideous phantasm of a man stretched out, and then, on the working of some powerful engine, show signs of life." This haunting vision kept her wide awake and afraid, but young Mary Shelley had found her story. And when she shared it with the group, they loved it. It began as a short story, but with lots of encouragement from Percy, Mary Shelley developed it into a novel. The pair also finally married in December 1816, just a few weeks after Percy's first wife killed herself, poor Harriet.
In June 1817, Mary Shelley finished her manuscript, despite being pregnant and often ill. In September, she gave birth to Clara, a healthy baby girl. Then, on the 1st of January 1818, something else was born: the first edition of *Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus*. Phew, what a hectic couple of years! But like many female authors at the time, Mary Shelley chose to remain anonymous, at least until the next edition was published in 1823. But by that time, both Clara and William had died of separate illnesses, Mary Shelley had had a life-threatening miscarriage, and Percy Bysshe Shelley had drowned in a boating accident. Don't say we didn't warn you! Only one of her children, Percy Florence, born in 1819, survived into adulthood.
Prior to his untimely death, people assumed that Percy Bysshe Shelley had written Frankenstein. That's because in Regency England, it was preposterous to think that a young girl could write such a shocking tale. Not to mention that being an author, or anything else that could attract notoriety, was deemed improper for women. Prior to Frankenstein's publication in 1818, Mary Shelley was genuinely worried that if she identified herself as the author, the moral outrage would cause her children to be taken from her. That was a legitimate concern. In those days, women of the Regency Era, and basically all the other English eras, were expected to be submissive, virtuous, and happily bound to the domestic sphere. They were not expected to be masters of their own destiny, but rather rely on their male relatives or husbands to steer the course of their lives.
In Frankenstein, Margaret, Caroline, Elizabeth, Justine, Agatha, and Safie each represent aspects of the Regency feminine ideal. In fact, their angelic qualities are quite exaggerated. They play one-dimensional, supportive roles for the male characters, whose actions drive the plot. Ultimately, most of the women end up as distressed damsels or dead in the male-dominated mayhem. Bearing in mind her mother's revolutionary work on women's rights, Mary Shelley portrays what happens when women have no agency.
But is the story itself that shocking? Absolutely! Remember, Mary Shelley had to impress Lord Byron and prove herself worthy of her parents' fame. Victor Frankenstein's hubristic ambition leads him down a very dark path. Hubris is excessive pride or dangerous overconfidence, and Victor takes the cake. While studying natural philosophy at the University of Ingolstadt, young Victor develops a bit of a god complex. He decides to make a giant man out of dead body parts and bring him to life using arcane science. He rejoices in the idea that "a new species would bless me as its creator." How blasphemous! Victor's egotism expresses Shelley's criticism of the Age of Enlightenment, also known as the Age of Reason. And let's not forget Captain Walton and his dangerous obsession with discovering the wondrous power that attracts the needle. Through him and Victor, Shelley represents the enlightened man's resistless and almost frantic impulse to make discoveries for personal glory.
At the time, Europe was abuzz with scientific discourse and advancement. While this period gave birth to modernity, it also had a barbaric side. Joseph Wright's famous painting, *An Experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump*, gives us a small taste of that. Poor birdie! Similarly, Victor Frankenstein experiments on live animals in the course of creating his hideous creature, which he then abandons in the hope that it will wither and die. It's a callous act of betrayal and begs the question: who's the real monster in the story?
The creature begins life as an innocent and performs acts of kindness and heroism towards others, like the DeLacy family. He also learns how to speak, read, and write, and adopts vegetarianism out of kindness for animals. That's a shout-out to William Godwin and Percy Bysshe Shelley, both of whom were proud veggies! The creature's intelligence and altruism make him seem very human, which challenges the idea of human exceptionalism. This is the belief that humans, by virtue of their consciousness and language, are superior to other animals. Famous philosophers like Aristotle, René Descartes, and Immanuel Kant held this view, but Mary Shelley brings it into question.
In fact, her travels through Europe in the aftermath of the Napoleonic Wars fueled her outrage at the monstrosity of man. The creature only becomes monstrous through his encounters with people. Everyone rejects and abuses him due to his physical appearance, which isn't his fault. Ultimately, he comes for Victor and his loved ones, turning Victor's life into a Gothic nightmare. The creature's revenge, complete with violent deaths and extreme emotions, are hallmarks of Gothic literature, which is part of Dark Romanticism. Like *The Castle of Otranto* and *The Mysteries of Udolpho* before it, Frankenstein immerses readers in psychological terror, confinement, madness, cruelty, and brooding villainy. Such fun! Well, for us anyway.
The punishment Victor endures makes him the modern Prometheus. This is an allusion or reference to the Greek legend in which Prometheus steals fire from the gods. He then gives it to mankind in the form of science, technology, and the knowledge to build civilization. For this transgression, Zeus sentences Prometheus to eternal punishment.
Speaking of civilization, the Industrial Revolution was ramping up during Shelley's time, and huge changes were happening across Europe. In Britain, large tracts of countryside were claimed in the name of mechanized industry. Factories and mills popped up where farmland and forests used to be. Populations exploded, towns became cities, human labor was exploited for mass production, and the air and waterways became polluted. For this reason, Frankenstein is often interpreted as an allegory for the hideous monster we made out of industry. Remember, an allegory is a narrative whose plot, characters, or setting are used to symbolize real-world issues or events.
The Industrial Revolution clashed with Mary Shelley's romantic sensibilities, especially in regard to nature. Remember, Romanticism was an important artistic movement in Europe during the 18th and 19th centuries. It was partly a reaction to the Enlightenment, in that it emphasized passion over reason and beauty over order. Romanticism was a creative mindset adopted by the likes of Lord Byron, Percy Bysshe Shelley, and Mary Shelley that embraced imagination, individual genius, and a deep appreciation for the sublime in nature.
Before she wrote Frankenstein, Mary Shelley co-authored a non-fiction travel narrative with Percy Bysshe Shelley. It details their early rambles through Europe and describes "grand scenes of white wilderness and a vast expanse of snow dotted by gigantic pines." This made a lasting impression on Mary Shelley and is echoed in Frankenstein. From the desolate ice scapes of the Arctic to the rugged grandeur of the Alps, the sight of the awful and majestic in nature is never lost on her characters.
Well done, team! You've made it to the top of the mountain. In this lesson, we've covered how aspects of Mary Shelley's context shaped her exploration of gender roles, man's ambition and hubris, Humanity versus monstrosity, revenge, and nature and the sublime in Frankenstein. Now you're ready to write awesome responses and make Mary Shelley proud. We hope you enjoyed this Schooling Online production. For more easy lessons, check out our other videos. [Music]