Frankenstein Background

or The Modern Prometheus
Frankenstein
Put your pens down. This is available on the Web.
Listen, discuss, ask questions.
ou are expected to know this, but you don’t need to copy!

Getting Ready to Read
What do you know about Frankenstein?
Why is there such controversy over cloning?
What is man’s biggest fear?

Mary Shelley (1797-1851)
Born: Somers Town,
England
Parents: feminist
Mary Wollstonecraft
and philosopher
William Godwin.

Mom had an affair with a military captain
which resulted in her first child,
Fanny. Soldier abandoned them. Mom
attempted suicide. Later met Godwin, had an
affair. Got pregnant again (w/ Mary) and they
married to legitimate both kids
Wollstonecraft dies as the result of Mary's
birth. Mary is then raised by her resentful
father and an evil stepmother

Shelley learned about her mother only through
writings her mother left behind, including A
Vindication of the Rights of Women (1792)
which advocated that women should have the
same educational opportunities as rights in
society as men.
Avid reader and scholar and knew through her
father some of the most important men of the
time (William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor
Coleridge)

a lot of famous writers traced through their
house-friends of her father (Percy Shelley,
Coleridge, Charles Lamb)
When she was 9, she and her stepsister hid
under a sofa to hear Samuel Taylor Coleridge
recite ―The Rime of the Ancient Mariner‖, a
poem which influenced her when writing
Frankenstein

Dad remarries, Mary Jane Clairmont—
mean woman
-Clairmont tried to train Mary in the
―womanly arts‖ but all Mary would do
was read and write
In her young teens Clairmont sends Mary
to live at Ramsgate with a Miss
Petman. While there took some time off
to travel to Scotland with a friend of the
family

-Returned home, a woman. Became close with her
father who she regularly talked Philosophy with.
-While spending time at home Mary is reintroduced
to Percy Bysshe Shelley (a friend/follower of her
father). Percy is married, but they still fall in
love (similar intellects)
-Father is outraged, but Shelley and Mary
eventually run away together with the help of
Fanny (Mary 16, Percy 21)

-Life is tough for Mary & Percy. Short on $-living in
London
-Percy’s wife, Harriet, bares him a belated son
-Percy’s friend falls in love with Mary
-Mary gets pregnant-has a daughter, who dies
-Fanny commits suicide
-Both are able to write and live as they please

On a visit in Switzerland with PBS, Lord
Byron, his mistress and his doctor,
Polidori, she was challenged to write a
―ghost‖ story. She had heard Byron and
Shelley discussing ―the nature of the
principle of life and whether there was any
chance of its ever being discovered.‖ From
this conversation, she had the ―waking
dream‖ which eventually became the novel
Frankenstein.

Frankenstein is the only story of the four that was
ever published as a novel.
Polidori wrote "The Vampyre," which is
considered the first modern vampire story. The
story was first published in the April 1819 issue
of New Monthly Magazine, mistakenly under the
name of Lord Byron.

In November, Harriet drowns herself: Percy
and Mary marry in December 1816.
Young Mary Shelley, at age 17, miscarried
her first baby. She later wrote in a letter to
friend Leigh Hunt.... "I dreamt that my little
baby came to life again...that it had only been
cold, and that we rubbed it before the fire, and
it lived. Awake and find no baby. I think
about the little thing all day. Not in good
spirits."

The last years of married life are filled
with disaster for Mary. Her half sister
dies as does another of her children.
Mary becomes depressed, a tendency
she probably inherited from her
mother. She is only partly relieved by
the birth of Percy, their only surviving
child.

Mary and Percy eventually move to
Italy where Percy drowns during a
sailing trip in 1822. Mary is
determined to keep the memory of her
late husband alive. She publishes
several editions of Percy's writings
and adds notes and prefaces to them.

Lord Byron found Percy's body washed
up on the shore of an Italian beach. Due to
plague restrictions, the body must be
burned on the beach. Percy's heart,
however, refused to burn. Byron gave
Mary the heart, and she kept it wrapped
up in a copy of a poem Percy had written
upon the death of his friend, John Keats.

Mary continued to write her own
novels, the most famous one being
The Last Man (1826). This book deals
with human isolation just as her earlier
novel Frankenstein did. She writes
numerous short stories and contributes
biographical and critical studies to the
Cabinet Cyclopædia.

The last years of her life were spent in the
company of her son and two good friends.
She tried very hard to free herself from
the strains put on her by being the
daughter and wife of such well-known
people.
Mary Shelley died in 1851 at the age of
fifty-three of a brain tumor.

Historical Context
Ambiguous Walton’s letters dated ―17-‖ with no
reference to anything specific to pinpoint the date.
It is set in the latter part of the 18 th century, at the
end of the Enlightenment and the beginning of the
Romantic period.
It critiques the excesses of the Enlightenment and
introduces the beliefs of the Romantics.
Reflects a shift in social and political thought – from
humans as creatures who use science and reason to
shape and control their destiny to humans as
creatures who rely on their emotions to determine
what is right.

Ideas of the Enlightenment
Scientific observation of the outer world
Logic and reason; science and technology
Believed in following standards and traditions
Appreciated elegance and refinement
Interested in maintaining the aristocracy
Sought to follow and validate authority
Favored a social hierarchy
Nature should be controlled by humans

Important Revolutions
American and French Revolution (call for
individual freedom and an overthrow of
rigid social hierarchy)
Industrial Revolution – social system
challenged by change from agricultural
society to industrial one with a large,
impoverished and restless working class

Romanticism
Definition:
A movement of the eighteenth and
nineteenth centuries that marked the
reaction in literature, philosophy, art,
religion, and politics to the formalism of
the preceding (Neoclassic) period.
The Neoclassic period valued reason,
formal rules, and demanded order in
beauty.

Visual Arts: Examples
Neoclassical Art
Romantic Art

Characteristics of Romantic Period
Emphasis on imagination and emotion, individual
passion and inspiration
Rejection of formal, upper class works and a
preference for writing (poetry) that addresses
personal experiences and emotions in simple,
language
A turn to the past or an inner dream world that is
thought to be more picturesque and magical than
the current world (industrial age)

Characteristics of Romantic Period
Belief in individual liberty; rebellious
attitude against tyranny
Fascination with nature; perception of
nature as transformative

Characteristics of Romantic Period
Concerned with common people
Favored democracy
Desired radical change
Nature should be untamed

Romanticism
Characteristics:
The predominance of imagination over reason
and formal rules
Primitivism
Love of nature
An interest in the past
Mysticism

Individualism
Idealization of rural life
Enthusiasm for the wild, irregular, or
grotesque in nature
Enthusiasm for the uncivilized or ―natural‖
Interest in human rights
Sentimentality
Melancholy
Interest in the gothic

Supernatural And Gothic
Literary Themes
Supernatural motifs appear throughout
literature but are most prominent in the
literary genre labeled "Gothic," which
developed in the late eighteenth-century and
is devoted primarily to stories of horror, the
fantastic, and the "darker" supernatural
forces. The English Gothic novel originated
with the publication of Horace Walpole’s
The Castle of Otranto (1765), which
Walpole called a "Gothic story." Frankenstein
belongs specifically to the Gothic genre.

Like Gothic architecture, Gothic literature focuses
on humanity’s fascination with the grotesque, the
unknown, and the frightening, inexplicable
aspects of the universe and the human soul. The
Gothic "relates the individual to the infinite
universe" (Varma 16) and creates horror by
portraying human individuals in confrontation
with the overwhelming, mysterious, terrifying
forces found in the cosmos and within themselves.
Gothic literature pictures the human condition as
an ambiguous mixture of good and evil powers
that cannot be understood completely by human
reason.

Thus, the Gothic perspective conceives of
the human condition as a paradox, a
dilemma of duality—humans are divided in
the conflict between opposing forces in the
world and in themselves.
The Gothic themes of human nature’s
depravity, the struggle between good and
evil in the human soul, and the existence of
unexplainable elements in humanity and
the cosmos, are prominent themes in
Frankenstein.

Style: Gothic Novel
Frankenstein is generally categorized as a Gothic
novel, a genre of fiction that uses gloomy settings
and supernatural events to create and atmosphere
of mystery and terror.
Shelley adds to her development of the plot the
use of psychological realism, delving into the
psyches of the characters in an attempt to explain
why they react as they do and what drives them to
make their decisions.

Supernatural/Gothic
Literary Motifs
A motif is a repeated
theme, image, or literary
device. Look for these
common
supernatural/Gothic motifs
in Frankenstein.

The Double or Doppelganger (German for "double-goer"):
Defined by Federick S. Frank as "a second self or alternate
identity, sometimes, but not always, a physical twin. The
Doppelganger in demonic form can be a reciprocal or lower
bestial self or a Mr. Hyde. Gothic doppelgangers often haunt
and threaten the rational psyche of the victim to whom they
become attached" (435).

The double motif involves a
comparison or contrast between
two characters or sets of
characters within a work to
represent opposing forces in
human nature.
The double motif suggests that
humans are burdened with a
dual nature, a soul forever
divided.
Double characters are often
paired in common relationships,
such as twins, siblings,
husband/wife, parent/child,
hero/villain, creator/creature,
etc.

Forbidden Knowledge or Power/ Faust Motif:

Forbidden Knowledge or Power/ Faust Motif:
Forbidden knowledge/power is often the Gothic
protagonist’s goal. The Gothic "hero" questions the
universe’s ambiguous nature and tries to
comprehend and control those supernatural powers
that mortals cannot understand. He tries to overcome
human limitations and make himself into a "god."
This ambition usually leads to the hero’s "fall" or
destruction; however, Gothic tales of ambition
sometimes paradoxically evoke our
admiration because they picture
individuals with the courage to defy
fate and cosmic forces in an attempt
to transcend the mundane to the
eternal and sublime.

Monster/Satanic Hero/Fallen Man:
The courageous search for forbidden
knowledge or power always leads the
hero to a fall, a corruption, or destruc-
tion, such as Satan’s or Adam’s fall.
Consequently, the hero in Gothic
literature is often a "villain." The
hero is isolated from others by his
fall and either becomes a monster
or confronts a monster who is his double. He becomes a
"Satanic hero" if, like Satan, he has courageously defied
the rules of God’s universe and has tried to transform
himself into a god. Note: the mad scientist, who tries to
transcend human limitations through science, is a type of
Satanic hero that is popular in Gothic literature
(examples include Dr. Jekyll and Frankenstein).

Multiple Narrative/Spiral Narrative
Method:
The story is frequently told through a
series of secret manuscripts or
multiple tales, each revealing a deeper
secret, so the narrative gradually
spirals inward toward the hidden truth.
The narrator is often a first-person
narrator compelled to tell the story to a
fascinated or captive listener
(representing the captivating power
of forbidden knowledge). By
revealing to us their own souls’
secrets, these narrators reveal the
secrets of humankind’s soul.

Dreams/Visions:
Terrible truths are often revealed to characters through
dreams or visions. The hidden knowledge of the
universe and of human nature emerges through dreams
because, when the person sleeps, reason sleeps, and
the supernatural, unreasonable world can break
through. Dreams in
Gothic literature
express the dark,
unconscious depths of
the psyche that are
repressed by reason—
truths that are too
terrible to be
comprehended by the
conscious mind.

Signs/Omens:
Reveal the
intervention of
cosmic forces and
often represent
psychological or
spiritual conflict
(e.g., flashes of
lightning and violent
storms might
parallel some
turmoil within a
character’s mind).

The Novel
This epistolary novel begins with letters written from
Robert Walton to his sister. The point of these letters
is to set up the pretense that this is a true story. This
is a very popular technique at the time this novel was
written.
In the letters, the story of Captain Walton unfolds.
Eventually winding up in the Arctic circle and picks
up Victor Frankenstein who relates his story to
Captain Walton. The main part of the novel is this
story, now no longer in letter form, but as Victor
relates it.

Structure and Point of View
Frame Story
Epistolary – carried by letters

Frankenstein
She did not put her name on the novel
when it was published in 1818.
Many assumed it had been
written by her husband.
She attached her name to the
novel in the 1831 edition.

. . . or a Modern Prometheus
The complete title of this book is
Frankenstein or a Modern Prometheus.
Byron, who was with Shelley when she
began to write this novel, wrote a poem
titled "Prometheus" that she would have
been familiar with and inspired by
The story of Prometheus goes as follows:

Prometheus was one of the titans that sided with Zeus and
the gods against Cronus and the titans. Later, after the gods
ruled and mankind was created, Prometheus desired to give
mankind a gift of fire. Zeus forbade it since man would
misuse it to make weapons and such and since if man had
fire, they would not be as reliant on the gods. Prometheus
stole some from Mt. Olympus and gave it to man. As a
result, man was punished by Zeus giving them woman
(horrors upon horrors!) and Prometheus was chained to a
rock where an eagle (or vulture in some myths) eats his
liver out everyday. Since he is immortal, it grows back
only to be eaten again the next day. Hercules later rescued
Prometheus (but nobody rescued man!).

Just as Prometheus went too far to
give mankind the mysteries of the
gods, Victor goes too far in
discovering the mysteries of God by
trying to defy death and learn how to
create life.

Major Characters
Victor Frankenstein – protagonist, product
of an idealistic Enlightenment education;
fueled by possibilities of science and a
desire for acclaim; becomes obsessed with
creating life from spare body parts.
Rational demeanor dissolves and by story’s
end, consumed by primitive emotions of
fear and hatred.

Major Characters
The Creature - never named; is Victor’s
doppelganger (alter ego); Creature
rationally analyzes the society that rejects
him; sympathetic character, admires people
and wants to be a part of human society;
only results in violence when he is
repeatedly rejected

The Legend of the Golem
The monster in Frankenstein is a flesh golem.
Definition of a golem:
The word golem is used in the Bible to refer to
an embryonic or incomplete substance: Psalm
139:16 uses the word "gal'mi", meaning "my
unshaped form. Similarly, Golems are used
today primarily in metaphor either as brainless
lunks or as entities serving man under controlled
conditions but enemies in others. Similarly, it is a
Yiddish slang insult for someone who is clumsy
or slow.

Having a golem servant was seen as
the ultimate symbol of wisdom and
holiness, and there are many tales of
golems connected to prominent rabbis
throughout the Middle Ages

The existence of a golem is in most
stories portrayed as a mixed blessing.
Although not overly intelligent, a golem
can be made to perform simple tasks over
and over. The problem is one of control or
getting it to stop, bearing a resemblance to
the story of the broomstick in The
Sorcerer's Apprentice.

Major Characters
Henry Clerval – Victor’s childhood friend; true
romantic, wants to leave mark on the world, but
never loses sight of ―the moral relations of things
Elizabeth – adopted as an infant by Victor’s
family; marries Victor
Robert Walton – Arctic explorer who’s obsessed
with gaining knowledge and fame; rescues Victor
in the Arctic; through letters to his sister, Mrs.
Margaret Saville, he relates how he met
Frankenstein and the fantastic story Frankenstein
tells him

Characters in Frankenstein (Secondary Characters)
Justine Moritz. Justine is employed in the
Frankenstein hosehold. She cares for the dying Mrs.
Frankenstein and is greatly loved by the family.
Agatha, Felix, and Mr. De Lacey. Mr. De Lacey is the
blind father of Agatha and Felix, the young people
who live in the cottage near the place where the
monster hides.
Safie. Safie is a young Turkish or Arabian woman
who flees her father to marry Felix.

Characters in Frankenstein (Minor Characters)
Mrs. Margaret Saville. Walton’s married sister, Mrs.
Saville, is the specified audience of the story.
Alphonso Frankenstein. Victor’s father, Alphonso,
unkonwingly encourages his son;s studies b a passing
remark. Alphonso worries about Victor when their
correspondence is infrequent.
Ernest Frankenstein. Victor’s younger brother does
not share Victor’s passion for scientific study.
William Frankenstein. William is the youngest of the
Frankenstein children.

Characters in Frankenstein (Minor Characters)
Caroline Beaufort Frankenstein. The daughter of
Alphonso’s good friend, Caroline marries Alphonso after
her father’s death. Mindful of her own poverty-stricken
past, she adopts Elizabeth Lavenza from the poor family
who has been raising her.
Professors Krempe and Waldman. These two scholars
influence Frankenstein’s work at the university at Ingolstadt.
Mr. Kirwin. He is the magistrate in the village in Ireland
where Frankenstein is accused of murder.
Daniel Nugent. He is one of the witnesses against
Frankenstein.

Alchemy
Medieval ―science‖ and philosophy
Convert base metals into gold
Seen as a universal cure for disease
Means of prolonging life

Cornelius Agrippa
September 14th, 1486 - February 18th, 1535
Agrippa was the scientist Victor studied before the
university. This was his first introduction into
science. Just who was this man?
He was:
*a magician *soldier
*occult writer *astrologer
*alchemist *legal expert
*early feminist *physician
*theologian
Where have you heard his name?

Themes
Consequences of irresponsibility in the
pursuit of knowledge
Consequences of pride
Consequences of society’s rejection of
someone who is unattractive
Destructive power of revenge
Motifs
Parent-child conflicts
Sympathy

Themes
1. Ignorance is Bliss - The quote at
the beginning from chapter four
illustrates this perfectly. This theme is
a warning to avoid going too far with
science. There are some mysteries that
mankind was not meant to understand.

2. Human Injustice Toward Outsiders
- The monster is an outsider to all
humankind. The old blind man is an
outsider because of his age and
blindness. Justine is an outsider because
of her being adopted. Victor is an
outsider because he alone has the
knowledge of what he has done and the
existence of the monster.

3. The Treatment of Women - Victor
doesn't mistreat women, but he does
portray an 1800s view of male
superiority. The monster, on the other
hand, does not have the upbringing like
Victor's, therefore, his idea of the
equality of women is different.

4. Nature vs. the Unnatural - With the
industrial revolution taking place, many
Victorian novels expressed fear and
distrust of the newer technology and
leaps in science. This book expresses
those fears through several scenes.

Other Literary Elements
Irony – 2 major ironies
Creature is more sympathetic, more
imaginative and more responsible to fellow
creatures
Creature has many pleasing qualities but is
an outcast because he’s not physically
attractive

Symbols
White/light= knowledge
Water = knowledge
Ice = danger
Lightning = nature’s power
Nature = acceptance, nuturing, calm
Mountains= sublime in nature

Antithesis
Contrasts of ideas, characters, themes, settings or
moods
Victor/creation
Passion/reason
Natural/unnatural
Known/unknown
Civilized/savage
Masculine/feminine
Beautiful/ugly
Good/bad
Light/dark
Heat/cold

Allusion
2 poems are alluded to in the novel:
Paradise Lost by John Milton – story of
man’s fall from innocence to painful
knowledge; Victor can be compared to
Adam, Satan, and Eve
The Rime of the Ancient Mariner by
Samuel Taylor Coleridge, like narrator,
tells story as a warning and a confession

Literary Allusions
Volney's Ruins of Empires:
This is the book that Felix uses to
instruct Safie. While doing so, the
monster learns world history. The book
has a future prediction in it that all
religions will eventually become one
after mankind realizes the single truth
that they all share.

Literary Allusion 2
Johann Wolfgang von Geothe's Sorrows
Werther:
This was one of the books the monster found in a
satchel while out in the woods that the monster
reads to learn more about mankind. Young men
began to dress like the character and there was
even the first reported cases of copycat suicides
as young men tried to imitate the suicide of
young Werther. Werther was in love with a
woman who was engaged and could not love him
back.

Literary Allusion 3
Plutarch's Parallel Lives:
Another book found in the satchel. This
one gives history through the lives of
Greek and Roman heroes. None of these
heroes are female, but this is one of the
best sources for information on the life
of women in the ancient world.

Literary Allusion 4
John Milton's Paradise Lost:
Much more popular than its sequel, Paradise
Regained, this epic is about the fall of Satan
and the subsequent fall of man. In it, Satan
has cool quotes like, "Better to reign in hell
than to serve in heaven." This book was also
found in the satchel.
More about this book:

Did I request thee, Maker, from my clay
To mould me man? Did I solicit thee
From darkness to promote me?
John Milton's Paradise Lost &
the beginning of the 1818 version of
Frankenstein

Monster vs. Adam
The monster reads a copy of Paradise Lost,
which stirs him. The monster compares his
situation to that of Adam. Unlike the first man
who had "come forth from the hands of God a
perfect creature," Frankenstein's creature is
hideously formed. Unlike Adam, the monster
is abandoned by Victor Frankenstein and finds
himself "wretched, helpless, and alone."

Monster vs. Satan
The monster can also be compared to
Satan since both were created to be
beautiful and neither directly attacks
their creator, but rather, the ones most
dear to their creator.

Victor vs. Adam/Satan
Victor can be compared to Adam since
both achieved their downfall via
searching for knowledge that they should
not have.
In Paradise Lost Satan's sin is pride.
Victor is motivated by his pride to be the
best and to hide his actions, even to the
expense of Justine's death.

The Unreliable Narrator
Just as in Percy's "Ozymandius" and Emily Bronte's
Wuthering Heights, Mary Shelley's Frankenstein has
an inside/outside narrator. The whole story is Robert
Walton's retelling of what Victor tells him. In some
cases the monster is telling Victor who is in turn
retelling it to Walton who in turn retells it to us. Now
we have no reason to really doubt Walton. We can,
however, build a case to scrutinize what Victor is
telling. We can also analyze the truthfulness of the
monster's story. Did the monster really try to save
the girl from drowning, or is he lying in order to
make himself look better?

An unreliable narrator cannot be fully
trusted either because they do not
understand what they are narrating (as in
Flowers for Algernon and The Adventures
of Huckleberry Finn) or they may simply
be lying to the reader to suit their needs.
Many people question the story of the
monster (and for that matter, Van Helsing
in Dracula).

Surveying the Text
How is the text organized?
How long is each chapter?
What did the publishers and author include
before the actual novel? After the end of the
novel?