Discuss Shelley's presentation of

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Discuss Shelley’s presentation of “the creation as an outsider in ‘Frankenstein”

   An outsider is someone who is not a member of a particular circle or group of people He/She is isolated (separated) from other people and regarded as being different such as people looking, dressing, acting or talk differently.  Outsiders have always been around and always will exist! Because society (i.e. - those who are not outsiders) like someone to pick on to make themselves feel better or superior.  Outsiders are treated in various ways, sometimes people pity them but they are usually rejected by other people.

Mary Shelley’s novel Frankenstein tells the story of a young Swiss student, Victor Frankenstein, who discovers the secret of animating lifeless matter and, by assembling body parts, creates a monster that valves revenge his creator (Victor Frankenstein) after being rejected from society. The novel fitted into the gothic novel, these novels were full of exaggerated horrors and when written between the late 18th and 19th century.  This was also the time of romantic movements dealt with powerful feelings, nature and the idea of new beginnings and great possibilities.  In England there had been great scientific discoveries especially electricity, these had lead to the industrial revolution.  This revolution threatened people because they thought that machines were more powerful than they were.

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Shelley was born in 1797 she was the daughter of a well known writer, Mary Wollstonecraft who died while giving birth to Shelley.  As a young woman, Shelley was close friends with writers and poets including Perry Bysshe, Shelley and Lord Bryran who challenged her to write a story, her gothic horror novel, Frankenstein was the result of of this challenge it’s narrated by a captain Walton who listens to Frankenstein’s entire life story.  The centre of this story is the shocking confession that Frankenstein had created the “monster”.

  The scene is set on a dreary night ...

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