How does Mary Shelley explore the different meanings of ‘Monstrous’ in the text ‘Frankenstein’?
In the 19th century, Mary Shelley wrote the text ‘Frankenstein’. Many different themes are explored in this text; one of the main themes was ‘Monstrous’. In this book a doctor named ‘Victor Frankenstein’ makes a being out of different body parts he had stolen from graveyards. Mary Shelly came up with the basic idea of the book from a dream, but this was then developed into a story when she was challenged by ‘lord Byran’ to write a ghost story while she had gone to visit Lord Byran’s villa. The outline of the story was parallel to her own life, as in her own life, Mary Shelley has seen a lot of deaths; Mary Shelley’s Mother died giving birth to her; Mary Shelley lost two of her children after being born; she also lost her husband ‘Percy Shelley’ who was a poet, and the book ‘Frankenstein was originally published under his name as women were not allowed to publish books, this is because this didn’t go along with the women’s role, women were expected to stay at home and work., also because if it was published in her name, as most women didn’t under the philosophy of science, she would’ve been though of as a witch, so all these precious lives taken away from her could’ve given her the idea of bringing back the dead. Mary Shelley uses embedded narrative, this means a story inside another story; at first we se that Robert Walton is the one telling the story and then another story about Victor Frankenstein is started. In this text, it is not clear as to who the actual monster is; there are many monsters e.g. the creator created by Victor Frankenstein, Victor Frankenstein himself; the society of Geneva. Therefore Mary Shelley explores the meaning of ‘monstrous’ in many different ways.
