There are clearly some important dates in the life of Mary Shelly that no doubt influence the subject matter of the novel. In 1805 there was the Napoleonic Wars lasting until 1815 causing great hardship and social upheaval. In 1811 Britain witnessed similar unrest and feelings of revolution. In 1814 Mary elopes with shelly and travels into France and Switzerland, this could have given her the ideas in chapter 9 where the scenery is mountainous and beautiful. Also in the novel, the monster goes exploring in Switzerland. In 1816 Mary and Shelly go to Switzerland and this is where the Novel is begun. Suicides of Fanny Imlay, Mary Wollstonecraft’s daughter by a previous liaison, as well as Percy Shelley’s wife Harriet allowing Mary and Percy to marry. This could be linked to when Victor is wondering weather to commit suicide in chapter 9 by jumping into the silent lake.
Mary Shelly was somewhat of a celebrity of her time and was friends with all of the famous writers and poets, and a lot of those people influenced and helped her in the writing of Frankenstein. Not only was Mary Shelly influenced by the poets around her but by classic Greek mythology and in particular the tale of Prometheus. This became fertilizer for her novel and in fact an alternative title to Frankenstein is ‘A modern Prometheus’. According to Aeschylus’ Prometheus Bound, Zeus had regarded the human beings which he had created as worthy only of extinction. Zeus decided to freeze the entire human race when Prometheus, recognizing the good in mankind, helped mortals overcome their condition by stealing for them fire of lightening. For this Zeus grew angry with Prometheus for in fusing life into men of clay that he had formed. For this treachery Prometheus was eternally punished. This tale is similar to Frankenstein as that Victor being like Zeus creating life, but then the people being the opposite to Prometheus. The people want to destroy the monster not knowing weather it is evil or not, unlike Prometheus who gave mankind a chance to prove that they are not evil.
In the novel there is more than one narrator, there is Walton the scientist who victor attempted to emulate in his work, Victor himself and the Creature. We can tell there is a sense of guilt emerges from each viewpoint. Mary some times uses the scenery to show the characters guilt; an example is in chapter 9 page 101 where it says “Immense Mountains and precipices….River raging among rocks.” The mountains and river might be his guilt towering over him. Mary Shelly wrote during what literary critics call the ‘romantic period. This particularly gathered momentum at the end of the 18th Century and tended to embody imagination and value of individual experience. This becomes important when we assess her bohemian lifestyle; living a life that is almost a work of art. She wrapped her novel with images of the liberating power of art and portrayed an admiration of nature at its most impressive.
There is a sense of fear and fascination with the creature. He is a man with abnormal strength; he has a face full of scars and together gives people a sense of fear when they see him. The people are scared of him and declare him as being some sort evil, so immediately see him as being a threat to them and instinctively attack him. This makes the readers feel sorry for the creature and keeps the reader waiting for what he will do when all mankind wants to kill him. Mary uses imagery and nature to reflect this. She uses the weather to show how he is feeling, like when he first runs away and it is raining heavily.
By Joseph Reed
