Frankenstein Essay

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Explain how Mary Shelley makes us feel contrasting emotions towards the creature in “Frankenstein”.

In this essay I will be talking about the historical background of writer Mary Shelley and about her novel “Frankenstein”. Mary Shelley was born on the 30th of August 1797.  Mary Shelley’s father was called William Godwin who was a Godwin and a philosopher.  After Mary Shelley was born, Mary Shelley’s mother Mary Wollstonecraft who was a feminist writer at the time died 4 weeks after Mary Shelley’s birth. When Mary Shelley grew up she ran off with a poet called “Percy Bysshe Shelley” who was already married. Mary Shelley was very well educated. Percy Bysshe Shelley and Mary Shelley had a baby girl in February in 1815 who unfortunately died almost a month later.

The Shelley’s went on holiday in about 1816. Mary Shelley had a dream that was used as the basis of “Frankenstein”. It was very wet so a ghost writing competition was organised to pass time, it was then that Mary Shelley had written her novel “Frankenstein” Mary Shelley’s ideas were inspired by developments in science and medicine which made people wonder if life could be created. People were religious and thought God was in charge of life and death, so any person tempering with his powers was likely to be horribly punished.

Mary Shelley had a further series of tragedies in life. These tragedies include the death of Mary Shelley’s in 1816 due to committing suicide; including the death of Mary Shelley’s own two children; one who died in 1818 and one in 1819. When Mary Shelley was 22 years of age which was in the year 1822 the death of her husband had also occurred. In 1818 Mary Shelley’s book was published namelessly, and later on in about 1830 it was published with her name on it. The reason for this is because when it was published previously in the years secretly, it was always believed that women should not work and are not as useful as men are and should remain as housewives looking after their children.  Another reason for this was that it was believed that women are not capable of writing novels. Later on when years had passed Mary Shelley had died in 1851.

In the novel Frankenstein the creature is first mentioned in the letter IV to Robert Walton. The letter had written in it: “a being which had the shape of a man, but apparently of gigantic stature”. The novel is set in the mist and ice, this is a gothic novel and causes a sense of mystery about the creature, and creates an atmosphere. This is so we create an image inside our minds of the creature and the mysterious atmosphere which leads an expectation. Mary Shelley uses words like “dreary, dismallye.eg “the rain pattered dismally against the panes”, dull and dim”. Mary Shelley used a lot of pathetic fallacy in this novel. In chapter 5 Shelley tells us that there is little light at a certain pint in the novel. This is because she wrote “my candle was nearly burnt out...” Here Shelley builds up the atmosphere by writing “so dark that anything could happen”.

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The size of Frankenstein’s creature reminds us of Walton’s letter “to make the being of gigantic stature, that is to say, about eight feet in height and proportionally large”. The creature is linked with corpses, graveyards, maggots and dead bodies. This description makes the reader feel disgusted and sick and would not want the creature anywhere near them and would most likely feel revolted and sickened which would make them feel furious and think the creature is just morally wrong.

Mary Shelley and her audience knew about body snatchers. In chapter 5 Mary Shelley sets a gothic scene by creating ...

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