Frankenstein as a Portrait of Evil
Mary Shelley's Frankenstein is more than just a story of a creation gone bad; it is rather a story of evil that compares Victor Frankenstein to Prometheus and his monster as a God-like figure. Mary was able to do this by all of the influences that she had. These influences made her able to write a new, "modern", Prometheus that did not directly call upon God, but, however, it did directly call on evil.
The influences that Mary Shelley had were enormous. They were her husband, her parents, her friends, and her mind. Her husband, Percy Shelley, was also a great writer. To her he personified the genius and dedication to human betterment that she had admired her whole life (G.E.W.). And it was probably for this reason why Mary let him watch so closely over her while she wrote Frankenstein (Levine, 4) and why she gave him carte blanche to revise the book (5).
Her parents were also a big influence on her. Her father was William Godwin and her mother was Mary Wollstonecraft. William Godwin was a philosopher and a novelist. Mary Wollstonecraft was a feminist. From an early age she was subjected to famous philosophers, poets, and writers. She was always treated as if she was a unique individual and her parents put high expectations on her and her potential (G.E.W.). Because of all this she had a lot of her mother's and father's political ideas go into her book (Levine, xiii).
It was probably because of her friends that she wrote Frankenstein. They were all at a party at Lord Byron's villa when the played the famous game that motivated her to write Frankenstein (Patterson). Supposedly she was the only one that took the game seriously (Levine, xi...
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...eing an excellent example of the portrayal of evil writing that is often found in the writing of the Romantic Period in Europe.
Works Cited and Consulted
Bloom, Harold. Mary Shelly's Frankenstein. New York: Chelsea, 1987.
G.E.W. Biographical Sketch. Http://www.cc.columbia.edu/acis/bartleby/shelley/shel110.html
Levine, George. The Endurance of Frankenstein. Los Angeles: Moers, 1974.
Patterson, Arthur Paul. A Frankenstein Study. http://www.watershed.winnipeg.mb.ca/Frankenstein.html
Smith, Christopher. Frankenstein as Prometheus. http://www.umich.edu/~umfandsf/class/sf/books/frank/papers/FrankCS.html
Spark, Muriel. Mary Shelly. New York: Dutton, 1987.
Spark and Stanford. My Best Mary. New York: Roy,1944.
Williams, Bill. On Shelley's Use of Nature Imagery. http://www.umich.edu/~umfandsf/class/sf/books/frank/papers/FrankWJW.html
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Franklin, Benjamin “Remarks Concerning the Savages of North America.” The Norton Anthology of American Literature, Vol. A. Ed. Nina Baym. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2012. 476-80. Print
Even though Frankenstein was written because of a dare from Lord Byron, it is very much a part of Shelley's life. We see many insights into her distressingly sad life that otherwise would not have been detected. Victor Frankenstein's family is almost an exact parallel to that of her husband, Percy Shelley's family. Frankenstein's creation of life, the monster, is much like Mary Shelley's birth to her daughter w...
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The conventional image that comes to mind when talking about the native Americans during the period of the building of the new world is brutal. The term “savage” is most closely associated with them and their practices at the time. It is important, as mentioned in P’s class, to remember that all the information we have on native Americans is what had been provided by the settlers. Therefore when studying the autobiography of Mary Rowlandson during her captivity, observing the actions of the native Americans, beyond Rowlandson’s descriptions gave more insight into what the atmosphere at the time was. It is also important to note that the Puritans,
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During the 1700s, the Enlightenment period in Europe was at its highest peak. It was at this time that author Mary Shelley decided to create her most famous novel, Frankenstein. Amidst a rainy day on Lake Geneva, author Mary Shelley was stuck in a house with a few Romantic poets, so in order to pass the time Lord Byron suggested that they each compose a ghost story to entertain each other. Promptly, Shelly began to conceive a horrific tale that demonstrates the detrimental effects of isolation on the mind and soul. In the novel Frankenstein, author Mary Shelley delineates the theme of isolation and its destructive power using evolution in tone, allusions to the Bible, and symbolism.
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