MARY W. SHELLEY’S FRANKENSTEIN

HISTORICAL

AND

LITERARY

CONTEXT

Prepared by Melissa Dyer

Source Material from Holt, Rinehart, & Winston

Glencoe and Signet Classics

HISTORICAL CONTEXT:SETTING

• Ambiguous time period of the novel’s setting

• Walton’s letters are dated merely “17--”

• No explicit references to current events

• Scholars assume novel is set in the latter part of 18th century

• end of Enlightenment & beginning of Romantic period

• story critiques excesses of former & introduces beliefs of latter

• novel is a great Gothic thriller

• Reflects a shift in social and political thought:

• from humans as creatures who use reason and science (to shape and

control their destiny)

• to humans as creatures who rely on their emotions (to determine

what is right)

HISTORICAL CONTEXT:ENLIGHTENMENT PERIOD

• Enlightenment Period, early 18th century

• Enlightenment thinkers welcomed discoveries from sciences of

astronomy & physics

• Discoveries accepted as support for traditional beliefs about God’s

universe & seemed indisputable

• As more specific discoveries were made & more control was exerted

over Nature, however, a secular view of the world began to emerge

• humans were but one animal among many others

• humans were superior because of their ability to control so much of the

natural world

• this new thinking created a crisis --- Nature was no longer a great mystery

• This led some people to worry that nature itself was being threatened

by scientific advances & rational thought

HISTORICAL CONTEXT:FRENCH REVOLUTION

• French Revolution helped bring end to Enlightenment

movement

• At the heart of French Revolution:

• a call for individual freedom

• the overthrow of rigid social hierarchy (that characterized both

British & French society)

• In Britian, social system further challenged by Industrial

Revolution

• change from agrarian to industrial society

• large, impoverished, and increasingly restless working class &

anxious middle class

HISTORICAL CONTEXT:PHILOSOPHICAL & EDUCATIONAL

THEORIES

• John Locke’s Essay Concerning Human Understanding

(1690) argued that a child is a “blank slate” who is

formed only through experience

• Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s Emile, or On Education (1762)

promoted the idea that a child’s upbringing is responsible

for his education

HISTORICAL CONTEXT:WRITERS FOR CHANGE

• British writers (such as John Keats, Lord Byron, and Percy Bysshe

Shelley)

• Championed the rise of individuality & the individual’s

“imagination” and “poetical faculty” & the expression of emotion

over rational thought

• Argued for a delight in the mystery of nature

• Subjects included outcasts, solitary individuals, & ordinary people.

• Themes addressed relationship of individual to nature & society

LITERARY CONTEXT:ROMANTICISM

• Romanticism began in Germany, around the turn of the 19th

century

• spread to England, France, Italy, & the United States

• Word “romantic” was derived from the term romance

• popular genre of medieval literature

• plot centers on a hero who battles an evil enemy & wins

• hero undertakes quest—with a test or an ordeal to ascertain his

heroic qualities

• other features include supernatural elements, struggle between

good & evil, female figures (usually maidens) in need of rescue.

LITERARY CONTEXT:ROMANTICISM

• 19th century British Romantic writers explored psychological & mysterious aspects of human experience

• Features of Romanticism:

• focus on Imagination & Naturalness—turning away from Reason &

Artifice rejecting formal, witty works

• emphasis on Individual (Personal) Passion (Feeling, Experiences,

Emotion)

• fascination with Nature & perception of it as a Healing Force

• belief in Individual Liberty & a rebellious attitude against tyranny

• promotes advocacy of Free Thought

LITERARY CONTEXT:ROMANTICISM

• Features of Romanticism, continued

• belief in the innate goodness of mankind

• emphasis on Inspiration & Imagination

• use of symbolism

• use of supernatural

• belief that artistic creations are justified by their coherence &

intensity

• turn to a past or an inner dream world that is felt to be more

picturesque & magical than the industrial age

LITERARY CONTEXT:GOTHIC LITERATURE

• Genre of Romantic writing

• Encouraged readers to reflect on:

• wild, unpredictable, powerfully destructive aspects of nature

• human aspirations & failures

• Brooding atmosphere that emphasizes “the unknown” & inspires fear

• Melancholy, desolate setting (wild, remote, decayed)

• Could enhance spiritual awareness

• Could generate “sensibility”—the ability to be emotionally

affected

LITERARY CONTEXT: GOTHIC NOVELS

• Main ingredients: mystery, horror, & the supernatural

• Emphasized:

• the eerie (the supernatural), evoking terror & horror

• use of intense emotion

• Nature as a powerful & destructive force

• Use of weather & atmosphere to depict mood

• Achieved great popularity in Britain at a time when social

upheaval of Industrial Revolution & shock waves of

French Revolution left many people searching for an

understanding of new social & political ideas

LITERARY CONTEXT:SCIENCE-FICTION GENRE

• Genre of writing that deals with the impact of science upon society

or individuals

• Generally considered to have begun toward the end of the 19th

century with works by Jules Verne and H. G. Wells

• Many consider Frankenstein to be a pre-cursor of the genre

• Sci-Fi has had major influence on films & tv, with the use of

computer-generated special effects

• PLAUSIBILITY is a key factor – the science fiction work must be

believable

HISTORICAL CONTEXT:BODY SNATCHING

• During the 18th and early 19th centuries, criminals stole

corpses from newly dug graves to sell to medical schools,

which needed bodies for use in teaching anatomy.

• William Burke and William Hare were two infamous body snatchers of the day. They ran a boardinghouse in

Scotland, killed at least 15 of their lodgers, and sold the

bodies to a local surgeon who operated a school of

anatomy.

HISTORICAL CONTEXT:LIFE FROM DEATH

• Mary Shelley’s idea of reanimating a corpse, was a proposition

that has some scientific credibility in the early 1800s. In her

introduction to the 3rd edition, she wrote about her idea

originating from listening to a discussion between her husband

& Lord Byron about current scientific events.

• In the years 1816-18, articles on such topics as electricity and

magnetism, vivisections, Polar explorations, & the emerging

theory of evolution were published.

SYMBOLISM IN FRANKENSTEIN

• Color WHITE or a Brilliant Light symbolizes knowledge, accompanied

by pain, loneliness, & death

• The ALPS (particularly Mont Blanc) symbolizes “the sublime,” the

majestic aspect of nature that inspires awe & terror

• WATER symbolizes knowledge, communication, tranquility, &

immortal life; water becomes a symbol for Danger when it becomes

ICE

• LIGHTNING symbol for nature’s great elusive power

• ELECTRICITY (both beneficial & destructive consequences) replaces

Promethean FIRE as a “gift”

• NATURE symbolizes tranquility & inspiration

CHARACTER ARCHETYPESIN FRANKENSTEIN

• Noble Savage

• Doppelgangers (Self & Shadow)

• Hero

• Wanderer

• Orphan

• Parent (Mother or Father) & Child

• Mad Scientist

• Monster/Creature of Nightmare

• Outcast

• Scapegoat

OTHER LITERARY ELEMENTS

• IRONY: The Creature is a much more sympathetic character

than Dr. Frankenstein

• ANTITHESIS: Contrasts between Frankenstein & the Creature as

well as between passion/reason, natural/unnatural, known/

unknown, civilized/uncivilized, masculine/feminine, life/death

beautiful/ugly, good/bad, light/dark, heat/cold

• ALLUSION:

• Paradise Lost by John Milton

• The Rime of the Ancient Mariner by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

• Lines Composed a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey by William

Wordsworth