Transcript Mary Shelley

Mary Shelley
Frankenstein
Mr. Raber
Honors 12 English
Mary Shelley
August 30, 1797February 1, 1851
Mother - Mary Wollstonecraft
• famed writer, educator
and feminist
• A Vindication of the
Rights of Women
• Argued that women are
only inferior because of
their lack of educational
opportunities.
• She envisioned a society
based on reason and
rationality.
Father – William Godwin
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Anarchist
Philosopher
Novelist
Journalist
Atheist dissenter
Growing Up – The Stepmother
• Mother died 10 days after birth
• Father remarried – Mary Jane Clairmont
• A shady character with 2 illegitimate
children
• Educates her own 2 children “better” than
Mary
• Governess –
Louisa Jones
raised her during
her early years
• Father
• Free access to his
library
• “Published” her first
piece at the age of
11
• Many famous
guests visited her
father
Education
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Mary and her stepsister
once hid under the
sofa to hear him
recite his famous
poem “Rime of the
Ancient Mariner.”
This poem later
influenced her as she
wrote Frankenstein.
Percy Shelley
• Godwin’s frequent
visitor
• Married to Harriet
Shelley
• Well-known romantic
poet and lyricist
The Scandal
Percy fell deeply in love with Mary
Wollstonecraft-Godwin. They ran away
together while Percy’s wife was pregnant
with his child. After the child’s birth,
Harriet Shelley committed suicide in a lake
in London. Mary and Percy married three
weeks later.
“Romantic Beyond Romance”
•Traveled - Italy
Switzerland, Germany,
•Studied literature,
language, music & art
Always a Dark Side
Percy
• Narcissistic (excessive self-love)
• “Free love” theory
• Affair with Mary’s stepsister Claire
Mary
• 3 children in 5 years
• 2 die as infants, Will as a toddler
• Birth and death become primary thoughts in
Mary’s mind
Lord Byron
• Friend - Lord Byron
• As the result of an
affair, fathered a child
with Clair Clairmont
• Known for his
Romantic Period
poetry
• The “Byronic” hero
The Challenge
While vacationing in
Switzerland with Lord
Byron, the friends
agreed to a story
challenge.
Hollywood’s
“Frankenstein”
FRANKENSTEIN
“My imagination, unbidden, possessed
and guided me …I saw the pale
student of unhallowed arts kneeling
beside the thing he had put together—
I saw the hideous phantasm of a man
stretched out, and then, on the
working of some powerful engine,
show signs of life, and stir with an
uneasy, half-vital.”
Interestingly….
• Mary titled the novel Frankenstein or the Modern
Prometheus.
• She did not put her own name on the 1818
edition.
• Mary finally received credit when she wrote the
introduction and published the 1831 edition.
A Year of Tragedy
In 1822:
• Claire’s daughter dies at the convent
where her father has sent her.
• Percy saves Mary from bleeding to death
following a miscarriage.
• Caught in a storm, Percy dies while
boating.
Mary Wollstonecraft
Shelley died in 1851.