1、Mary Shelley,Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus is a novel written by Mary Shelley about a creature produced by an unorthodox scientific experiment. Shelley started writing the story when she was eighteen, and the novel was published when she was twenty-one. The first edition was published anon
2、ymously in London in 1818. Shelleys name appears on the second edition, published in France in 1823.,Shelley had travelled in the region of Geneva, where much of the story takes place, and the topics of galvanism电疗法 and other similar occult ideas were themes of conversation among her companions, par
3、ticularly her future husband, Percy Shelley. The storyline emerged from a dream. Mary, Percy, Lord Byron, and John Polidori decided to have a competition to see who could write the best horror story. After thinking for weeks about what her possible storyline could be, Shelley dreamt about a scientis
4、t who created life and was horrified by what he had made. She then wrote Frankenstein.,Frankenstein is infused with some elements of the Gothic novel and the Romantic movement and is also considered to be one of the earliest examples of science fiction. Brian Aldiss has argued that it should be cons
5、idered the first true science fiction story, because unlike in previous stories with fantastical elements resembling those of later science fiction, the central character “makes a deliberate decision“ and “turns to modern experiments in the laboratory“ to achieve fantastic results. It has had a cons
6、iderable influence across literature and popular culture and spawned a complete genre of horror stories and films.,Since publication of the novel, the name “Frankenstein“ is often used to refer to the monster itself, as is done in the stage adaptation by Peggy Webling. This usage is sometimes consid
7、ered erroneous, but usage commentators regard the monster sense of “Frankenstein“ as well-established and an acceptable usage.,Portrait of Mary Shelley,Mary Shelley, the author of the legendary Frankenstein, was no commonplace nineteen-year-old teenager. In a matter of way, she was a literary novice
8、新手 in her own respect, right from childhood. Being the daughter to the thinker, novelist and publisher William Godwin and feminist Mary Wollstonecraft, she basked amongst literary elite right from her early days.,Whilst girls of her age attended to ball frocks and hair-dos she was more occupied with
9、 contemporary Gothic novels; Paradise Lost by Milton, Paradise Regained, Areopagetica, Lycidas and Comus. On the other end, Shelly digested the works of her poet-husband Pryce Shelley, Byron, Wordsworth, and Coleridge and while writing down the notorious Frankenstein, she was going through Gullivers
10、 Travels by Swift.To some degree, Frankenstein was more of a girls wonder that owed to childhood feasts on dark and peculiar fantasies.,How was Frankenstein Born,One Dark Stormy Night,It started one stormy night at the residence of Lord Byron where a group of contemporary literati were assembled. Ma
11、ry Shelly was also visiting, accompanied by her future husband Percy Shelley. To pass the stormy days and nights, they decided they would have a competition to see who could write the best horror story. It was one such night, Mary Shelly saw her monsters first silhouette in dream. Shelley dreamt abo
12、ut a scientist who created life and was horrified by what she had made. Then Frankenstein was written. PS: Ellen Moers was one of the first to claim that Shelleys loss of a baby was a crucial influence on the writing of Frankenstein.,How was Frankenstein Born,The,influence,of,her,parents,Mary Shelle
13、y (1797-1851) was destined to become one of the most prominent figures in English literature. Both her parents were revolutionaries and writers: Her father William Godwin (1756-1836) was an English journalist and novelist and one of the major proponents of anarchist philosophy.Marys mother Mary Woll
14、stonecraft (1759-1797), one of the earliest feminists, was equally radical. In her book A Vindication of the Rights of Women Wollstonecaft argues that the inferior role of women in society was not natural, but rather a consequence of miseducation. She called for equality of women and men, the womens
15、 right to work and proper education for girls. Although she died ten days after giving birth to her daughter Mary, her works continued to influence Mary Shelley. Mary grew up surrounded by intellectual minds and she was educated and tutored by her father, who married his second wife Mary Jane Clairm
16、ont in 1801.,Percy Shelley, a poet and radical free-thinker, fell in love with Mary, despite being still married to his first wife Harriet. Mary and Percy both shared a love for literature and they used to discuss literary classics and philosophy.,The influence of her husband,The story is partially
17、based on Giovanni Aldinis electrical experiments on dead and (sometimes) living animals and was also a warning against the expansion of modern humans in the Industrial Revolution, alluded to in its subtitle, The Modern Prometheus. It has had a considerable influence across literature and popular cul
18、ture and spawned a complete genre of horror stories and films.,Social Background,Latent reasons behind Mary Shelleys account of Frankenstein included the death of her first child, Willy, whom she had thoughts about, restoring to life. Additionally, hers was an era of scientific exploration and biolo
19、gical experimentation. Galvanism was regarded as a way to call upon life in corpses through electrification, leading to mythical qualities. Also, there had been successive deaths in her family shaping her infant brain to see the traumatic side of life and escapism.The dream, in the after math of Lor
20、d Byrons challenge coupled with Mary Shelleys contemporary and domestic situation lead her to write the story of Frankenstein monster, a creature cursed by his own plight.,The Revelation,Guilt & Anxieties Feminist The worry for science and technology The romantic promethean Lacking faith in Godwins
21、theory,To some degree, the book shows Shelleys guilt for causing her mothers death as well as for failing as a parent. Shelley scholar Anne K. Mellor suggests that, from a feminist viewpoint, it is a story “about what happens when a man tries to have a baby without a woman . Frankenstein is profound
22、ly concerned with natural as opposed to unnatural modes of production and reproduction .Victor Frankensteins failure as a “parent“ in the novel has been read as an expression of the anxieties which accompany pregnancy, giving birth, and particularly maternity .,Feminist,Frankensteins act of creation
23、 is not only a sin against God/nature. It is also an act against the “female principle“, which includes natural procreation as one of its central aspects. The Monster, the result of male arrogance, is the enemy and destroyer of the eternal female principle . The Monster is the child of an unnatural
24、act of procreation in which woman has become unnecessary. The male, who is the executive power in a patriarchal system, has deprived woman of her most natural function because he is now able to create children without female participation. The present discussion about genetic engineering and human c
25、loning shows that this is not a far-fetched utopia.,The worry for science and technology,Mary Shelley seems not to condemn the act of creation but rather Frankensteins lack of willingness to accept the responsibility for his deeds. His creation only becomes a monster at the moment his creator desert
26、s it . Thus Frankenstein warns of the careless use of science - the book was written at an early stage of the Industrial Revolution, a period of dramatic scientific and technological advance. This is still an important issue, even 200 years after the book was written. Taken into consideration what m
27、any inventions of the last 50 years brought upon mankind, one must assume that many scientists still do not care much. (E.g. the splitting of the atom was turned into nuclear bombs and the invention of the computer resulted in an eerie dehumanisation of our society).,The mythological Prometheus rebe
28、lled against the Gods when he gave fire to humankind; Frankenstein is a rebel against nature when he tries not only to find the secret of life but also to remove lifes defects. But even more so, in Victor Frankenstein both aspects of the Prometheus myth are embodied: the transgressive (hubris/rebell
29、ion against authority) and the creative (Prometheus also molded mankind from pieces of clay). Therefore Frankenstein is truly a drama of the romantic promethean hero who fails in his attempt to help mankind.,The romantic promethean,The creature in Frankenstein, for example, reads books associated with radical ideals but the education he gains from them is ultimately useless. Shelleys works reveal her as less optimistic than Godwin and Wollstonecraft; she lacks faith in Godwins theory that humanity could eventually be perfected.,END,
