Mary Shelley's Own Mother example essay topic

Mary Shelley had a dark childhood and a abnormal life. This had a large influence on how she wrote Frankenstein. In Frankenstein, her personal life played a significant roll on the gothic appeal of the book. The people that influenced her book the most was her father, William Godwin, her Mother, Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin, Her Husband, Percy Bys she Shelley and her little brother William Godwin. Mary Shelley's father William Godwin was a philosopher and a political theorist. Her father was a great writer but he was not there when Mary needed him and he didn t give Mary the attention that she needed.

He was not a bad father he was just not there to raise her and watched after her, he still managed to earn her love though. This would help to explain why Mary was a great author, but wrote about dark and dominated things in Frankenstein. Despite her resentment of her father's bleak rationality, she acknowledged her deep intellectual debts to his novels by dedicating Frankenstein to him (Davenport 191). Her father also wrote dark stories of misery.

Mary saw as did her father, the duality in human nature which is capable of bringing misery and ruin to the most gifted of beings. (Bloom 78). After the death of his wife and Mary's mother he married Mary Jane Clairmont. Mary was a very bad stepmother. She did not give Mary any of the attention or love that she needed from a mother. It only got worse when Mary Jane gave birth to her first child.

Now that Mary Jane had a child of her own she did not give any attention to Mary. Mary Jane would go on to have four more children. The five children crowded into one house increased Mary's feeling of inner isolation, the refrain which sounds throughout her novels and short stories. Another constant refrain that of complex familiar relationships, is seen embodied in the five children, no one of whom could muster two parents in common, Charles and Jane Excepted (Harold 78) The death of her mother was probably the biggest factor that affected the writing of Frankenstein. One theme of Frankenstein is mothering and the absence of mothers: Mary Shelley's own mother was heavily pregnant with her when her parents married: her mother died as a result of her birth. (Gothic 188).

This is where Mary conceived the idea of the Frankenstein Impulse - The desire to alter human nature even to the point of creating life itself. (Sun stein 233) A quote that best represents the relationship between her mother and the creation of the monster is Victor dreams seeing pictures of his dead mother ten he wakes up and sees the dead monster. (Frankenstien 43) This quote describes the relationship between Mary Shelly's mother and the creation, because Mary had been born into the world motherless, like the creature and throughout her life she had only had a father to guide her, like the monster does. The creature is a symbol for Mary being born into the world as a motherless child. Her reserved manner hid deep feelings baffled by her mother's death and her father's distance- two kinds of coldness, one might say, both of them which are embodied in the monster's dead and also unloved. (Bloom 78) Mary's Mother also a had a very big influence on giving Mary the courage to write a book in a society that was ruled and dominated by men.

It was almost unheard for a women to write a book especially one that is as morbid as Frankenstein. Mary's mother was a brilliant women who wrote the world's first feminist tract, A Vindication of the rights of women. Mary got many of her dark personality traits from her mother. When Mary's mother had a failed love, before Mary was born, she tried to jump off of a bridge and commit suicide, luckily though she failed at her attempt.

In her late teen years Mary got involved with a married with a married man who was a great writer also. She did not marry him until his wife died. She was so desperate for love that she followed him all around Europe. He would help Mary to spark many ideas, when he was living and when he died. The Shelley-Frankenstein connection had been a frequent source of speculation among the novel's critics... the novel is an instrument of revenge against her husband. (Bloom) Marilyn butler has demonstrated that Mary and her husband were keenly interested in a contemporary medical controversy as to whether electricity or something analogous to it, could do duty for the soul and this inspired the means for Frankenstein to be infuse the vital spark of life into the monstrous creation.

(Gothic 192) These are both quotes that represent how her husband influenced her in a negative a positive way. Her husband helped to give her ideas to write the book, Mary wrote the book as a form of revenge on her husband because of the way that he treated her. The death of Mary's Children and her little brother help to explain why Frankenstein had so much death in it. Shelley's Plot contains details of profound personal authenticity which the reader couldn t guess: she called Frankenstein's little brother, who is strangled in the woods by the monster, William, The name of her Favorite baby brother. (Gothic 191), William is dead!

That sweet little child, whose smiles delighted and warmed my heart, who was so gentle yet so gay (Shelley 68) This shows how truly dark and do mented Mary was. Catastrophe followed the harum-scrum young lovers. Mary's first child, a daughter, was born after they returned to London and their debts; it was premature and died. (Bloom) This was perhaps a main contributor the dark and gothic appeal of the book. Mary's travel's throughout Europe is what helped to spark an interest and gave her the idea for writing the book. But these youthful travelers were among the first to enter France after the Napoleon Wars, and a desolate place they found it, the fields uncultivated, the villages and buildings destroyed (Harold 79) This is when Mary is traveling through Europe with her soon to be husband and she begin to see ideas for the book.

Percy's wife was also chasing them around Europe, much like the creature chased victor all over Europe. Like the Story the chase ended in a tragedy with Percy's wife killing herself. The idea so possessed my mind, that a thrill of fear ran through me, and I wished to exchange the ghastly image of my fancy for the realities around. I see them still; the very room... the closed shutters, with the moonlight struggling through, and the sense that I had that glassy white lake and the while Alps were beyond. I could not get rid of my hideous phantom; sill haunted me. I must try to think of something else.

I recurred to my ghost story! O! If I could only contrive one which would frighten my reader as I myself had been frightened that night. Swift as light and as cheering was the idea that broke in upon me. I have found it. (Shelley 24) This is where Mary conceived the idea for Frankenstein.

They were staying at the house of lord Byron, in Switzerland. Not only did staying in Switzerland spark the idea for Mary but it also helped to act as the scenario for the book. It is commonly accepted that Frankenstien relies on personal experience for its material. It does not deny other interpretations- for a metaphor has many interpretations- by stating Mary saw herself as the monster. (Davenport) This is why we pity it. She too tried to win herself into society.

This is an example of Mary feeling sorry for herself and it being mixed in with the book. No mader how hard she tried she could not fit in society, just like the monster trying to fit in with society. This is why the readers feel sympathy for the monster. Mary experienced the fear, guilt, depression, and anxiety that often attend child birth, particularly in situation such as hers-unmarried, her consort a married man with children by another women, and beset by debt in a foreign place. Only a women only Mary Shelley could have written Frankenstien.

As Miri an Gillon says She was the only one of the lot of them that new about life. (Davenport 243) This quote represents how Mary is the only one of the authors in her time that could have written about life and known as much about death and the creation of life. Only a person that went through so many tragedies would understand life like her and be able to put it into the form of one book. I had worked for nearly two years, for the sole purpose of infusing life into in amite body (Shelley 42). Only a person that is very intelligent but had a very dominated and morbid life would be able to think something up like this. The time period that she was living nobody would dare to write something or even think something like this up.

The biggest link between Mary and the book is the monster. Through characterization Mary develops the creature into a symbol of herself. They are both rejected from society and the only thing that they want is to be loved. I possessed no money, no friends, no kind of property. (Shelley 62).

This is when the monster realize that he will never be able to fit into society just like Mary. Mary uses imagery to paint a picture of what the creature looks like. She does this because this is how she feels on the inside, she is a outsider of society and feels like she does not belong The Monster wants a companion that he can run away with and spend the rest of its life with. Mary wants this to because she wants to be shown love for the first time in her life. The monster companion is destroyed and this is kind of odd because after Mary published the book her husband dies.

In a way the destruction of the monsters companion is foreshadowing the death of Mary's husband. The creature and Mary are also born into the world without a mother, only a father to take care of them. For the creature its father was victor and Mary's was her actual father. Both of their father's did not give them the attention and the love they needed, they acted like they never created either one of them. Mary Shelley had a life that was filled with death and loneliness and neglect. the beauty of the dream vanished, and breathless horror and disgust filled my heart.

(Shelley 42) This quote, when victor first brings the Monster to life represents Shelley's life and how she felt about her life. The only way that she could express herself was through writing Frankenstein. Reading the book is almost like reading about the life of Mary Shelley. Mary was a type of writer that would take events in her life and put them into the stories she was writing. Only a Mary would have a life that was so bad that she could create a great novel from it. Frankenstein was one of the greatest books ever written but the author had to suffer a lot in order to create that book.