mary w. shelley’s frankenstein · 2019-07-10 · literary context: romanticism •romanticism...
TRANSCRIPT
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