Mary Shelley: Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus (1818)

Historical context

Shelley’s influence on Frankenstein

In the summer of 1816, a young, well-educated woman from England travelled with her lover
to the Swiss Alps to Lord Byron’s home. Unseasonable rain kept them trapped inside their
lodgings, where they entertained themselves by reading ghost stories. From 1815 to 1819,
three of Mary’s four children died in infancy.

She was also energized by a series of personal traumas that fuelled her feverish story: ten
days after her birth her mother died from puerperal fever, at seventeen she eloped with Percy
who abandoned his wife, the following year her premature illegitimate child died shortly after
being born and her half-sister Fanny Godwin committed suicide, a couple of months later
Percy’s wife committed suicide, and just before the publication of the novel Mary gave birth
to a daughter, indicating that during a good part of the novel’s composition she was pregnant
and in mourning, overloaded with images of birth and death.

1816 is sometimes known as ''the year without a summer'' because a volcanic eruption in
Indonesia caused a major climate abnormality in which temperatures dropped significantly in
many parts of the world, especially parts of Europe. That summer, Mary and Percy Shelley
were staying in Geneva with Byron.

Period of changes

Understanding Frankenstein's historical context is essential when it comes to grasping the

meaning behind the work. Frankenstein's time period was one of significant social change;
thematically, the novel is very much about the transition from Enlightenment thinking to
Romantic thinking that was going on in Europe at the time. Shelley imbued the work with
her own questions about mortality, parenthood, and personal duty. Frankenstein is a layered
text that addresses a number of complex issues, which is part of why it remains popular today.

The forces that marked this period were the many changes that were being carried out, such as
political (French and American revolutions), economic (from rural to urban economy and the
beginnings of the industrial revolution), scientific (discoveries in medicine, neurology,
electricity, and chemistry), and social (growing importance of education of the masses).
Galvanism

Frankenstein instilled life in his creation by some unspecified means, but hints in the novel
suggest that it was probably in accord with the laws of electricity and Galvanism as they
were known in his time. According to popular legend, Luigi Galvani discovered the effects of
electricity on muscle tissue when investigating an unrelated phenomenon which required
skinned frogs in the 1780s and 1790s. His assistant is claimed to have accidentally touched a
scalpel to the sciatic nerve of the frog and this resulted in a spark and animation of its legs.

French revolution 1789-1794

The novel also makes veiled reference to the French Revolution with hints that the
personality turn of the creature mirrored the turn in the French Revolution from the early
hopes for liberty, equality, and fraternity to the subsequent dark days of the Reign of Terror.

The French Revolution began in 1789 and lasted until 1794. King Louis XVI needed more
money, but had failed to raise more taxes when he had called a meeting of the Estates
General. This instead turned into a protest about conditions in France. On July 14, 1789, the
Paris mob, hungry due to a lack of food from poor harvests, upset at the conditions of their
lives and annoyed with their King and Government, stormed the Bastille fortress (a prison).
This turned out to be more symbolic than anything else as only four or five prisoners were
found.

King Luis XVI tried to flee in 1791, but was stopped and forced to agree to a new form of
government. The Republic of France was declared, and soon the King was put on trial. The
Revolution became more and more radical and violent. King Louis XVI was executed on
January 21, 1793. In the six weeks that followed some 1,400 people who were considered
potential enemies to the Republic were executed in Paris.

Women in 18th century

Mary Shelley was born as Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin on August 30th, 1797. Her father
was William Godwin, a political radical, and her mother was Mary Wollstonecraft, a
feminist philosopher. Mary Wollstonecraft wrote The Vindication of the Rights of Woman on
the role of women in the eighteenth century that is still considered an important text today.
Wollstonecraft died just a few days after her daughter was born, leaving Mary Godwin to be
raised by her father.
Literary context

Romanticism

Romanticism was a literary, artistic, and philosophical movement that began in the late
eighteenth century and continued into the middle of the nineteenth century, roughly
1798-1850 by most estimates. Romanticism was in some ways a rebellion against
Enlightenment ideas that were starting to seem too traditional and restrictive. The
Enlightenment, for instance, favoured rational thought over emotion and sensory experience.
The Romantics were interested in individual subjective experience, intense emotions,
beauty and the sublime, the power of the imagination, and aesthetic experiences. Many
Romantics wrote poetry about love, sex, death, dreams, and the power of nature.
Romanticism also became an art movement and was characterized by dramatic paintings
that sought to capture the sublime.

A notable by-product of the Romantic interest in the emotional were works dealing with
the supernatural, the weird, and the horrible, as in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and works
by Charles Robert Maturin, the Marquis de Sade, and E.T.A. Hoffmann. The second phase of
Romanticism in Germany was dominated by Achim von Arnim, Clemens Brentano, Joseph
von Görres, and Joseph von Eichendorff.

Gothic novel

Gothic novel, European Romantic pseudomedieval fiction having a prevailing atmosphere of

mystery and terror. Its heyday was the 1790s, but it underwent frequent revivals in subsequent
centuries.

Called Gothic because its imaginative impulse was drawn from medieval buildings and
ruins, such novels commonly used such settings as castles or monasteries equipped with
subterranean passages, dark battlements, hidden panels, and trapdoors. The classic horror
stories Frankenstein (1818), by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, and Dracula (1897), by Bram
Stoker, are in the Gothic tradition but introduce the existential nature of humankind as its
definitive mystery and terror.

Easy targets for satire, the early Gothic romances died of their own extravagances of plot, but
Gothic atmospheric machinery continued to haunt the fiction of such major writers as the
Brontë sisters, Edgar Allan Poe, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and even Charles Dickens in Bleak
House and Great Expectations. In the second half of the 20th century, the term was applied to
paperback romances having the same kind of themes and trappings similar to the originals.

More authors like Mary Shelley:

● Walter Scott
● Lord Byron
● Thomas Moore
● Jane Austen

Themes

● Life
● Death
● Man vs nature
● Alienation
● Revenge
● Nature
● Isolation
● Science
Historical context

● written towards the end of the age of enlightenment, also known as the age of reason

● several scientific discoveries, some of which are depicted in the novel as well, such as
Galvanism and the use of electricity

● apart from scientific discoveries and the change from Enlightenment to Romanticism,
there were several other changes, such as the beginning of industrialisation and rising
importance of education

● year without summer – writing contest

Literary context

● written towards the end of the age of reason and therefore typically belongs to the
Romantic movement. While Enlightenment focuses on objectivity and reason,
Romanticism is more subjective and focuses on the individual. In addition, it focuses
on the connection with nature and emotions. A significant concept related to
romanticism is known as sublime. Romanticism also highlights the power of nature,
intense emotions and uses imagination.

● Frankenstein is also known as a gothic novel and Mary Shelley is sometimes referred
to as the mother of science fiction thanks to this book. Gothic novels are typically set
in abandoned places and buildings, medieval castles, etc. The mood and setting is
generally eerie and gloomy.

● As her husband, Percy Shelley, wrote the preface, many did not believe that
Frankenstein was written by a woman, which only emphasises the position of women
at that time. It is also believed that Frankenstein was written during the so-called year
without summer.

● Other authors focusing on similar topics or belonging to the same movement include
Bronte sisters, Jane Austen, Lord Byron, etc.

● Mary Wollstonecraft – feminist

● Percy Shelley – his wife died (pregnant – Mary Shelley was also pregnant)

● Switzerland (Byron) – contest

● Galvanism – Mary’s dream / vision

● volcanic eruption in Indonesia – year without summer (writing contest)