Mary Shelley Sources for your Essay

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley. The Writer of


Victor condemned the monster for his actions yet, displayed the same reaction to the monster when speaking of the monster's actions. Women are inherently maternal, and yet he notes, 'when I thought of him, I gnashed my teeth, my eyes became inflamed, and I ardently wished to extinguish that life which I had so thoughtlessly bestowed' (Shelley 87)

Frankenstein Mary Shelley\'s Frankenstein Touches


Just before Frankenstein is about to head off to college, his mother becomes deathly ill, and on her deathbed, she basically instructs Elizabeth and Frankenstein to get married. In fact, in her final words, she tells Frankenstein and Elizabeth that "my firmest hopes of future happiness were placed on the prospect of your union" (Shelley 19)

Doubling in Frankenstein Mary Shelley\'s


Freud describes the uncanny as "that class of the frightening which leads back to what is known of old and long familiar." Furthermore, he argues, "Something has to be added to what is novel and unfamiliar in order to make it uncanny" (Freud)

Doubling in Frankenstein Mary Shelley\'s


Secondary doubling can be seen between Shelley herself and her creations of Frankenstein and the Monster. In "My Monster/My Self," Barbara Johnson argues that Frankenstein "the story of a man who usurps the female role by physically giving birth to a child" (Johnson 248)

Doubling in Frankenstein Mary Shelley\'s


The ego does not differentiate between right and wrong, but rather seeks a realistic, and the most feasible, avenue for instant gratification. Because Frankenstein eschewed social conventions and moral behavior and thought, it can thus be argued that he is driven by his ego and is devoid of a superego -- or there is an unbalance thereof -- because the superego's function is control the id's impulses and lead to the formation of an idealized self (McLeod)

Doubling in Frankenstein Mary Shelley\'s


Frankenstein is driven by his thirst for knowledge, which encouraged him to further study the works of "natural philosophers" like Cornelius Agrippa, Paracelsus, and Albertus Magnus. Guided by these philosophers, Frankenstein "entered with the greatest diligence into the search of the philosopher's stone and the elixir of life; but the latter soon obtained [his] undivided attention" (Shelley)

Frankenstein an Analysis of Mary Shelley\'s Frankenstein


Indeed, the fact that the tale itself is framed by the epistolary form conveys the sense that it is meant to be a kind of cautionary tale. Caution is the subject of Walton's first letter to his sister, which is itself a response to her fear that her brother might come to some harm in such a place as the North Pole: "You will rejoice to heart that no disaster has accompanied the commencement of an enterprise which you have regarded with such evil forebodings" (Shelley 17)

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley Pursuit of Rationalism


But the return of Frankenstein's moral self allowed him to accept the responsibility of being the Creature's creator, and thus, treats it humanely by destroying it, which the Creature wanted him to do after all. His death prior to the Creature's destruction showed that despite his repentance, Frankenstein's once-failed experiment on creating human life had caused great damage to the Creature (Thompson, 2000)

Mary Shelley\'s Frankenstein Specifically How the Novel


Additionally, the monster represents the technology itself, which was created for a good purpose and had a lot of potential to serve mankind well, but instead wound up accidentally causing harm and being rejected by society. Marx wrote that people are born free, but that everywhere they are in chains, (Marx) and this is apparent through the oppression shown in Frankenstein

Mary Shelley\'s Frankenstein Specifically How the Novel


The technology created the "monster" of the masses, which like Frankenstein's creation, "once unleashed could not be controlled." (Montag 386) The Monster can also be seen as a representation of the technology itself

Applying Psychological Theory to Mary Shelley\'s Frankenstein


Dreams come from the unconscious which "thinks" primarily in visual images. Dreams contain symbols and metaphors that map the inner, unconscious life and desires of the individual in a sort of metaphoric sense-making which can be decoded and interpreted (Ogden, 2001)

Applying Psychological Theory to Mary Shelley\'s Frankenstein


It is fairly well accepted now that the world of the individual goes beyond the obvious, the visible and the tangible. The world of dreams is an alternate form of reality, not rational in the waking sense, but with a logic of its own and one which may be tapped artistically (Reisner, 2003)

Mary Shelley Frankenstein Mary Shelley\'s


Either way, Shelley makes reference to Dante in the work and some readers have perceived the characters travels through the work as assuming the character of a trip through hell. (Shelley, 1961, p

Frankenstein Mary Shelley\'s Frankenstein and


These words could almost have come from the very mouth of Prometheus himself, for they convey his deep desires to learn the secrets of the gods, especially the "mysterious soul of man" whom Prometheus created from the clay of the earth. These words also reflect Prometheus' signification as one with "forethought" which can also be applied to Victor via his pronouncement that as a child, he was eager to learn, but not "learn all things indiscriminately" (Shelley

Frankenstein Mary Shelley\'s Frankenstein and


Thus, all of these references and many others concerning Prometheus can be found within the text of Frankenstein, either vaguely concealed or right out in the open in the form of metaphors and symbols. After all, on the title page of the first edition of Frankenstein, published in 1818, Mary Shelley saw it as fitting and proper to include the following quotation from Milton's Paradise Lost -- "Did I request thee, Maker, from my clay/to mould Me man? Did I solicit thee/From darkness to promote me?" (Smith, 20)

Gender Relations in Mary Shelley\'s Frankenstein


Her own mother, indeed, had died upon giving birth to her. (Johnson, 149) The level of autobiographical content in this chapter, as Johnson indicates, is pretty overwhelming -- and may have been one of the numerous reasons why Shelley's novel was first published anonymously

Gender Relations in Mary Shelley\'s Frankenstein


But there is also a terrifying personal element to Shelley's narrative as well, which feminist analysis has helped to elucidate. The fifth chapter of Frankenstein begins on the "dreary night of November" (Shelley 42) when Victor Frankenstein famously brings his monster to life

Mary Shelley Frankenstein Charles Darwin Origin of Species


They include the virtues of humanity vs. The vices of monstrosity, the power and effect of family and "community" (Bentley 325), as well as the considerable ramifications of ambition and work

Mary Shelley Frankenstein Charles Darwin Origin of Species


The deaths, then, of Victor's brother William, Clerval, Justine, and even Elizabeth (who Victor neglects and leaves alone so that the monster can destroy her) are on the hands and the consciousness of Frankenstein -- not his creation. Victor is well aware of this fact, which is why he is so selfless in his pursuit of the creature to the North Pole, a pursuit of which he "refuses to recognize the claims of others and consequently entertains no concept of retreat" (Levy 699)

Mary Shelley\'s Moody Frankenstein Frankenstein,


In his article: Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein" (1818) -- A Summary of Modern Criticism, Philip V. Allingham, (Allingham, Philip V