Mary Shelley 1797-1851

Early Year Highlights

Mary’s mother died 11 days after giving birth to her, from puerperal fever.

She was encouraged by her father to write letters when she was younger.

Her father also encouraged her to embrace his sociopolitical liberal views and theories, and was mostly educated at home.

Adult Years Highlights

She had an affair with a married man named Percy Bysshe Shelley that later became her husband.

Her husband died at sea in a storm.

She lost three of her children prematurely

until she had her only surviving child, Percy.

Mary died struggling with a brain tumor, but lived a long life for a woman of her time..

Writing Highlights

Best known for her novel Frankenstein, that is a Gothic classic.

Mary Shelley is also an essayist, biographer and short story writer along with a novelist.

Most of Shelly’s work is based on her own life or show similar resemblance to certain aspects of it.

For example much of the death in Frankenstein resemblance the death of her mother, sister, and children.

Historical/ Cultural Context For Long Work

Mary’s writing was heavily influenced by her father who was a radical and her mother being a feminist writer. Mary’s upbringing exposed her to cutting edge ideas like Frankenstein.

Traveling to the Swiss Alps with friends and her lover, they spent their time in doors writing the best ghost stories due to unseasonable rain. Mary beat out Percy and renowned poet Lord Byron. This draft became known as one of the best Gothic classic of all time.

Historical Context Continued

Romanticism and the supernatural were very popular in the 1800s which is prominently seen in Frankenstein.

Romanticism included political and social revolt, attraction to the supernatural, cruel and gruesome.

Darwin’s theory of evolution was during the 1800s which was evident since life was not created by God, but rather Victor (science).

Brief Analysis of Long Work

Symbols Fire/light: light representing knowledge, enlightenment, and discovery. Fire is seen with a dual nature in the story. First the monster sees it as helpful, giving him light, but he also realizes it can harm people.

Motifs Passive Women: Mary Shelly purposely has the women in her story be passive to emphasize the destructive nature of the monster and Victor. Caroline Beaufort is a loving mother that dies taking care of her sick child, Justine is executed for a murder she didn’t commit, Elizabeth waits patiently for Victor’s love, but is eventually killed by the monster. Lastly, the woman version of the monster is destroyed my Victor because he fears he can’t control her.

Point of view: Point of view shifts from Robert Walton to Victor Frankenstein, then to the monster and back to Walton. These shifts allow the reader to get a better understanding of the monsters circumstances along with Victors feelings toward the monster.

Historical Context of Short Work

Written during the time of Romanticism and is based on a love triangle between Mary Shelly, Percy Shelley and her stepsister Clair.

It was not a very liberal time and much of England was very conservative.

She adapted her writing for pre-Victorian time to achieve specific writing goals for herself.

Brief Summary of Short Work

The short story is about a poor girl, Angelina who falls in love with a noble man’s son Ippolito. His father requests that they not see or talk to each other for a whole year.

Angelina is orphaned and is raised by nuns in the convent, making her unfit for Ippolito. Faustina is another girl that lives at the convent and is noble born. Angelina forms a sisterhood with Faustina.

A month before the year was up, Faustina returns from school looking for a man to marry. She finds Ippolito, without knowing about the agreement made between him and Angelina. The love triangle begins and eventually Angelina is left in the dust because Faustina is a better fit for Ippolito, according to his father.

Imagery

Definition: visually descriptive or figurative language.

Example: “Angelina listened with delight, gazed on her dimpled cheeks, sparkling eyes, and graceful gesture, in a perfect, though silent, transport of admiration” (Shelley 143).

Shelly’s use of fine detail and figurative language paints an image for the reader, allowing them to clearly see what’s going on during this part of the story, which is why it is considered imagery.

Romanticism Definition: Artistic and literary movement during the late 18th century and early 19th century that stressed creativity, imagination, and feelings.

Examples in literature is imagination over logic, passion rather than reason, and expression rather than order. Other Romantic authors include William Blake, Lord Byron, Percy Bysshe Shelly, along with John Keats.

In the story Angelina finally writes a letter expressing her feelings for Ippolito, telling him to wait for her. This is the side of Romanticism that her feelings over took her reason expressing how she felt for him and their situation.

This story is filled with emotion and the two different sides of women. It highlights the change in feminism between Faustina, the outspoken and confident woman compared to Angelina who is soft spoken and passive.

Irony

Definition: A literary term referring to a person, event of circumstance that isn’t what it seems it would be.

The irony in this short story is the fact that Faustina marries Ippolito thinking that she has got the best catch “beating out Angelina” but in reality they are a sad unhappy Italian couple. On the other hand Angelina is happy and has found a man for herself even though the love of her life was taken from her.

Narrative Identity• Narrative Identity: It is a device used to articulate

a discourse in identity. To identify ourselves with our own perceptions. This is closely related to autobiographies, but the truth is altered a little for the sake of the audience. It isn’t a formally known literary concept, but is important throughout the story knowing the background of Mary Shelly’s life.

• This concept is prevalent in this short story because Shelly uses Angelina as her narrative identity, Ippolito as her husband and Faustina as her stepsister. These character and much of the events are similar to her own life and the love triangle between the the three of them.

Love and HateThis is short story explains the concept of love and what one would do for it.

Angelina scarifies her love for Ippolito for a whole year in hope of finally becoming his wife, but instead ends up without him.(rejected and alone)

This story also shows that the love of friendship can withstand almost anything.

Angelina was devastated that Faustina stole her man, but after seeing things didn’t turn out as they expected she forgave and missed her best friend/sister.

It also goes to show the misinterpretation of attraction and love. Faustina jumps into the relationship with Ippolito, putting him on a pedestal but realizes how misguided her feeling were because they end up being sad and like every other Italian married couple.

Fun Facts

In 1845, she was blackmailed three times. Once by her cousin, once by a man who wanted money in exchange for some letters that she had written him, and a third time by a man who claimed he was the illegitimate son of Lord Byron. None of the blackmail attempts were successful.

Mary was first published at the age of ten when she wrote a poem.

She was finally able to marry Percy in 1816 after his first wife committed suicide.

Continued

What I found particularly interesting was the fact that the idea of Frankenstein first came to Mary in a vivid dream she had. This reminded me a lot of The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.

Mary was also only 19 years old when she wrote Frankenstein.

Many people think that her husband wrote Frankenstein because nobody thought a nineteen year old girl could do it.