Showing results by author "Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley" in All Categories

Narrating from her deathbed, Mathilda, a young woman barely in her twenties, writes her story as a way of explaining her actions to her friend, Woodville. Her narration follows her lonely upbringing and climaxes at a point when her unnamed father confesses his incestuous love for her. Mathilda has also been seen as an example of redefining female Gothic narratives which includes the first person female narrator having more control over the story than was common at the time.

Guido has lost it all. At rock bottom and wandering the shore, Guido spies a misshapen creature floating toward him in the water, riding on a huge chest. The creature offers Guido a path of revenge – switching bodies for three days in exchange for the untold riches in the chest. Guido unfortunately fails to see a potential downside. Through skillful handling of the gothic motif of the doppelgänger, Shelley’s tale explores concepts that would eventually culminate into her masterpiece – Frankenstein.

Frankenstein, or The Modern Prometheus is an 1818 novel written by English author Mary Shelley. Frankenstein tells the story of Victor Frankenstein, a young scientist who creates a sapient creature in an unorthodox scientific experiment. Shelley started writing the story when she was 18, and the first edition was published anonymously in London on January 1, 1818, when she was 20. Her name first appeared in the second edition, which was published in Paris in 1821.

Victor Frankenstein learns how to create life and creates a being in the likeness of man, but larger and more powerful than the average man. Frankenstein rejects the creature, and lives to regret his desire to create life, after it kills his brother William. Frankenstein is a warning against the "over-reaching" of modern man and the Industrial Revolution, alluded to in the novel's subtitle, The Modern Prometheus.

"Frankenstein" begins in epistolary form, documenting the correspondence between Captain Robert Walton and his sister, Margaret Walton Saville. Walton sets out to explore the North Pole and expand his scientific knowledge in hopes of achieving fame and friendship. The ship becomes trapped in ice, and, one day, the crew sees a dog sled in the distance, on which there is the figure of a giant man. Hours later, the crew finds a frozen and emaciated man, Victor Frankenstein, in desperate need of sustenance.

The story concerns a scientist, Victor Frankenstein, who conducts a great experiment to see if he can create a living being from the body parts of corpses. Only whe the experiment is successful does he begin to think of the ethics and consequences of what he has done. The creature he created becomes embittered when he finds that no one will love him becuase of his appearance.

It tells the story of a young woman whose mother died in her childbirth - just as Shelly's own mother died after hers - and whose relationship with her bereaved father becomes sexually charged as he conflates her with his lost wife, while she becomes involved with a handsome poet.