Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Quiz 1
10 pts.
3. Name one piece of information you learned about Mary Shelley after reading her
introduction to the novel written in 1831.
PREFACE – Written by Shelley from Marlow, who attended the weekend in Geneva,
Switzerland. His preface verifies the completion of Shelley’s story as the only one finished
from the ghost story challenge.
BACKGROUND –
The time period in which Frankenstein is set is ambiguous and has no explicit references to
current events that could be used to pinpoint a specific date. Yet it is safe to assume that the
novel is set in the latter part of the eighteenth century, at the end of the Enlightenment and the
beginning of the Romantic period. In Frankenstein, Mary Shelley addresses these two
opposing philosophical movements. The Enlightenment’s emphasis on reason and scientific
investigation is represented by Frankenstein’s pursuit of a scientific ideal, while Romanticism’s
emphasis on human passion and feeling is represented by the Creature, with his longing for
friendships with humans. In Frankenstein, Shelley helped give birth to the genre of science
fiction – and to a creature who evokes in readers the contradictory reactions of horror and
sympathy.
SUMMARY – Chapters I to IV
Victor Frankenstein narrators these five chapters beginning with his family -
“by birth a Genevese,” only child for several years. Then his parents adopted an orphan
from Milan, Elizabeth Lavenza. His parents were caring and loving taking much time to
travel and spending quality time with their children.
At seven years old, Victor’s parents had another son. At this time, Victor began to avoid
crowds. He became friends with Henry Clerval, a son of a merchant of Geneva. Henry
loved to read books of chivalry and romance. He was more concerned with the “moral
relations of things.”
At 13, Victor takes interest in the works of Cornelius Agrippa who writes about a modern
system of science. His father disapproves. Victor grows uncomfortable with traditional
learning and was drawn toward scientists who wrote about the elixir of life and the
philosopher’s stone.
At 15, he saw a thunder-storm that intrigued him. At 17, before he attended the university
of Ingolstadt, Elizabeth caught the scarlet fever. She recovered but Victor’s mother caught
the fever and died. At school Victor’s professor’s criticize his interest “in this enlightened
and scientific age, to find a disciple of Albertus Magnus and Paracelsus. My dear sir, you
must begin your studies entirely anew.”
Again Victor was discouraged to continue his interest in the ancient teachers of science. M.
Waldman encourages Victor to look at the philosophers who look toward nature and show
how she works. Victor took these rejections as more reason to make a new way, “explore
unknown powers, and unfold to the world the deepest mysteries of creation.”
He develops a laboratory to apply his pursuit to examine the causes of life. He found this
work to be enjoyable. He felt a power “placed in his hands.” So he plans to make a
“gigantic stature, eight feet in height and proportionally large.”
For a few years, Victor worked on his project neglecting family and friends. His father,
Elizabeth and Henry worried about Victor’s behavior.
* The video begins with the 1770s story about a man who commits suicide when he falls in love with
another woman. This action goes against the society’s support of progress.
Mention of the Industrial Revolution details the changing landscape with factories. This change makes
people doubt their belief that all is created by God. How can this be God?
GOAL: Note the society of this time, before Mary Shelley writes her novel.
What do you notice about people’s thinking, ideas, changes in society?
* Literature of the late 1700s – Gothic novels with setting in gothic style medieval castles, gloomy
mood. Faust by Goethe is a story about a man who sells his soul to the devil in exchange for the power
of knowledge and eternal youth. He desires to know the infinite. Other writers – Grey, Percy Shelley,
Wordsworth also respond to the feeling of being isolated and alienated by this new society and write
about the desire for wisdom and truth.
*Across the world - Roussea is writing about the importance of the individual in society. Paine writes
about a natural form of government created by individuals. 1776 America creates the Declaration of
Independence. 1789 French Revolution supported by the “Declaration of Man”. Napoleon returns to
power in the “Reign of Terror” 1804, defeated in 1815 at the Battle of Waterloo.
Lord Byron wrote his poem “Ode to Napoleon Bonaparte.” Percy says, “The only good could come of
Napoleon’s defeat” and writes his poem “The World’s Great Age Begins a New.”