Frankenstein Analysis - Author, Summary, Literary Ananlysis, Metaphors, Historical Background

Essay by gingyHigh School, 11th gradeA+, March 2005

download word file, 10 pages 3.0

Frankenstein is most likely one of the oldest surviving horror stories. The image of large green groaning monster with a bolted neck and a stitched brow is famous worldwide. However, the creature born in Mary Shelley's mind over two hundred years ago was much more complex, for it was not only murderous and raging, but articulate, lonely, and gravely misunderstood by the rest of the world.

Mary Shelley

Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin was born on August 30th 1797 in Somers Town, Great Britain. Her parents were both well-known. Her father, William Godwin, was a philosopher, and her mother Mary, who died shortly after giving birth to her, was a feminist. At the age of ten, Mary Shelley published her first poem and at the age of sixteen she fell in love with a married man, Percy Shelley. In 1816, the two were wed and were invited to visit Lord Byron in Geneva, Switzerland.

While she was there, the host suggested that each guest write a ghost story and thus was the birth of the tale known as Frankenstein, although the book wasn't published until 1818. The story itself is affected by a series of tragedies that had recently occurred in Mary's life such as the suicides of her elder sister, Fanny, and Percy's first wife, Harriet. Out of Mary's four children only one survived, and after her husband drowned Mary devoted the rest of her life to raising her son. Mary became an invalid at the age of forty-eight and died in 1851 of a brain tumour.

Summary

At the beginning of the book we follow Robert Walton, an English adventurer, on his expedition towards the North Pole. On their journey, Walton and his crew noticed a massive figure driving a dogsled quite some distance ahead of them. The following morning...