Frankenstein Case

Manisha Myneni

Period 7

Frankenstein

Every writer’s work is influenced by something, whether it could be a desire, an experience, or an important person in their life. Many creative minds are known to embed pieces of their life into their works. An example of this would be Leonardo da Vinci, he was known for hiding secrets in his paintings, such as in the painting “The Last Supper”. Another example would be after the Columbine High School shooting many books were written about the story of the shooting, Such as Columbine by Dave Cullen. Similar to Dave Cullen and Leonardo da Vinci, Mary Shelley uses her life experiences to write the novel Frankenstein. When you look into Mary Shelley’s life it was a painful life. She had witnessed copious amounts of death in her life, just like Victor Frankenstein. Many more similarities like this can be seen in her novel. With the various references to the family members and expressions of situations and feelings, show how Mary Shelley embedded pieces of her life into the novel Frankenstein.

A similarity that is seen in the story of Victor Frankenstein, his monster, and Mary Shelley would be that none of them received the maternal love and the care everyone else receives when they come into this world. In Mary Shelley’s case when she was first born her mother died eleven days after giving birth to her. “The mother whose books she was rereading throughout her teenage years, had died in childbirth-died giving birth to Mary herself.”(Moers 125). Mary adored her mother and wanted her love but she was deprived of it all her life. In addition Mary later on in her life had lost the love from her father as well when she eloped with her lover Percy. “The father she adored broke furiously toward her when she eloped.”(Moers 125). In the case of Victor Frankenstein and the monster, when Victor was ready to go off to college his mother is suffering from scarlet fever and dies due to it. “She died calmly; and her countenance expressed affection even in death… These are the reflections of the first days; but when the lapse of time proves the reality of the evil, then the actual bitterness of grief commences.” (Shelley 39). The death of Caroline was traumatic for Victor just as Shelley’s mothers was to her. Finally the monster can also relate to Mary as well because when he was first created Victor was horrified and abhorred him, and in this case Victor was his mother as well. The monster never received the maternal love and care such as Mary Shelley, proving her experience was incorporated into the story (Shelley 51).

The next similarity would be Mary Shelley’s and Victor Frankenstein’s