Mary Shelley's Frankenstein: A Gothic and Science Fiction Masterpiece, Appunti di Inglese

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INGLESE 1.1 MARY SHELLEY (1797 - 1851) - 1797, only child of William Godwin and Mary Wollstonecraft (died early), bad relationship with her father - 1814, escape with Percy Shelley to live with him - 1816, Lake Geneva, marriage with Percy Shelley - 1818, Italy (Lerici), initial happiness, then death of two young children (trauma) and Shelley’s death (drowning) - 1822, movement back to England, disdain of the conformism and the social system - 1851, brain tumor, buried in Bournemouth (Dorset) 1.1.1 Frankenstein - 1818, published anonymously Idea conceived in a rainy day, when Mary Shelly, Percy Shelly and Lord Byron were staying at Lake Geneva, decided to do a competition about writing the best horror story (+ inspiration coming from a nightmare and influence of her own dramatic childhood) It is an epistolary novel, narrated by not chronologically letters sent from Walton to his sister, Margaret Saville (same initials as Mary Shelley) and can be considered both a gothic fiction and the 1st science fiction ➔ Gothic fiction o taste for the strange and mysterious, and impulse for freedom and escape o meant to provoke feelings of terror and horror, a mixture of pleasure and pain (sublime) o darkness (events happening during night, atmosphere of gloom, oppression, and mystery) o complex plots and complicated by embedded narratives / story within a story ~ characters: supernatural beings (monsters, vampires, ghosts, witches) in order to increase suspense and mystery + wanderer/outcast character (symbol of isolation, in isolation from a divine punishment) ~ try to overwhelm the reader with a series of shocking events ~ sensitive and honorable hero, heroine persecuted by a villain × ancient settings (isolated castles, mysterious abbeys, convents) ➔ Science fiction o supernatural monster coming from scientific research, not from irrational reasons Setting: 1778, North Pole; there is a complex plot with embedded narratives (3 point of views): 1. (Walton’s point of view) Robert Walton (artic explorer), suck on his ship in the North Pole, meet Victor Frankenstein, a brilliant Swiss scientist that had discovered how to create life from inanimate corpse, that begins telling him his story 2. (Frankenstein’s point of view) The scientist had created a creature with supernatural strength, great intelligence and a horrible appearance, which generates so much hostility from the society to make the creature become a destructive and homicidal monster beyond Frankenstein’s control. Feeling abandoned by the scientist, who had denied to creates him a wife, the creature kills for revenge his brother, his best friend and his wife, on the day of the wedding; enraged by its actions Frankenstein follows him to the North Pole, but dies trying to pursue the creature into ice 3. (Creature’s point of view) R. Walton meet the creature, that tells him his point of view of the story, before drifting alone on a raft, vowing to kill himself in the North Pole There is also a mix of different genres and styles = creature made of parts of different bodies Themes: - Quest for forbitten knowledge and theme of the overreacher: both Walton (explorer) and Frankenstein (scientist) try to overcome human limits and penetrate human secrets, and they are both punished (ship stuck in the ice and rebellion of the crew / creature not under control) - Science’s moral responsibility of its discoveries and potentially dangerous consequences - - The double: Frankenstein / creature (changeable, good and evil at the same time, monster victim of the overreacher) anticipating Dt. Jackyll and Mr. Hyde - Usurpation of the female role: man’s envy of woman’s power to create life (birth), creation of artificial life without a mother (Mary Shelley and Frankenstein without a mother) INGLESE - Education and experience: monster’s intellectual and emotional development, knowledge and awareness are necessary but may bring pain - Social prejudice and injustice: the creature, at first uncontaminated by society, becomes evil because of society’s rejections and persecution (depicted as an outcast) Characters: - Walton: double of Frankenstein and romantic elements like nature as embodiment of God (titanism, challenging nature as challenging God), longing for the North Pole (unknown), wish for loneliness and pride, punished for his ambition to go beyond human limits - Frankenstein: complementary to the monster, both alienated, isolated and lonely, outsiders, desire to be good but obsession with hate and revenge - Monster: intelligent, sensitive, hurt by the repulsion and terror he produces for his being non-ordinary with bring him to be an outsider, a murderer (he takes revenge upon his creator), example of unlucky people, born with a destiny marked by misery, loneliness and social discrimination, they have not chosen but are forced to endure all life long The author, writing this fiction, is influenced by elements that surrounds her: - Her father W. Godwin (philosopher), who believed in perfectibility of men through their only quality, reason; aspects of the human society (property, social injustice, education) - Her mother Mary Wollstonecraft, importance of being educated as the only way to get to awareness of women’s potentialities - The tension between the fear of revolutions and the interest in revolutionary ideas = Maty sympathizing with the creature, despite she’s aware of the consequences of his actions - Rousseau’s natural man, not influenced by civilization, and the myth of Prometheus, subtitle): the titan that stole the fire (=knowledge) from Jupiter to give it to mankind and was, consequently, punished for that (Frankenstein and Walton as the modern Prometheus, the overreacher) - Interest in science (chemistry, Humphry Davy), scientific theories (evolutionary principles, Erasmus Darwin), experiments (electricity, Luigi Galvani) - Scientific contrasting attitudes: science and responsibility to mankind (creation of a being through electricity and chemistry) - Gothic tradition (despite some differences in setting and supernatural elements) - Coleridge’s “Rime of the Ancient Mariner” (haunted atmosphere, Walton/ Frankenstein: the poem is the tale of a crime against nature) In this period develops the sublime sensibility, theorized by Edmund Burke, bringing attention to the effects upon the perceiver (instead of the qualities of the pleasing object). According to him the sublime is a quality of art or experience that excites the ideas of pain and danger, associated with the idea of greatness of size, infinite, obscurity and difficulty (something great and immeasurable or that highlight men’s frailty), that provokes mainly astonishment, horror and terror, and minorly admiration, reverence and respect; and that prevents the perceiver from acting and reasoning (“horrible beauty”, ex void, nigh, …). 1.1.1.1 The creation of a monster – Chapter V - Dt. Frankenstein’s point of view - Frankenstein brings the creature to life thanks to a spark of electricity in his laboratory (gothic setting: darkness, gloom, mystery, danger) - The experiment, for which he had worked hard for two years with anxiety and agony, turns out as a catastrophe, vanishing all his expectations, because of the horrible appearance of the creature; terrified he falls asleep (nightmare his death wife) and runs away after the creature opens his jaws - Strange description of the monster in order to point out that it’s an artificial creation - Rapid change of feelings, from enthusiasm to disgust and horror, from dream to catastrophe - Sleep as a way to forget what he has done, failure and nightmare (Elisabeth being transformed into his mother corpse, feeling that something bad is going to happen to her) - At first, the creature tries to create a connection with the doctor, smiling (he fails) - Frankenstein refers to the creature with it/its, to emphasize detachment - Sublime: combination of fear (to Frankenstein who run away) and attraction (to the reader, creature out of the ordinary)