Mary Shelley - Frankenstein, Appunti di Letteratura Inglese

Scarica Mary Shelley - Frankenstein e più Appunti in PDF di Letteratura Inglese solo su Docsity! Some important moments in Mary Shelley’s life  1797 → She was born on the 30th of August of 1797, so basically she was born when Jane Austen was submitting the manuscript of “First Impressions”, after she got married to Percy Shelley she took on his surname, and from that moment (1816) she will sign and will want other people to call her Mary Shelley, though she was born with the name “Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin”, she was given both her mother and father surname. Her mother died only 10 days after giving birth to her, she died of puerperal fever, a very frequent complication that attended birth in the early 18th century (there were no antibiotics and even the hygiene of doctors themselves and midwives was very bad.) Mary came from two very important families/parents: two intellectual/philosophers who have also written fictions, they wrote what we call today “philosophical novel” and so she learned that fictional writing could convey important content, she learned from a very early age that the novel could be a means to express serious matters about political or social injustice, or about oppression. Mary was an avid reader since she was a very young girl and was constantly encouraged to write and she somehow grew up with the expectations that she had to leave up to the immense talent of her parents, so she was expected, in a way, to turn into a successful writer. This was something that she was very proud of, but at the same time at a certain point in her life, when she was in her 30s, she felt that this burden of proving to everyone that she was as smart as her parents, was simply too much to her, even though she had a very special bond with her mother in fact she very often visited her mother’s grave. Apparently, she learned to read when she was four or five and she learned to read because when his father took Mary to her mother’s grave, he taught the child to trace the letters on the grave (like the name of the mother). William Godwin’s new wife had one daughter (Jane who becomes Clare) who was one year older than Mary and she lived with Mary in some of her most important moments.  July 1814 → Clare was together with Mary and Shelley when in July 1814 Mary elopes with Percy B. Shelley → They ran away but are not married, they started travelling in Europe. Mary is just 17. When Mary and Shelly elope, they show they are against marriage, the institutions of marriage, and this is something that William Godwin himself had been against when he was young, but with his own daughter it was a bit more difficult to put up with the questions of reputation, for this reason he was mad at them because of this elopement.  February 1815 → Mary gives birth to a premature child, Clara, who is born two months earlier and she lives just 13 days. After this she falls into a deep depression, but somehow in her letters traces the origin of Frankenstein to a dream she had, that Clara was only sleeping and was very cold but not dead. In the letters in which she talks about this she uses some words that seem to resonate with the creation of the creature, she says → “i was able to give her life again”.  Summer 1816 → Before this: They travel again to Europe, but after a while they ran out of money so they had to go back to England and William Godwin did not want to see Mary and Shelley’s parents did not want to see him, but at one point Shelley’s grandfathers died and Percy got some money (the Shelley family was very rich because they had higher connections). Summer 1816 is the second continental trip, is a particular date for us because this is the date in which most scholars/critics trace the origin of Frankenstein → the reason is that Mary Shelley herself speak of this summer: she does that in her preface to the second edition; Summer 1816 was important from a literary perspective because Frankenstein was born here at this time, but it was also an important date in the world because 1816 was called “the year without a summer” because there had been an eruption of a Volcano in Indonesia and because the eruption of this Volcano was so powerful, the atmosphere of the Earth was obscured and the temperatures went down, so in summer 1816 it was very cold. Mary Shelley called this summer in 1831 → “the wet, ungenial summer” and she happened to be in Geneva together with her Clare, Percy and another important poet because they were staying in “Villa Diodati”, rented by Lord Byron, a very important romantic poet and a very close friend to Mary. Mary Shelley in her preface to the second edition tells the story of a context, and at one point Lord Byron asked the other members of this party to write each a ghost story, launching this context by saying → “we will each write a ghost story” . John Polidori, who was Lord Byron’s doctor, decided to take part in this context and he wrote an important fragment of a short story but it was entitled “the vampire” , so during this summer during this context, two of the most important monsters of the English literature were born → Frankenstein and the Vampire ( a creature mainly of folk tradition/stories, and it did not enter English literature until this fragment of John Polidori).  December 1816 → Mary and Percy get married (Percy’s wife committed suicide when she was only 21, by drowning herself in the lake and she left 2 children and was pregnant of another one. They both got married also because they were hoping to get custody of Percy’s children, to adopt them, but they were unable to do that so those children were adopted by the family of his wife). They already had 2 children at this time (William and another girl)  1818 → Frankenstein; or, the Modern Prometheus published (sec.edition 1831)  1818-1821 → Mary Shelley lives in Italy: During these years she does not go back to England, she lives in Italy and this has an influence on her writing after Frankenstein, with an italian subject in some cases.  September 1818 → We have the death of her daughter Clara, she was one year old.  1819 → We have the death of her son William (in June) and he was 3 years old and in november she had together with Percy another son, Percy Florence, who survived.  1822→ Percy Shelley died unexpectedly, he was not ill, what happened is that he had a boating accident, so he basically drowned. So she was left alone, with very little money and with her son Percy, so she goes back to England.  1823→ She goes back to England, she decided to move to London even though her father did not want to see her, the family of Percy did not want to give money to her and so it was a very difficult time from this time onward.  1831 → She published the revised edition of Frankenstein, revised edition because she uses a lot of amendments that had been proposed by Percy Shelley. In this edition, the 1818 one, we have Mary Shelley’s text with basically no amendments: After the publication,Percy gave some advice to her so she decided to use this advice for her later edition. The plot changes very slightly but the style changes, which is less spontaneous, is more elaborated and complex.The are more latinates words. In this period she also writes other works like Mathilda, Valperga: or, the Life and Adventures of Castruccio, Prince of Lucca, the Last Man (sort of apocalyptic novel describing the Earth after a mysterious pandemy, it is a dystopian novel) and short stories. Mary certainly invented science fiction with Frankenstein (many critics think so) and with the Last Man she possibly invented dystopian fiction. Frankenstein and Gothic romances: an important revision  Frankenstein is considered by aby readers and scholars to be one of the very first examples of science fiction, but of course science fiction is a contemporary ladle, so in the early 19th century many people would not speak about science fiction so the comparison for early 19th century readers was rather with Gothic literature/romances.  For the 19th century readers the natural comparison would be with Gothic romances, so for many contemporary readers to Mary Shelley Frankenstein sounded a bit like a gothic tale and yet it is actually a revised Gothic text → This because we have a number of departures from the traditional Gothic text.  Frankenstein is not set in England but it’s not set in a remote castle either; It is a very European tale, Mary enjoyed travelling and she together with Percy travelled at a time when it was very difficult and dangerous to travel around Europe. She travelled a lot, and so did her mum, because they both thought that travelling could enlarge your mindset.  Frankenstein is set very much in Switzerland, the story basically unfold in Switzerland, Victor Frankenstein was born in Geneva (Switzerland was also the country in which Mary Shelley was staying when she began the novel); However the novel ranges widely across Europe but also across the world, because the tale begins in the Arctic ocean with Walton, the first narrator attempting to find the passage to the North Pole, so it begins and ends in the Arctic Ocean. We can also see that Victor Frankenstein studies in Germany, he visits creature to go away → so, if you are preventing to looking at the monster, you can listen to him.  The very special experience is the encounter with the creature’s voice, which is very powerful, because the creature is a very powerful narrator, especially compared to the previous narrators in Walton as in Victor they appear very emotional and there are some inconsistencies in their narratives, so somehow we as readers are not lead to completely trust them (not reliable narrators because their voice is very emotional, they tell us about their failures, they are egotistical). In contrast to that, the creature is even a very powerful rhetor, he makes a persuasive argument and continuously appears to be pleading to our sympathy, and the reason why we perceive the creature as a powerful narrator is because ha has basically one single argument, which is quite simple but is is repeated in avery consiste way and is elaborated upon by the monster: For example, he provides evidence for his argument, he balances supporting arguments to this main point that is making. His argument : “I was born good: misery made me a fiend”. He has a very sophisticated rhetorical style, for example, he uses a number of rhetorical questions when talking to Victor, he uses balanced sentences (“Do your duty and i will do mine”). He surprised us because this is not what we were expecting at all, and the kind of monster that we had been expecting from the expectations that were raised by Victor’s narrative, was a monster that was simply evil.  Before we meet the creature in chapter 7, we learn from a letter that Victor’s father writes to Victor that Victor’s little brother William was murdered and Victor is obviously horrified, and in his narrative, both by Victor and his father, William is always presented as a sweet and beautiful child→ this form in our mind the picture of a pure and innocent child, and if we consider that this is the child the monster has murdered, we conceive this act as pure evil. The perspective is somehow different when we encounter this episode from the perspective of the creature: He tells Victor of how he encountered little William and why he murder him, and paradoxically the reason why he did that is because he was deceived by William (He thought that, because he was a beautiful child, he was probably unprejudiced/innocent, perhaps this could have been the only human being who could have sympathized with the creature because he didn’t have any prejudice, he hadn’t been corrupted by society). He murdered him because he was rejected once more and also perhaps some scholars argue that the murder was inadvertently done by the creature so thing are different from the tale that we have received from Victor. The child → He is by no means innocent, he is a fully socialized child (his ideas and impressions have already been shaped by society → tales that have been raed in which what is different is evil, and he immediately the importance of his family connections), and just at this point the monster understood that a socialized child will never be able to accept him. Frankenstein: The Sources We have many texts that somehow have had an impact for the writing of Frankenstein. Some of them are extremely well-known, and some are explicitly mentioned in the novel.  C.Marlowe, Doctor Faustus (1592): Story of a famous character who decides to sell his soul to the devil, to Satan in exchange for knowledge. Here we have a very strong contrast between the forces of evil and good so for Marlowe is very important to draw a distinction between what is allowed/not allowed and what is good/evil, and Goethe, Faust (1808): The passion for knowledge causes Faust to exchange his soul with the devil who will serve Faust in life and Faust will be the servant of the devil in the afterlife. Here, instead, we tend to have more emphasis on the tragic consequences of behaving against the God. → Victor Frankenstein is a sort of faustian figure, because he also exchanges something very important for knowledge (the knowledge of the principle of life). For Victor only God had had the power to create life so in exchange for this kind of knowledge he receives damnation because he becomes isolated and every person he loves he is bound to die (the monster will kill every person he loves).  J.Locke, Some Thoughts Concerning Education (1693): Philosophical essay, an essay in the field of the philosophy of the mind. Here, we have the importance of the development of the mind. The question here is “How is the mind formed? How does the mind acquire knowledge and experience?”. Locke’s essay is very innovative because he is one of the first philosophers who puts forward this idea that the mind is like a blank slate, so when we were born basically we came to the world with no innate ideas whatsoever, so every impression/idea/sensation is the result of experience that has been inscribed upon the mind as if it was the inscription of a blank slate. This concept means that the environment and the kind of experiences that you come across as you grow up have a tremendous influence on the development of the mind (a good environment/experience lead to a correct development of the mind but on the other hand wrong/painful/difficult experiences can spoil this process of mind development) and J.J. Rousseau, Emile ou de l'éducation (1762): Rousseau builds on the theory of the mind as a blank slate but he changes it: The ideal of the mind as a blank slate is synonymous with innocence. The state of innocence that we have in our childhood is something precious and when civilization (which is the provider of experience) acts on the mind it acts by spoiling the development of the min forever. Basically in this text Rousseau proposes a model of education that is based on the child living in nature, being free to be in nature ( be outdoor as much as possible) and the adult figures should not interfere with the mind of the child because for Rousseau civilization always entails corruption for the mind of the child. The idea for Rousseau is to preserve the child’s innocence, the child’s proximity to nature as long as possible. This innocence of the mind does not necessarily belong to childhood only; for Rousseau also the boun savage → people in less sophisticated stage of civilization, for example not civilized people, they also enjoy the innocence of the mind because their minds have been preserved from the spoiling encounter with civilization. So, for Rousseau the child is similar to the boun savage (mind of the savage). Romantics will inherit Rousseau’s conception of childhood but what they take from him is especially the child's innocence and the child's special proximity to nature. This is what makes the child artistic, he is able to create because of this authentic proximity to nature, so the romantic poet if he wants to create he has to go back to his childhood. For Frankenstein Locke and Rousseau are especially important in the narrative of the creature → when he runs away from Victor’s laboratory we can see how his mind is developed and the corrupting impact of civilization on his apparently innocent mind. It seems here that we have an innocent creature who is somehow spoiled by the brutality of civilization. We have also some books that are explicitly mentioned in the novel itself, by the creature. He finds some books at the cottage, we have a very elaborated plot device → Zafy enters the cottage and with this plot device the creature spies on the process of teaching Zafy to speak French and to read, and he also learns to read. After this he finds some books which will be very important for him:  Goethe, the Sorrows of Werther (1744) → It was very popular at the end of the 18th century in England. Apparently Werther inspired an alarming of suicide among young men in England, and there was also the to called “English malady”. The creature is very impressed by it and what he find in it is a series of contrasts, he finds extremes in Werther (ecstasy and dejection, highest feelings that have ever being described, highest feelings/highest speculation together with the most desperate gloom) → the encounter with Werther is with the extreme of human feelings and he is impressed by how the feelings can be so powerfully described in a novel.  Plutarch’s Lives → He encounters the password of heroes. He encounters very high thoughts, a world where everything is very straightforward, the world is black & white, there are a lot of heroes who are endowed with virtues while the villains and the enemies are endowed with vicies. The creature gives the impression that there may be a more important word than the one that he has so far seen. He is impressed by the dignity of these heroes and the important abstract values that they embody.  Milton’s Paradise Lost (1667) → A poem in the english canon, we find God, Adam and Satan. As the creature reads it, this book is taken by him as a true history. What happens as he reads is that he sympathizes first with Adam (very far/different from him) and then Satan → “double identification”: Satan is the fallen angel but because he got angry he decided to rebel against God and so he was actually abandoned by God (abandoned like the creature), question of free will in Adam and Satan is also crucial. Adam is the first man but he is perfect and we can see that God is pleased with what he created, while the creature cannot be Adam because he is horrible, apparently Victor had selected the best parts of the corpses in use to assemble the monster: he had selected only the most beautiful parts and yet when he brought these parts together the result was horrible, Victor is horrified, is something completely unlike Adam → this is why the identification with Adam for the creature can occur only partly and after realising that he was not created like Adam by a real God he is forced to identify with Satan. Epigraph to the 1818 edition → we have this epigraph from Paradise Lost “Did I request thee, Maker, from my clay To mould me man? Did I solicit thee From darkness to promote me?”. So, what is the significance of this epigraph in the light of what happens in Frankenstein? We have Adam speaking → Mary Shelley wanted to alert readers to some issues: Adam is blaming God, he did not ask to be born, God made him the way he is. It seems like he is asking for some explanations on why he has to be alive. Here we have the issue of a creature being born without necessarily desiring it. 1. The creature did not ask to be born; 2. If you created me, why and because you created me you are responsible Mary Shelley so wants the reader to understand that the creature is innocent because he didn’t choose to be born, he is the product of someone else’s decision and then the responsibility of the father-like figure, so Victor and God. Then we have Satan, the other figure with whom the creature sympathizes with, who for the romantics is a sort of hero. Paradise Lost emphasizes the nature of Satan as a fallen angel but the romantics read this fallen angel as a rebel figure (because it rebels against the authority of God, an apparently prehordined fatih), he challenges the destiny and he puts his subjectivity in the first place so he wants to be different, not like the other angels, obeying to what Dog dictates. Christianity in a way requires the capacity never to question God’s will, the ability to put up with the perception of injustice, incoherence in the world, because you can still recognize God’s will and God’s desire behind inequality and injustice. And, of course, in Christianity you have the prize of the other world, of paradise, who will come to those who have had faith in life. But Satan, instead is the antihero who refuses to stay in his place and rebels against his faith and inequality.He appears like a hero because it seems that he has the courage to stand up against authority of God and looking at him from this perspective, he can appeal to romantic: romantic poets want to break from established tradition, authority, they want to be free and independent, and so this desire to be free is for them a s rot of rebellion against what has come before them (tradition, authority). Satan feels angry when is confronted with the bliss and happiness that are denied to him and this is the case also for the creature → he become especially enraged when is confronted with the happiness of other people, just because he is different he had to be condemned to unhappiness and this is not fair and he enrages against this, finding out that he has this destructive power then he is very similar to Satan. P.B. Shelley, in Defense of Poetry (1819) → In this quote we can see the contrast between Satan and God: Satan appears to him as a real hero, a hero that has the courage to stand up against adversity, torture, injustice and oppression while God is associated with someone in authority.Evil and good are blurred, so God is usually the most powerful symbol of good and Satan is the emblem of evil, but here Satan appears more a hero than God himself: Satan is the rebel, a moral being that is far superior even to God who is morally inferior. A Modern Prometheus The myth of Prometheus is another important source for Frankenstein and the very prominent one, because the subtitle reads “a modern prometheus”.What we are offered here is the story of some kind Prometheus-like figure. Prometheus was a very famous titan and he is famous because he