Preview

Mary Shelley: Her life influence in Frankenstein. Mary Shelley's life hardships show up subtley throughout her novel Frankenstein.

Better Essays
Open Document
Open Document
1227 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Mary Shelley: Her life influence in Frankenstein. Mary Shelley's life hardships show up subtley throughout her novel Frankenstein.
Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley endured many hardships during her life. Some of these included her mother dieing during childbirth, her loathing stepmother, and later in life, the death of her beloved husband. Although she maintained a strong relationship with her father, it did not cover-up the absence of a strong maternal figure. Mary Shelley 's novel Frankenstein, was influenced by the pain she encountered in her life.

Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin was born on August 30, 1797 to the couple of Mary Wollstonecraft and William Godwin. Wollstonecraft was a well-known feminist and Godwin was a popular political philosopher as well as a novelist. The two were quite the couple; both were intellectuals and had had a knack for writing. Most of their time together was spent writing letters to each other. Wollstonecraft already had an illegitimate child, so when she found out she was pregnant with Godwin 's child, she demanded marriage. Ironically, both were firm believers in non-committal relationships and frowned upon marriage. Nevertheless, months after the wedding, Mary was born, and ten days after giving birth, Mary Wollstonecraft passed away. Godwin blamed himself for the death of his new bride, and was not yet up to the task of raising a new baby girl by himself. Despite his uncertainties, he took on the new responsibility. Even after he remarried, he and his daughter Mary retained a strong bond. (ST Clair)

Few years after Mary Wollstonecraft 's death, Godwin was remarried. Mary now had a new stepmother and two brand-new stepsisters. Godwin thought that it

would be a step in the right direction to get remarried for the benefit of his child. However, the woman that he married did not accept Mary as her own. Her own two daughters always came first and because of this, Mary was often disregarded. When there was any conversing between Mary and her stepmother, it was mostly filled with friction. The loathing attitude from the stepmother was from a resentment of Mary and her

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    Mary Read Research Paper

    • 734 Words
    • 3 Pages

    She was born in the late seventeenth century in London (Wilczynski). Mary’s father had died…

    • 734 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Hardly more than a week after having Mary, Wollstonecraft died, leaving William to raise Mary and her half-sister, Fanny, whom William chose to adopt.…

    • 1119 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Mary was married to a Baptist Parson, named Amasa Dempster in a little village called Deptford. While Mary was carrying her unborn son in her womb, she was hit in the back of the head with a snowball concealing a fairly large rock. The impact of the hit had caused her to go to into labor. Both her and her premature son had fought for their lives. The result of the…

    • 1024 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Three years later, in 1898, Mary McLeod married Albertus Bethune. Within a year, Mary became pregnant and gave birth to her son Albertus McLeod Bethune, in 1899. As the years went on, Mary’s husband (who died in 1919) decided to leave her. It is said that he felt as though Mary was paying to mush attention to her work, and not enough attention to him. Even though at that point Mary was a single mother, she still managed to be a full time mother as well as an educator.…

    • 709 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In the context of passive female characters, it is interesting to note that Mary Shelley’s mother, Mary Wollstonecraft, was the author of the strongly feminist A Vindication of the Rights of Woman. One can argue that Frankenstein represents a rejection of the male attempt to usurp (by unnatural means) what is properly a female endeavor—birth. One can also interpret the novel as a broader rejection of the aggressive, rational, and male-dominated science of the late seventeenth and early eighteenth century. Though it was long met with mistrust, this science increasingly shaped European society. In this light, Frankenstein can be seen as prioritizing traditional female domesticity with its emphasis on family and interpersonal…

    • 113 Words
    • 1 Page
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Mary Edwards Walker was a civil war surgeon and women’s rights activist who was brave and strong. She was a generous person who stuck up for what she believed in and worked hard all her life. She made a mark in history and is remembered and known all around the world. On Monday, November 26th, 1832 in Oswego, New York, Mary Edwards Walker was born to her two parents, Vesta and Alvah Walker. She was the youngest girl in her family, with four sisters and a brother.…

    • 1194 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    late. And then finally she did not come in at all.” (Page 99) Mary Anne was no longer herself,…

    • 1170 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Mary Wollstonecraft's main idea was women should be treated the same way as men and rights for all individuals. A quote that concludes her main belief “ of leading women to fulfill their peculiar duties is to free them from all restrain by allowing them to participate in the inherent rights of mankind.”With this in mind it shows that Mary Wollstonecraft wanted women to be treated equally the way men were…

    • 458 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Frankenstein’s characters suffer in a couple of ways, psychologically such as through loneliness or through emotional pain of the death of close ones, and physical suffering. Shelley herself was an only child, so could have been considered lonely when she was younger, and her mother died, which is obviously a death of a close one. While suffering is deserved by some of the characters as they bring it upon themselves, some of the characters are not deserving of their suffering as it is thrust upon them.…

    • 857 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    During Fern’s lifetime, marriage was viewed as the most important accomplishment a woman would achieve. Following the death of her first husband, and the divorce of her abusive second husband, Fern’s opinions on marriage changed dramatically (McMichael 1901). Fern used sarcasm to highlight…

    • 1386 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Grief In Frankenstein

    • 1678 Words
    • 7 Pages

    Victor Frankenstein, Shelley’s main character in the novel, seems to be another way Shelley portrayed her grief and uses it for self therapy. In the novel, Victor receives a notice that his mother has passed. The news of his mother's passing sent him into a chemical craze. Frankenstein began to be fascinated in biology and in chemistry in order to bring back life. This was his way of coping, and although Mary Shelley did not try to create life, she herself was trying to find a way to cope with the death of her mother. Shelley’s way of coping involved her modeling the work Frankenstein after her own…

    • 1678 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Better Essays

    Frankenstein: Abandonment

    • 1165 Words
    • 5 Pages

    To demonstrate this theory in Frankenstein, Shelley focuses on Victor Frankenstein’s attempt to create life, which results in a horrid monster or “child”. Victor chooses to create a monster out of his own selfish reasons and leaves him behind in a cruel, unforgiving world. Unlike the monster, Victor had a comfortable childhood. Born to parents who loved him and a wealth of people who supported him, Victor receives excessive attention, allowing him to adjust easily. Frankenstein’s mother died while he was young. She was the only character to die peacefully: “She died calmly, and her countenance expressed affection even in death (Shelley, 33).” He saw his mother with compassion and her death infuriated him; he referred to death as evil and fully intended on fixing that. When Frankenstein went away to study in college, his life drastically took a turn of events without the presence of his parents.…

    • 1165 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Mary illustrates her personal misfortunes through the struggles of both Victor and his monster. Her emotions during these hard times are reflected within the characters. Nine days after she was born, Mary Shelley’s mother died. (Ginn) She incorporates this detail in her novel…

    • 1580 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Mary Shelly was born in 1797 and enjoyed a fairly happy childhood. Like her character Victor Frankenstein, she was raised with very little formal education but benefitted from frequent educational outings. As she grew older she also read to further her education and left her home to attend a boarding school. Like Victor’s grand-father Beaufort, Mary’s father faced debt and struggled to keep his daughters cared for, and, like Victor’s mother Caroline, Mary’s mother died of the flu; both Shelly and her character Victor cherished the memories of their mother. At the time when Frankenstein was written, Mary Shelly faced the loss of several children. Their premature births and subsequent deaths caused the young Mary Shelly to become very ill and depressed, a characteristic she passed on to her character Victor Frankenstein; as Mary was seemingly “haunted” by the visions of her lost infants, it is no wonder that she was able to describe, so vividly, the grotesque images encountered in Frankenstein.…

    • 799 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Children's Hour Analysis

    • 1342 Words
    • 6 Pages

    Longfellow was a devoted husband and father. Both of his marriages ended in sadness and tragedy. His first wife Mary Potter, of Portland, died in 1835; his second wife, Fanny Appleton, the great love of his life and the mother of his six children, died of burns from a terrible accident in 1861.…

    • 1342 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Powerful Essays