Mary Shelley (1797-1851) Frankenstein (1818) Editor's Introduction Author's Introduction Author's Journals Author's Preface Volume One

Go to Vol. 2 Q's Go to Vol.  3 Q's

• Nature
• Science & Ambition
• Religion
• Language:  Speech, Reading, & Writing
• Roles of Men and Women
• Relationship b/w Parents & Children
• Sexuality
• Birth & Death
• Role of Solitude
• Characteristics of Gothic Literature 
• Comparison with "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner"

• How is Prometheus like both Satan and Christ?

• What is a "gothic novel"?

• Explain:  "My husband . . . was, from the first, very anxious that I should prove myself worthy of my parentage, and enrol myself on the page of fame" (187).

• Explain the significance of the dream Shelley describes on March 19th.

• According to the Preface, what is the author's chief concern in writing Frankenstein?

• What is a frame narrative?
• How does Walton compare with the Ancient Mariner?

• Why is Walton going to the North Pole?   How do his motives compare with those of the mariners in Coleridge's poem?

• Why does Victor get into Agrippa?
• Why isn't his father successful at first  in persuading him to stop reading him? How does his father get him to stop?

• Why does Victor refer to his laboratory as a "workshop of filthy creation" (38)?

• Explain the significance of the dream Victor has on the night of his "success."

• What is the nature of Victor's illness? Why does it fatigue him, even after several months recovery time, to write a letter?

• When Victor says, "The mere presence of the idea was an irresistible proof of the fact"(53),  to what is he referring? What does he mean?
• Why does Victor call the creature "my own vampire, my own spirit released from the grave"(53)?   What does that mean?

• In what ways was Mary Shelley's life with Percy Shelley "tempestuous"?

• In what ways is Frankenstein "a vibrant intersection of interlocking cultural concerns" (xix)?

• Who is Prometheus?

• Who is Frankenstein?

• Why did Mary Shelley have reservations about writing an Introduction to Frankenstein?
  
• Why did she decide to do it?

• Explain:  "Invention, it must be humbly admitted, does not consist in creating out of void, but out of chaos" (189).

• Why does she refer to her novel as "my hideous progeny" (191)?

• Who wrote this preface? Why is that significant?
• Why does Shelley distinguish this novel from "a mere tale of spectres or enchantment" (3)?

• What is Natural Philosophy?

• When Victor says, "I was required to exchange chimeras of boundless grandeur for realities of little worth" (29),  what does he mean?

• When Victor says, "To examine the causes of life, we must first have recourse to death"(32),  what does he mean?

• What is an orientalist?

• Why is Victor so anxious about returning home?

52-54:

• Describe the mood Shelley develops in her description of the setting of Geneva.

• Has Justine killed William? Why does she confess?
• Why do so many people "confess"?
• 49:  Elizabeth
• 63:  Victor
• 62:  Justine