What is the difference between revolution and reform?
5-6:
How, according to Smith, is Wollstonecraft's argument in A
Vindication
of the Rights of Woman contradictory?
How, according to Smith, does Wollstonecraft's life
contradict her feminist
arguments?
10:
In what ways was Mary Shelley's life with Percy "checkered"
(10)?
14:
Explain: "Alternation between fear of vengeful revolution and
sympathy
for the suffering poor was characteristic of Mary Shelley's
culture" (14).
16:
Explain: "A society and not its outcasts creates
revolutionary
violence" (16).
1831 Introduction:
19:
Why did Mary Shelley have reservations about writing an
Introduction
to Frankenstein? Why did she decide to do it?
21:
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" (21).
23:
Explain: "Invention, it must be humbly admitted, does
not consist
in creating out of void, but out of chaos" (23).
Author's Preface:
26:
According to the Preface, what is the author's chief concern
in writing
Frankenstein?
Other Discussion Questions:
4:
What is so special about the years 1789 and 1832?
5:
What does it mean to say that "women and workers were equally
disadvantaged
under the current political order" (5)?
8:
Why were booksellers prosecuted for selling Paine's Rights
of Man?
How, according to Smith, is Godwin's Political Justice
"antirevolutionary"
(8)?
11:
How, according to Smith, would Percy's encouragement be a
burden to
Mary?
13:
Explain: " The contradictions in Mary Shelley's
views, then,
are best approached as symptomatic of England's uneven
industrial development
and its political consequences" (13).
15:
What exactly did the Reform Bill of 1832 accomplish?
16:
To what extent, according to Smith, can the
relationship between
Victor Frankenstein and his creature be viewed in terms of the
Reform Bill
debate?
