Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (1797-1851)

"The Mortal Immortal" (1833)

** Another version of this story can be found here .  This is a hypertext edition. Please follow as many links as possible to gather information about the text. **

Things to Consider:

• Religious Views of Death and Immortality
• Standards of Beauty and Roles of Women
• Role of Science
• Forms of Reproduction
• Textual Analysis and the Role of Engravings

• Describe the circumstances surrounding Mary Godwin's birth.

956:

• Describe the circumstances surrounding Mary Godwin's elopement with Percy Shelley.
  

• Who is the Wandering Jew? 

• Why doesn't Agrippa tell Winzy the true nature of his experiments?

• How does the description of Bertha correspond to that of the potion on 964?
• Explain: "That delicious draught of a divine elixir . . . had inspired me with courage and resolution, thus winning for me an inestimable treasure in my Bertha" (965).

• Explain:  "She sought to decrease the apparent disparity of our ages by a thousand feminine arts" (968).

• Explain:  "Such an enigma is man--born to perish--when he wars, as I do, against the established laws of his nature" (969).

• How might Winzy become "the wonder and benefactor of the human species" (970)?
• Why is Winzy writing his story?

• Why did Godwin refuse to recognize his daughter's relationship with Percy Shelley?
• Describe the circumstances surrounding the composition of Frankenstein.
• Describe the circumstances surrounding Mary Shelley's return to England in 1822.
  

• How old is the narrator of the story?

• Who is Cornelius Agrippa?
• Explain:  "His memory is as immortal as his arts have made me" (962).
• Why is Winzy afraid to work for Agrippa?
• Explain: "Still I was too poor to marry, and she grew weary of being tormented on my account" (962).

963:

• Why does Winzy decide to work for Agrippa after all?
• Explain:  "I was jealous as a Turk" (963).

• Why does Winzy drink the potion?

• Explain:  "A prophet is least regarded in his own country" (966).

• Who is Nestor?

968:

• Why is Bertha so intent on finding signs of age in Winzy?