Mary Poovey "'My Hideous Progeny': The Lady and the Monster"
** Homework Questions **
According to Poovey, how does Nature function in Frankenstein?
Provide references from her essay to support your response.
According to Poovey, how does Shelley view the imagination?
Provide references from her essay to support your
response.
346:
Explain: "Left with a craving for knowledge but no reliable
guide to direct it, Frankenstein's curiosity is kept within
bounds only by the 'mutual affection' of his domestic circle"
(346).
Explain: "Mary Shelley characterizes innate desire not as
neutral or benevolent but as quintessentially egotistical"
(346).
347:
Explain: "As long as domestic relationships govern an
individual's affections, his or her desire will turn outward
as love" (347).
According to Poovey, exactly how benevolent is
Frankenstein's scheme to create life? Explain.
350:
How, according to Poovey,is the monster the
"incarnation of the imagination's ugly and deadly essence"
(350)?
352:
How, according to Poovey, is the monster like a woman?
How, according to Poovey, is the monster "as immune to
human justice as it was repulsive to human love" (352)?
354:
What, according to Poovey, is "the only acceptable or safe
arena in which to articulate her [Mary Shelley's] feelings"
(354)? Explain.
Other Discussion Questions: 345:
Explain Poovey's suggestion that Shelley's novel can be
seen as "a troubled, veiled exploration of the price she had
already begun to fear . . . egotistical self-assertion
might exact" (345).
How, according to Poovey, does Shelley "desire to
accommodate her adolescent impulses to conventional propriety"
(345).
According to Poovey, what did contemporary reviewersof
Frankenstein fail to consider?
346:
Describe Keats's conception of "soul-making" (346).
Describe Locke's conception of the tabula rasa.
348:
How, according to Poovey, has Frankenstein "murdered
domestic tranquility" (348)?
Explain Poovey's claim that "animating the monster
completes and liberates Frankenstein's egotism" (348).
349:
Explain what Poovey identifies as Wollstonecraft's and
Wordsworth's view of maturation.
How, according to Poovey, does Shelley's
understanding of Nature differ from that of Wollstonecraft,
Wordsworth, and Percy Shelley?
351:
What, according to Poovey, is the effect of Shelley's
decision to employ a series of first-person narratives in the
novel?
353:
Explain Percy Shelley's views on the relationship of the
audience to poetry.
