Mary Shelley (1797-1851)

1
Mary Shelley (1797-1851)

• An introduction to the woman who created the
  ultimate monster.

2
Mary Shelley

• By nineteen, Mary Shelley had written one of the
  most famous novels ever published
• Frankenstein tells the story of a scientist who
  learns how to reanimate life -- but forgets to
  consider the consequences.

3
Shelleys Work

• Nearly 200 years later, her work still inspires
  stage, film, video, and television productions
• Wrote
• Six other novels
• A novella
• Mythological dramas
• Short stories and articles
• Travel books
• Biographical studies

4
Shelleys Parents"We cannot, without depraving
our minds, endeavour to please a lover or
husband, but in proportion as he pleases us. -
Mary Wollstonecraft

• Born to two great intellectuals rebels (feminists
  and philosophers) of the 1790s
• Mother Mary Wollstonecraft -- author of A
  Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792)
• Father William Godwin -- author of An Enquiry
  Concerning Political Justice (1793)

5
Childhood

• Eleven days after giving birth, Shelleys mother
  passed away from puerperal fever
• Shelley was left with her mothers legacy a
  pioneer for reform of womens rights which
  resulted in her being deemed an unsexd female
• Godwin raised Shelley and her half sister Fanny
  to follow in his and Wollstonecrafts footsteps

6
Childhood (cont.)

• Godwin remarried in 1801 to Mary Jane Clairmont
• Clairmont was jealous of Shelleys intense
  relationship with her father, and was also
  jealous of the amount attention that Shelley got
  from visitors because she was the product of two
  such radical minds
• Clairmont made Shelley do household chores,
  encroached on her privacy, and limited her access
  to Godwin

7
Childhood (cont.)

• Clairmont did not encourage Shelleys
  intellectual development or love of reading
• Fortunately, Shelley had access to her fathers
  library, and at her fathers suggestion, was
  always reading two or three books simultaneously
• Shelley also listened in on literary
  conversations between Godwin and visitors like
  William Wordsworth, Charles Lamb, Samuel Taylor
  Coleridge, Thomas Holcroft, etc.

8
Childhood (cont.)

• Shelleys favorite pastime was to write stories
• At age 11 she was published (a 39-quatrain
  reworking of a five stanza song)
• It became very popular and was republished in
  1830

9
Meeting Percy Shelley

• Met Percy Bysshe Shelley and his wife Harriet
  Westbrook Shelley in 1812
• Percy was also a brilliant published writer
• Believed that the greatest justice done was done
  when he who possessed wealth gave it to those who
  needed it most
• Supported Godwin financially

10
Falling for Percy Shelley

• Percy Shelley grew tired of his wife Harriet and
  fell for Mary Shelley
• Godwin forbade them from seeing each other
• Percy Shelley attempted suicide
• Mary, convinced of his love, fled to France with
  him in 1814

11
Adulthood

• Mary and Percy have four children (only one
  survives to adulthood)
• First child is born prematurely and dies 11 days
  later in 1815
• William, born in 1816, dies of malaria in 1819
• Clara Everina, born in 1817, dies in 1818 of
  dysentery
• Percy Florence, born in 1819, died in 1889
• In 1822, Mary miscarried her 5th pregnancy and
  almost lost her life

12
Preoccupied with Death

• From 1816 onward, dealt with the suicides of
  Fanny Godwin (Shelleys half sister) and Harriet
  Shelley
• I have long determined that the best thing I
  could do was to put an end to the existence of a
  being whose birth was unfortunate, and whose life
  has only been a series of pain to those persons
  who have hurt their health in endeavoring to
  promote her welfare.Perhaps to hear of my death
  will give you pain, but you will soon have the
  blessing of forgetting that such a creature ever
  existed as...Fanny Godwin
• Dealt with death of her own children
• This preoccupation with death seen in her work
  (Frankenstein)

13
Dreaming up Frankenstein

• In 1815, after death of first child, dreamt the
  following
• "Dream that my little baby came to life
  again--that it had only been cold that we
  rubbed it before the fire it lived."
• Anxieties about motherhood may have inspired her
  to write the tale of a scientist who succeeds in
  creating a being through unnatural methods

14
Concocting Frankenstein

• On a rainy evening in 1816, Shelley and friends
  read from Fantasmagoriana, a French translation
  of a German collection of ghost stories
• Lord Byron suggested they each write a horror
  story
• Mary wanted to think of a story "which would
  speak to the mysterious fears of our nature and
  awake thrilling horror--one to make the reader
  dread to look round, to curdle the blood, and
  quicken the beatings of the heart.

15
Frankenstein

• Finished in May 1817, published in March 1818
• Frankenstein refers to the mad scientist, not the
  monster
• But the scientist and the monster are not too far
  from one another in likeness

16
Adulthood (cont.)

• Mary deals with depression in 1819 due to losing
  two children in 9 months time
• It is the focus of much of her work
• In 1822 she suffers the loss of her husband Percy
  through death by drowning
• Ironically he dies a month after saving her from
  her miscarriage
• Percys death left Mary with fierce remorse and
  guilt
• Mary had thought it Percys fault when Clara
  passed away
• Became withdrawn and depressed after Williams
  death
• Percy sought out other women and had affairs with
  them
• His death left things unfinished between them

17
Mary Shelley shall be written on my tomb.

• Mary committed herself to immortalizing her
  husband through writing his biography
• She did not remarry, but was rumored to have had
  various affairs
• She devoted the remainder of her life caring for
  her only surviving child Percy Florence
• "Well here is my story - the last story I shall
  have to tell - all that might have been bright in
  my life is now despoiled - I shall live to
  improve myself, to take care of my child,
  render myself worthy to join him. Soon my weary
  pilgrimage will begin - I rest now - but soon I
  must leave Italy -".
• She died at the age of 53 of a brain tumor and
  was buried with her parents