Throughout this essay I will try to make the reader understand about the historical overlook of the story of “Frankenstein”, a general background of the author Mary Shelley and some interpretations that a reader could have about the story and some comparison with the author’s own life. Besides, this essay tries to make the reader think beyond words and imagine his own life and it interpretations.
The story of this eccentric creature was writing in a historical context which was characterized by the less participation of women in society, not having education and not having the opportunity to work and only being housewives. Besides, this period of the XVIII century (1818) was very plentiful of written works like novels and poems, and the beginning of many important writers such as Jane Austen and obviously Mary Shelley. The industrial revolution was also a characteristic of this period where the technological advances and uses were rapidly increasing.
Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley was born in a very literate family. Her parents were people committed with society; her mother was a feminist and her father was a philosopher. Besides, she was the wife of Percy Bysshe Shelley who was a romantic poet. Mary Shelley’s life was full of difficult moments, such as the dead of her mother when she born, the second wedding of her father, the suicide of the first wife of Percy Shelley, financial problems and the dead of their first child, among others. All those hard problems made her feel that there was no way to understand why she had to pass through those difficulties. In that moment, she found the way to express what she was feeling about her own life, and she did it writing about the story of the monster in “Frankenstein”.
The nightmare that Mary Shelley had once about a young man who created a monster and then leaving it after realizing that it was a completely madness creation, was the origin of her master piece “Frankenstein”.
This story lets the reader having important interpretations of it. This story lets know that it has many aspects of the author’s own life. That is why it is important to have an idea about the background of the author in order to know why some facts are mentioned or what was the intention of the author while she wrote the story.
The main character of the story is a monster which was created by a young scientist. When that young man realized that the monster was horrible and without any sense in life, he decided not to have anything to do with that horrible creation. That event of the story is the representation of Shelley’s nightmare. When the monster noticed that he was alone, he decided to explore the world and try to find answers to his doubts about himself and the society. Moreover, the monster felt that society was so hard to live in because he usually received rejection from others and prohibition to do what he wanted to do. The monster knew a lot because he was created to be intelligent. Here, the reader can figure out that Shelley felt the same as the monster. During her life she had difficulties to study because in those times where she lived, it was not common to see literate women and what she used to do was not considered correct, but she still was an educated woman.
In addition, it is interesting to say that the story of that unnamed creature shows that the fact of not having a name let you think immediately about Mary Shelley’s life. She used to feel that she did not belonged to anywhere and her origins were kind of weird because she did not know her mother, her father got marry with another woman, etc.
The monster was vegetarian as well as Mary and her husband. Here, we can see a clear assimilation between the author’s life and the life of the main character of the story.
I think the theme of suicide is very relevant in the story, but it is difficult for me to interpret it. I could think that the monster decided to commit suicide by burning himself. That represents that Shelley wanted to eliminate those bad characteristics of her life. On the other hand, I could say that she wanted to say that suicide is not the best way to avoid problems and that we have to confront them, not as the first wife of Shelley’s husband did while she was pregnant. Here we can notice that there could be many interpretations of the story.
Finally, it is very important to point out that the fact that the creator of the monster, Victor Frankenstein, run away from his creation has a lot to do with the idea that several women in those times had with pregnancy and birth. In those times it was so difficult to have babies because there were no sources to receive them and most of them born premature and most of times they and their mothers died. May be, Shelley wanted to represent the lost of her first son and the fear of loosing another one, with the creation of the monster and the abandon of the scientist of it.
In conclusion, I can say that the story of the monster in “Frankenstein” is full of wide ideas of life and death, intelligence, imagination, etc. where the reader can build his own idea of the text and may be he could start to think about his own life and how people can interpret it. The story and its historical background and the author’s life let the reader know that the times of Mary Shelley were difficult as well as her own life, which is represented in the story as part of that horrible monster.
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