Creature Context Flashcards
(8 cards)
Creature context point one-symbol of abandonment
The Creature’s rejection by Victor mirrors Mary Shelley’s fear of abandonment and rejection, especially by her father, William Godwin.
Mary wrote in her journals of feeling ignored by her father after her mother’s death and her elopement with Percy Shelley.
Journal entry, 1815.
Creature context point two-lack of parental guidance
The Creature’s suffering from a lack of moral and emotional guidance reflects Shelley’s experience growing up motherless and under the shadow of intellectual ideals rather than emotional warmth.
Anne K. Mellor, Mary Shelley: Her Life, Her Fiction, Her Monsters.
Creature context point three-alienation from society
The Creature’s exclusion and vilification by society mirrors Mary’s social alienation as a female intellectual and controversial public figure.
Miranda Seymour, Mary Shelley (2000).
Creature context point four-education and self-education
The Creature’s autodidactic learning mirrors Mary Shelley’s own informal education—she read voraciously but was largely self-taught due to limited formal schooling.
Mary wrote in a letter (1822): “I was nursed and fed with the wild fictions of the poets and romancers.”
Creature context point five-noble savage and enlightenment humanism
The Creature embodies Rousseau’s “noble savage” — innocent at birth, corrupted by society.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Émile (1762): “Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains.”
Creature context point six-reflection of Mary Shelley’s illegitimacy and stigma
The Creature, born unnaturally and without a name, reflects Shelley’s own concerns with illegitimacy and societal shame.
Mary’s elopement with Percy Shelley while he was still married led to widespread scandal.
Fiona Sampson, In Search of Mary Shelley (2018).
Creature context point seven-the Creature as a reflection of Mary Shelley’s children
The Creature can be seen as a metaphor for Shelley’s lost children — beautiful, innocent, but doomed and unloved.
After losing her daughter Clara in 1818, Mary wrote: “The emptiness of my heart was never filled.”
Creature context point eight-feminist readings: the creature as gendered other
Feminist theorists interpret the Creature as a figure of marginalisation, similar to how women were excluded from power and voice.
Barbara Johnson, in her essay My Monster/My Self (1982), argues: “The monster is not simply a figure of physical deformity, but one of social unacceptability.”
