Frankenstein Context Flashcards
Prometheus myth
Prometheus was the titan of forethought. He stole fire to give to humans without Zeus’ will. He was punished and chained to a cliff for eternity where an eagle ate his liver every day. Victor gave humans a means for life after death which previously only god could do, like how god was the only one who could give fire to humans. Both Prometheus and victor go beyond natural limits.
Paradise lost
Written my Milton, its a blank verse Poem that follows satan’s fall from heaven, the corruption of Adam and Eve and their expulsion from Eden. In the novel the creature finds and reads a copy of the poem and realises he’s a monster of some sort. Satan can be parallelised with the creature and victor, victor can also be compared to eve due to temptation on apple/knowlege.
Gothic literature
A style of writing that includes elements of fear, horror, death, and gloom but also romance, nature and lots of emotion. Frankenstein is one of the early gothic novels as it fits the category due to the sinister settings such as a dungeon. There is also natural landscapes like mountains, supernatural elements, and a monster.
Age of enlightenment
An intellectual and philosophical movement that emerged out of a European scholarly movement known as the Renaissance humanism. Knowledge was considered power, focusing mainly on science , like victory and egotistical character, represents an enlightenment thinker. Shelley viewed the enlightenment as self-centered and characterized around the disbelief that all is good in the world.
Age of enlightenment
An intellectual and philosophical movement that emerged out of a European scholarly movement known as the Renaissance humanism. Knowledge was considered power, focusing mainly on science , like victory and egotistical character, represents an enlightenment thinker. Shelley viewed the enlightenment as self-centered and characterized around the disbelief that all is good in the world.
Mary Wollstonecraft
English writer, philosopher, and advocate of women’s rights. Best known for ‘a vindication of the Rights of Women’ written in 1792. Mary argues that women aren’t naturally inferior to men, but appear to be only because they lack education. Declared that bot men and women are human beings endowed with inalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
The sublime
A literary and philosophical concept that refers to the feeling we get when we encounter something in nature that’s a mixture of terror and beauty. Much of the sublime is found in the frame narrative.
Galvanism
Defines as a form of medical treatment involving the application of pulses of electric current to body tissues provoking the contraction of muscles. Scientist Galvani was experimenting on a dissected from when he accidentally touched a brass rod to a steel scale making the frog’s leg muscle contract. Introduced idea of duality of positive and negative electrical forces. This reflects contrasts throughout the book such as good and evil and victor’s creation and destruction.
Mary Shelley’s biography
Published Frankenstein in 1818. Mother died in childbirth. Lost first child in 1815, then two more later on, leaving her with one child who survived to adulthood. Published Frankenstein anonymously and many believed that her husband Percy wrote it. Her marriage was filled with heartache and adulatory. Her husband drowned whilst sailing in 1822, she wasn’t allowed to her husband’s funeral due to customs at the time.
