FRANKENSTEIN

Katie Nelson and Maria Welser

MARY SHELLEY

Born to two famous writers in 1797 (William

Godwin and Mary Wollstencraft)

Mother passed away when she was 11 days old

Married Percy Shelley (a poet)

First child (girl) died and second child (boy) lived

in 1816

SCIENCE OF THE TIME

Galvanism- visuals

Spontaneous generation

“resurrectioners”

Shelley on post industrialism and Darwinism

What was a scientist? Natural philosopher

CONNECTIONS TO MODERN TECHNOLOGY

Cloning

Euthanasia

Animal organs used for human transplants

Abortion

Stem cell research

CREATION OF THE NOVEL

Summer spent in Geneva 1816 where she had the

dream and began writing (coldest summer on

record)

1818 Frankenstein; The Modern Prometheus,

published anonymously in three volumes

1831 revision for production in Bentley’s Standard

Novels, in which she includes an introduction on her

inspiration

ADJECTIVES OF THE CREATURE

Yellowish, watery eyes

Lustrous, black hair

Yellow skin

Showing the outline of veins and

muscles

White teeth

Black lips

8 feet tall

“miserable monster”

“wretch” “demon” “vile insect” “fiend” “creature” “superhuman” Abhorred “treacherous” “unearthly ugliness”

EVOLUTION OF THE MONSTER: F ILM

1931- Boris Karloff “green monster”

1957- (AIP) teenage Frankenstein

1958- nuclear power/ clone

1958- Frankensteins’ daughter

1973- Blackenstein

1985- Bride adaptation

1987- Monster Squad

1994- Robert Di Niro- divered very

heavily

2004- Van Helsing

2005- Frankenstein vs. The Creature of Blood Cove

2006- Perfect Woman

2006- Subject Two

2012- Hotel Transylvania

2014- “I, Frankenstein”

EVOLUTION OF THE NOVEL: STAGED

1823- Presumption

1887- Frankensteim, The Vampire’s Victim

1981- Broadway adaptation played for one

performance

2007- Young Frankenstein

2011- Frankenstein adapted by the Royal National

Theatre

ICONIC STILL TODAY

Responsibility • Innocence vs guilt (creature aware of harm)• Abandonment (judgemental)

Dangers of knowledge (whats the ending point?)

Sublime nature

Monstrosity (De Lacey house)

TIMELINE OF NOVEL

Victor loses his mother and leaves for Ingolstadt at the age of 17

Several years pass as he learns and creates the Creature (9 months of

creation)

The Creature observes the De Laceys for about a year

Two years after that the Creature finds Victor and confesses Williams

murder and asks for a female companion

Another few years pass and Victor stops the production of the female

Victor is accused of Henry’s murder and is in jail for two months, marrying

Elizabeth after

He searches for the Creature for five months until reaching Walton’s ship