Mary Shelley's Frankenstein

Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin Shelley conceived her well-known novel, "Frankenstein," when she, her husband Percy Bysshe Shelley and their friends were at a house party near Geneva in 1816 and she was challenged to come up with a ghost story (Malchow 1993). Mary, then only 18 years old, produced the plot, largely drawn from her own experiences, perceptions and the personalities of the members of her family. These impressions are embedded in a Gothic horror romance woven through the letters of the Arctic explorer, Robert Walton, to his sister about the life of Victor Frankenstein and the monster he creates out of a desire to uncover the spark of being (James 1994). Most literature readers know the story about the monster's loneliness and rage, his victims and the guilt and torment of his creator. While terrifying in appearance, Mary also brings out the innocence, depth and longings of...
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