Powerpoint on Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, historical context, biography of the author, main themes and plot chapter by chapter. Hope it will help someone.

1. FRANKENSTEIN
A cura di Yaroslava Choriy

2. ROMANTICISM
In the second half of the 18° century a new kind
of sensibility developed. While the Augustan
poets of the early 18° century had dealt with
impersonal material with eloquence, the
Romantic poets were more interested in
subjective matters moving towards the
expression of a lyrical and personal experience of
life.
There was a growing interest in humble and
everyday life in opposition to the noble subjects
of the Augustan Age. Related to this was the
development of a new emotion, melancholy,
connected to an interest in desolate and obscure
places such as graveyards.

3. WHO IS MARY SHELLEY
Mary Shelley was born Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin in 1797 by
William Godwin, an english political and philosopher, and Mary
Wollstonecraft, the author of «A vindication of the rights of
woman» (1780). Her mother died ten days after Mary was born.
Mary’s father had many admirers including Percy Bysshe Shelley,
one of the most important Romantic poets. In 1814 Mary and
Percy ran away to Europe, even thought she was 16 and he was
married and had two children.
In 1816 Mary and Percy went to spend the summer with Percy’s
friend, Lord Byron, who rented a house on the shores of Lake
Geneva. That is where Mary started to write «Frankenstein» or
«The modern Prometheus». At the end of 1816, following the
suicide of Percy’s wife, the couple got married.
In 1822 Mary’s husband drowned in a sailing accident in the Bay
of La Spezia. She and her son returned to England in 1829.
Althought she wrote other books, Frankenstein was the only one
which was commercially successful.
Mary died in 1851, aged 53.

4. THE BIRTH OF
FRANKENSTEIN
1818: Frankenstein was published
anonymously
1823: 3° edition with the name of Mary
Shelley and an introduction written by
herself
Today Frankenstein is part of our
cultural iconography and is considered a
metaphor of our cultural crisis.
CURIOSITY:
Everything started from a ghost story
contest at Villa Diodati in June 1816,
where Byron challenged his group of
friends to narrate a ghost story for their
mutual entertainment.

5. MAIN THEMES
• Pursuit of knowledge
• Scientist’s responsibility
• Neglect and development
It is connected to various
scientific, philosophical and
political ideas of that period and
also to Galvani’s experiments
with electricity on animals.

6. PERSPECTIVES
There are two different visions of life:
• Life seen as an intangible essence
• Life seen as a sum of biological functions

7. NARRATIVE STRUCTURE
• Epistolary novel and multi-layered → narrative within a
narrative
• Symmetrical structure
• Triangular narrative pattern
• No omniscent narrator

8. MYTH OF
PROMETHEUS
• Analogy with Victor Frankenstein
• 2 versions of the mith: Prometheus
plasticator and Prometheus pyrphorus

9. CHAPTER 1
MAIN EVENTS
• Epistolary exchange between
Walton and his sister
• Walton meets Frankenstein
• Frankenstein tells his story
THEME
• Ambition

10. CHAPTER 2
MAIN EVENTS
• Doctor Frankenstein gets passionate about human anatomy and
mathematics
• Creates a new life
• Realizes that he has created a monster and runs away from his home
• Meets his long-time friend Clerval and returning home finds out that
the monster has disappeared
THEME
• Evolution in Frankenstein’s set of mind: trustful at the beginning
and eventually horrified by his creation

11. CHAPTER 3
MAIN EVENTS
• The monster kills William, Frankenstein’s
brother
• Later Justine, a dear friend of theirs, is
wrongfully declared guilty of William’s
death and hanged

12. CHAPTER 4
MAIN EVENTS
• Frankenstein wants
to punish the
monster for his
crimes
• The monster tells
his creator his
painful story and
asks for help

13. CHAPTER 5
MAIN EVENTS
• The monster wants Frankenstein to create a female version of
himself so that he won’t feel alone anymore
• To convince his creator, he promises him he will go far away and let
him live in peace
• Frankenstein is not fully convinced but in the end he feels sorry and
accepts to help the monster
• The female monster is almost ready but suddently Victor decides to
destroy his work
• The monster, seeing what he has done, enters the laboratory and
declares revenge by saying that he will be with him on his wedding
day

14. CHAPTER 7
MAIN EVENTS
• Victor and his father, who is concerned about his son’s mental state, stop in
Paris for a while
• Victor receives a letter from Elizabeth and finally reveals that he loves her,
but remembers the words the monster told him: he will be with him on his
wedding day
• Victor and his father arrive home and begin planning the wedding, Victor
thinks that he will soon be able to destroy the cause of his suffering
• The wedding takes place, Victor and Elizabeth depart for a family cottage to
spend the night there
• Victor asks Elizabeth to retire for the night and waits for the monster’s
arrival but suddently he hears Elizabeth scream and when he arrives it’s too
late: his love has been killed by the monster

15. CHAPTER 8
MAIN EVENTS
• After arriving at his home Victor tells his father about Elizabeth’s death and
his father is so heartbroken that he soon dies
• A short time passes in which Victor is thought to be mad, but once he
recovers he decides to destroy the monster
• Victor starts his journey around the world in order to find and kill the
monster, his tracks lead him to head north
• Finally Victor sees his enemy on the ice but because the ice breaks all
around him he loses his tracks
• Victor’s story ends here because he was later found and saved by Walton and
his crew
THEME
• Revenge

16. CHAPTER 9
MAIN EVENTS
• Walton writes to his sister that his journey to the north pole is at risk because
mountains of ice are all around the ship
• Walton has to abandon his plans about discovering something and his crew
pressures him to return south and go back home
• Once Victor finds out that they are turning back, he wants desperately to get out
of the ship in order to continue his search for the monster but he doesn’t have the
strenght to do that and after a short time he passes away
• Later Walton finds the monster in the cabin where lays Victor’s dead body
• The monster has the time to tell his side of the story, he then says goodbye to his
creator and to Walton and disappears to end his life
THEME
• Ambition in science→ there is a limit