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Frankenstein
Robert DeNiro as the Creature
Creation Life Death Passion
Revenge
Mary
Shelley's own mother died in childbirth with Mary; thus the perils
and heartbreak of pregnancy and childbirth were never far from Mary who
grew up with a grieving father. Young Mary Shelley, at age
17, miscarried her first baby. She later wrote in a letter to friend
Leigh Hunt.... "I dreamt that my little baby came to life
again...that it had only been cold, and that we rubbed it before the
fire, and it lived. Awake and find no baby. I think about
the little thing all day. Not in good spirits."
Soon, Mary was pregnant again at age 18 and worried about
the new life she was carrying. While consuming anguish
coursed through her, Shelley found a voice through her masterpiece
Frankenstein. She physically and literally created life as
she wrote the novel.
Looking for a terrific Frankenstein
Study Guide? Click here.
Before beginning Frankenstein, read the “Rime of the Ancient
Mariner” and the Myth of Prometheus to help you better understand Mary
Shelley’s story.
Percy
Bysshe Shelley's Poem "Mutabiity" (quoted in the novel)
- Mutability
We are as clouds that veil the midnight moon:
How relentlessly they speed, and gleam, and quiver,
Streaking the darkness radiantly!-- yet soon
Night closes round, and they are lost forever:
Or like forgotten lyres, whose dissonant strings
Give various response to each varying blast,
To whose frail frame no second motion brings
One mod or modulation like the last.
We rest.-- A dream has power to poison sleep;
We rise.-- One wandering thought pollutes the day;
We feel, conceive or reason, laugh or weep;
Embrace fond woe, or cast our cares away:
It is the same!-- For, be it joy or sorrow,
The path of departure still is free:
Man's yesterday may ne'er be like his morrow;
Nought may endure but Mutability.
--1814
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Creature and Victor Frankenstein.
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