1. Introduction to Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein; or,
The Modern Prometheus

2. To properly understand Shelley’s Frankenstein
(published in 1818), we have to understand the
whirlwind of historical events that shaped her
consciousness.
Spontaneous
Creativity
trumps Logic
and Reason
Freedom and
Equality trump
Obedience and
subservience
Science
trumps
Religion
Nature is
Worshiped

3. The first of these events is known as the Scientific
Revolution.

4. Science Challenges Religion
• In 1543 Nicolaus Copernicus
proves universe was heliocentric
(sun-centered) not geocentric
(earth-centered) and that the
earth and other planets revolve
around sun.
• This went against Church
teaching (Psalm 93:1 says "the
world is firmly established, it
cannot be moved.") that the Earth
was center of universe and all
planets revolved around it.

5. Galileo Galilei used a telescope to support the
Copernican system.
• Because he went against
Church teaching,
Galileo was imprisoned
in 1633.
• 1667-1687 Sir Isaac
Newton writes Principia
Mathematica, which
explains law of gravity.
• This proved the
universe is governed by
knowable and
predictable laws.

6. By the 1770s many philosophers began to believe
that science could positively transform society.
• This exclusive focus on
living life according to
scientific principles made
some people uneasy.
• They felt that other aspects
of the human experience
(emotional passion) were
being neglected, and much
creative potential was being
stifled.

7. In France, the champion of passionate living was
Jean-Jacques Rousseau.
• Rousseau believed that
humans are born good
but are corrupted by
civilization.
• Rousseau believed that
virtue could only be
maintained by living in
nature.
• Rousseau's theories
about the power of
nature were tested when
a Victor, a “wild child,”
was caught in Aveyron
France.

8. •
•
•
•
New thoughts about government and freedom
clashed with how France was ruled.
French society was based on
feudal system in which the
common people were expected
to obey the nobles.
Taking America as a model,
many French people began to
feel dissatisfied with monarchy.
July 1789: Paris crowd storms
the Bastille. French Revolution
begins.
King Louis XVI was put on
trial for treason and cut off his
head.

9. The political reaction to oppression was the French
Revolution; the cultural reaction to oppression was
the Romantic Literary Movement.
• For Romantic thinkers, the
imagination (not rational
analytical thinking) was the
ultimate creative power.
• Nature viewed as an escape
from “corrupt and confining”
civilization.
• Romantic writers depicted
their heroes as creative artists,
striving to “advance” beyond
the moral restrictions of
society.

10. Frankenstein begins with a series of 4 letters
written by Arctic explorer Robert Walton to his
sister.
• Walton will encounter Victor Frankenstein in the
frozen wastes and will take him aboard.
• He will hear Frankenstein’s account of his
misadventures.