Reading Overview for Thursday, July 15

Assigned Text: Shelley’s Frankenstein, Vol. I, Ch. 1-4 (pp. 17-38)

About Mary Shelley and Frankenstein

Mary Shelley wrote Frankenstein over the year between June 1816 and May 1817, beginning it when she was just 18 years old. In her youth, though, Shelley had experienced many tragedies. She was born to two writers, William Godwin and Mary Wollstonecraft, and her mother died just two weeks after Shelley was born. By the time she finished Frankenstein, Shelley had run away to Europe with her married lover, lost an infant in childbirth, lost her half-sister to a suicide, married her lover (famous poet Percy Bysshe Shelley) after his wife committed suicide, and lost another infant just after Frankenstein was published. Shelley’s understanding of the complicated relationships between love/happiness and loss/tragedy certainly finds a way into the text.

The idea for the novel began while Shelley and her future husband were traveling in Europe and spending time with other intellectuals and writers and discussing literature, philosophy, and sciences. The group decided to hold a competition for the best ghost story (a popular form at the time), so Shelley began the story that eventually became the novel Frankenstein. The issues raised by the story certainly reflect the philosophical and scientific discussions the groups was having, including theories about the origins of life, issues of creation and destruction, and intellectual ambition.

The text of Frankenstein begins on page 5 of our Norton edition with a preface written by the Shelley’s husband, who describes the text in the first person as if he were the author. Then, Volume I opens with four letters from 28-year-old Captain Robert Walton who has hired a ship and is traveling in the North Sea around Siberia sent to his sister Margaret in England. Here are brief summaries of those four letters:

• Letter I: Captain Walton describes St. Petersburgh and his desire to explore the Arctic Circle and the North Pole, where he believes “a wondrous power…may regulate a thousand celestial observations” (7). His work toward this voyage has been six years in the making.
• Letter II: Walton is lonely on his journey and finds that the letters to his sister are his only sense of companionship and the only way he could share success if he does make an exciting discover. He describes the lieutenant and the master of the ship, but he does not find them to be suitable as friends.
• Letter III: Walton sends a quick letter because he comes across a merchant-man who will be journeying to England. His journey north continues and is pleasant so far because of the summer months.
• Letter IV: Walton relates some strange occurrences in this three-part letter. First, he and the crew, while surrounded by ice, see a large figure on a sled drawn across the ice by dogs, and they wonder where the figure came from because they are so far from land. Then, the next morning they find a man, a sled, and one dog left floating on a piece of ice. The crew brings him aboard, and they nurse him back to health. His answers to their questions are ambiguous, and they only figure out that he’s chasing someone who fled from him, the same man that the crew earlier. Walton talks with this man and finds him a wonderful companion and both well spoken and educated. The man finally decides to tell his story, and Walton records the story for his sister.

It is this story that makes up the novel, and the narrator of the story is the man telling Walton his story. Periodically through the novel, our narrator will give a reminder that he is telling his story to Walton. In our reading for today, this happens on page 31 when Victor pauses in his story and refuses to give certain details to Walton. The letters to Margaret resume in the final ten pages of the novel, bringing us back to this larger narrative frame.

Here is a map of the three main locations discussed in today's reading (you can click on it to see a larger version):

Questions for Thinking and Discussion

• What do you think of our narrator for the novel? Do you find him likeable? reliable? What do you think of Victor Frankenstein as both a student and a scientist? What can you infer about him from his relationships with his family, friends, professors, others?
• As you’re reading this first section, how does the setting (location, weather, time of day, etc.) relate to the events in the story?
• After you’ve finished reading for today’s assignment, look back at the story about the storm with Victor was 15 years old (pp. 22-23). How does this event connect with the events of chapters 3 and 4?
• What discovery does Victor make just as he finishes his course of study? How does he apply that discovery? Why do you think he won’t tell Captain Walton about his discovery?
• If you have never read Frankenstein before, what about the text is surprising? If you have read it before, how does a second reading impact your understanding of the text and your thinking about these early events?