Loss & Maternal Anxiety

Test yourself

Loss and Maternal Anxiety

Mary Shelley experienced a great deal of loss in her family.

Percy Shelley

At 15 years old, Mary met Percy Shelley, a 19-year-old poet who was similarly liberal in his politics, creative and charismatic but was married.
Love blossomed between them and in 1814, when Mary was 16, they fled to Europe and Percy abandoned his wife.

Tragedy

One year later, Mary gave birth to her first child who sadly died after a few days.
Tragedy followed the couple in the preceding years, with Mary’s half-sister Fanny committing suicide and Percy’s wife, Harriet, also taking her own life after being so heartbroken from his abandonment.
This all happened between 1816 and 1818 which is the period in which Mary was writing Frankenstein.

Critical acclaim

After its publication, Mary Shelley was not able to enjoy the critical acclaim the book received.
Most people believed that her husband had written the novel; strengthened by the fact he wrote the preface.

Troubles

Many years of troubles followed with rumours of Percy’s infidelity, a miscarriage, the death of two more children soon after birth and financial difficulties.
Then in 1822, when Mary was 24 years old, Percy died in a boating accident in Italy.
She was left a widow with one surviving child, Percy Florence.

Mourning

She spent the rest of her life writing to support her child, never able to repeat the success of Frankenstein.
On a more Gothic note, she spent the rest of her life mourning the death of Percy, refusing to remarry and instead carried his heart around in her handbag for the rest of her life after a friend recovered it from his funeral pyre.

Death

Mary died at the age of 53 from a brain tumour in 1851.

Loss Influencing Frankenstein

Some critics have argued that the novel is about the anxieties Shelley had from the death of her firstborn child.

Significance of the narrative

This may be why the Monster’s narrative is placed in the ‘womb’ of the novel and the theme of abandonment is such a key issue to the text.

Mary Shelley's Diary

Shelley even wrote in her diary of the death of her child, two years before writing Frankenstein: 'I awoke in the night to give it suck it appeared to be sleeping so quietly that I would not awake it’, yet in the morning she writes ‘Find my baby dead’.

Blame and dreams

She blamed herself for the child’s death, believing she was becoming ill because of the milk in her breasts.
She writes that her sleep becomes troubled, stating ‘Dream 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’.

Parallels to Victor's dream

This dream is comparable to Victor’s dream in Chapter 5 after he has created the Monster.
- He dreams of death and yet wakes to find his creation still lives, whereas Shelley’s dream is sadly reversed.

1Narrative Structure

1.1Narrative Structure

1.1.1Narrative Structure

1.1.2Narrative Distancing

1.1.3End of Topic Test - Narrative Structure

2Character Summaries

2.1Walton & Frankenstein

2.1.1Walton

2.1.2Victor Frankenstein

2.1.3End of Topic Test - Walton & Frankenstein

2.2The Monster

2.2.1The Monster

2.2.2The Monster 2

2.2.3End of Topic Test - The Monster

2.3Elizabeth, Justine & Henry

2.3.1Elizabeth Lavenza

2.3.2Justine Moritz

2.3.3Henry Clerval

2.3.4End of Topic Test - Elizabeth, Justine & Henry

2.4Families & Other Characters

2.4.1The Frankenstein Family

2.4.2The De Lacey Family

2.4.3Other Characters

2.4.4End of Topic Test - Families & Other Characters

3Intertextuality & Allusions

3.1Intertextual References

3.1.1The Modern Prometheus

3.1.2The Rime of the Ancient Mariner

3.1.3The Bible

3.1.4Mutability & Tintern Abbey

3.1.5End of Topic Test - Intertextual References

3.2Philosophical & Scientific Theories

3.2.1Edmund Burke

3.2.2Thomas Paine

3.2.3John Locke

3.2.4Jean-Jacques Rousseau

3.2.5Historical Figures

3.2.6End of Topic Test - Philosophy & Science Theories

4Biographic Context

4.1Biographic Context

4.1.1Shelley's Parents

4.1.2Loss & Maternal Anxiety

4.1.3Literary Legend

4.1.4End of Topic Test - Biographical Context

5Chapter Summaries

5.1Letters

5.1.1Letters 1 & 2

5.1.2Letters 3 & 4

5.1.3End of Topic Test - Letters

5.2Chapters

5.2.1Chapters 1-2

5.2.2Chapters 3-4

5.2.3Chapters 5-6

5.2.4Chapters 7-9

5.2.5Chapters 10-11

5.2.6Chapters 12-15

5.2.7Chapters 16-19

5.2.8Chapters 20-23

5.2.9Chapter 24 & Walton’s Last Letters

5.2.10End of Topic Test - Chapters 1-6

5.2.11End of Topic Test - Chapters 7-15

5.2.12End of Topic Test - Chapters 16-23

5.2.13End of Topic Test - Chapter 24 & Walton's Letters

6Key Themes

6.1Key Themes

6.1.1Curiosity & Knowledge

6.1.2Science & Society

6.1.3Loss & Companionship

6.1.4Connection to Nature

6.1.5Injustice

6.2Key Locations

6.2.1Extreme Landscapes

6.2.2Industrialised University Cities

6.2.3End of Topic Test - Key Themes & Locations

Jump to other topics