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Mary Shelley The life of Mary Shelley was filled with heart ace.Mary was the 2nd born daughter in her family.She was born in Somers Town,London, in 1797.Her name when she was born was Mary Wollstonecraft.Her mother died 10 days after her birth due to a fever.Her father remarried,but Mary Shelley 's relationship with her stepmother was strained. The new Mrs. Godwin resented Mary's intense affection for her father and was jealous of the special interest visitors showed in the product of the union between the two. Not only did she demand that Mary do household chores, she constantly invaded on Mary's privacy, opening her letters and limiting her access to Godwin.Mary didn't receive formal education.She only relied on what she was taught by her father and what she read.At the age of sixteen Mary ran away to live with the twenty-one year old Percy Shelley.To Mary, Shelley personified the genius and dedication to human betterment that she had admired her entire life.Mary and Percy also had numerous family and financial problems. Even though Percy was to eventually inherit a considerable amount of money, he had many debts and was constantly harassed by creditors. The couple continually moved in order to evade bill collectors. The first ten months of their relationship they moved four times.They never shared a permanent home together. The couple also had to deal with neglect from their families as well as many deaths in the family. Mary had 3 miscarriages and 1 successful birth.After she wrote the novel Frankenstein. Mary Shelley's mother was named Mary Wollstonecraft.She was a feminist philosopher,educator and writer.She died 10 days after her 2nd child's birth due to a fever.She was strongly influence by Thomas Paine and argued that women deserved equal rights. She saw how her father treated her mother as property.She refused to allow the same for her future. When she became old enough, she earned a living as a governess, but was bored with this work and wanted to challenge her intellect. When she was 28, she wrote a semi-autobiographical novel titled "Maria". She moved to London and became an admired professional writer and editor who wrote about the rights of women and children.She experienced two romantic affairs and gave birth to Fanny before falling in love with William Godwin. By November, 1796, she became pregnant with their only child, Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley. Godwin and Mary were married in March of 1797. William Godwin was the father of Mary Shelley.He was a philosopher and novelist.After the death of his wife he was left to take care of the 2 kids.Godwin provided his daughters with a rich, if informal, education, encouraging her to adhere to his liberal political theories.William remarried when Mary was four .He was wed to a widow named Mary Jane.William started a publishing firm called M. J. Godwin, which sold children's books as well as stationery, maps, and games.Her father refused to speak with her for several years afterwards she married Persy. Fanny Imnaly,the eldest, is of a quiet, modest, unshowy disposition, somewhat given to indolence, which is her greatest fault, but sober, observing, peculiarly clear and distinct in the faculty of memory, and disposed to exercise her own thoughts and follow her own judgment.Fanny had neither financial independence. In October 1817 she left Godwin's home to visit her aunts who ran a school in Dublin. On October 9 she checked into a hotel in Swansea, Wales, where she took an overdose of laudanum and died.


 * Time Period**
 * 1797-** mother dies giving birth
 * 08/30/1797** Mary is born in Somers Town, Great Britain, to well-known parents: author and feminist Mary Wollstonecraft and philosopher William Godwin.
 * 1807** -She published her first poem at the age of ten
 * Approx 1813-** When Mary is sixteen she meets the young poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, a devotee of her father`s teachings
 * 1816-** they go abroad again, this time spending time with Byron and his friend Polidori in Geneva
 * 1816** -William was born.
 * Approx 1816-** in Geneva, Byron suggests that they should all write a ghost story. Mary writes //Frankenstein//, the only story of the four that was ever to be published as a novel.
 * 1816-** Percy`s wife drowns herself: Percy and Mary marry in December
 * 1817-** //History Of Six Weeks` Tour// the Shelleys jointly recorded their life
 * 1818** -//Frankenstein//
 * 1818** -the Shelleys left England for Italy
 * 1819** -Mary suffered a nervous breakdown after the death of William
 * 1819** -Birth of Percy Florence Shelly; only child of Mary`s to survive childhood
 * 1819** -begins work on //Mathilde// which draws on her relations with Godwin and Percy Shelley. this work is not published until long after her death (1959)
 * 1822** -Percy drowns during a sailing trip in the Bay of Spezia near Livorno
 * 1822** -she has a dangerous miscarriage
 * 1823** -she returned with her son to England, determined not to-re-marry
 * 1823** -//Valperga//, which is a romance set in the 14th-century
 * 1826** -//The Last Man//, depicts the end of human civilization, set in the 21st century.
 * 02/01/1851-** Mary Shelley died in London on February 1, 1851, Possibly of a brain tumor.

The story of Frankenstein, by Mary Shelley is about a man who accomplished the impossible. He was able to bring corpses back to life. Something so unbelievable because was neither explainable nor done before. Eventually, the plan backfires after Frankenstein realizes that he had created amonster, which was out of his control. The theme here is that nature is more powerful than man is.Victor Frankenstein was very interested in natural philosophy and chemistry and basically tried to play God by creating life. When he found the secret of activating dead flesh, he created a superhuman being composed of rotted corpses. What he did was considered unthinkable, and he was haunted by his own creation. When the monster escaped, Frankenstein knew that he had todeal with the consequences of what the monster might do. The monster did not understand theconcept of right and wrong and he especially didn't mean to kill anybody. His expression of angerended up being violent, even fatal to the victim. Eventually the monster was chased into a windmilland it was set on fire. This shows how nature in the end has more power over man, however naturedoesn't abuse its power. Frankenstein was punished for messing with nature by having to deal withthe problem he created. However nature allowed him to destroy the bad that he created after Frankenstein had learned his lesson. Another prevailing theme of Frankenstein is loneliness and the effects that loneliness has on humans. This theme is explored through the thoughts and experiences of the three main characters: Walton, Frankenstein, and the monster. The letters at the beginning of the story are filled with Walton's feelings of loneliness as his great adventure begins to lose its lust and good looks. Victor experiences fear throughout the book. In the beginning of the story, Victor’s work separated him from his family. He spent many years alon. When his family and friends began to die later in the story these unhealthy feelings becam more powerful. He said “This state of mind preyed upon my health, which had entirely recovered from the first shock it had sustained. I shunned the face of man; all sound of joy or complacency was torture to me; solitude was my only consolation – deep, dark, death-like solitude.” Frankenstein demonstrated these same emotions when he said “Thus situated, employed in the most detestable occupation, immersed in a solitude where nothing could for an instant call my attention from the actual scene in which I was engaged, my spirits became unequal; I grew restless and nervous.”The monster summarized how drastically his loneliness changed him when he said “I cannot believe that I am he whose thoughts were once filled with sublime and transcendent visions of the beauty and the majesty of goodness. But it is even so; the fallen angel becomes a malignant devil. Yet even that enemy of God and man had friends and associates in his desolation; I am quite alone.” Shelley was obviously exploring this theme, as loneliness is a core motivation for her core characters.

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5 Famous Quotations

_nothing contributes so much to tranquillize the mind as a steady purpose. . . _"You seek for knowledge and wisdom, as I once did; and I ardently hope that the gratification of your wishes may not be a serpent to sting you, as mine has been." _Life and death appeared to me ideal bounds, which I should first break through, and pour a torrent of light into our dark world. _"Man," I cried, "how ignorant art thou in thy pride of wisdom!" _The agony of my feelings allowed me no respite; no incident occurred from which my rage and misery could not extract its food. . ._The very winds whispered in soothing accents, and maternal Nature bade me weep no more.

Sources Ha, Kristine. "Frankenstein." __St. James Encyclopedia of Popular Culture__. Eds. Sara Pendergast and Tom Pendergast. Vol. 2. Detroit: St. James Press, 2000. 3 pp. 5 vols.__Gale Virtual Reference Library__. Gale. Andalusia City Schools (AVL). 30 Mar. 2009 http://find.galegroup.com/ips/start.do?prodId=IPS. "Mary Shelley Biography." __UNet Users' Home Pages__. 30 Mar. 2009 http://people.brandeis.edu/~teuber/stokerbio.html. Sherwin, Paul."Frankenstein__.__Creation as Castrophe."Mary Shelley .Ed.Harold Bloom. Modern Critical Views. New York:Chelsa, 1985.137-167.