Handmaids Tale Context Flashcards
INSPIRATION - What was Mary Shelleys story and inspiration to create the novel Frankenstein
Mary Shelley’s maiden name before she was married was Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin.
She met Percy Bysshe Shelley, a student of her father.
They fell in love and fled from her home.
In the summer of 1816, Mary and Percy were in Geneva, Switzerland with Lord Byron.
As guests of Lord Byron, they stayed indoors talking about the supernatural and science.
Lord Byron challenged them to write the best horror story after they read Fantasmagoriana, a book about German ghost stories.
When Mary Shelley fell asleep that night, she had a nightmare.
There was a man kneeling next to a giant creature figure that he created.
This inspired her story, Frankenstein.
INSPIRATION -
Today, Frankenstein is used as an example of Gothic literature, as it coincides with the time of this artistic movement and displays many of the traits involved with that writing style.
INSPIRATION - Why was Mary Shelley an inspiration
Shelley is a prominent English author and helped the emergence of other women writers as the field in the early 1800s was extremely male dominated. The importance of this novel in the collection stands for many reasons, as Frankenstein has become a cultural symbol in the modern world, written by a woman when there were few in the field, and as a conduit to learn about Gothic Literature.
