Mary Shelley quotes Flashcards
What does Frankenstein say of his ruin?
“Dreams that had been my food and pleasant rest for so long a space, were now become a hell to me” 85
How does Frankenstein speak of scientific pursuit?
“In a scientific pursuit there is continual food for discovery and wonder”
How does Frankenstein describe the moment of the monster’s birth?
“When those muscles and joints were rendered capable of motion [and] it became a thing such as even Dante could not have conceived” 84
How does Walton describe the double image of Frankenstein, imagining his former glory with his ruin?
“A double existence: he may suffer misery, and be overwhelmed by disappointments; yet when he has retired into himself, he will be like a celestial spirit, that has a halo around him, within whose circle no grief or folly ventures” 62)
How does Mellor describe the case of “could haves” in Frankenstein?
Frankenstein “could have abandoned his quest for the “principle of life”, could have cared for his creature, could have protected Elizabeth”
How does Mary Shelley imagine the dead returned in ‘On Ghosts’?
“Shadows, phantoms unreal … shapes … who rise all pale and ghastly from the churchyard and haunt their ancient abodes” (3)
Where does Walton travel?
Into the unknown, “to unexplored regions, to “the land of mist and snow””
What does Mary Shelley say about the current age of travel/knowledge in ‘On Ghosts’?
“Our only riddle is the rise of the Niger; the interior of New Holland, our only terra incognita; and our sole mare incognitum, the north-west passage” (1).
Is the monster new or old?
Mellor writes that “the monster enters the novel as the sign of the unknown, the never-before-perceived” (20) which can be seen to support the idea of the author attempting to reach the new through regeneration. However, I think it is important that the monster, whilst unknown, is built of ‘known’ parts – familiar human body parts that have experienced ordinary lives, meaning it is not essentially or materially new.
Perhaps this reveals Mary Shelley’s desire to preserve the element of death in her regenerations/resurrections, (because they were unwilling to entirely let go of the old, or the former and remembered.)
What does Mary Shelley write in her journal after learning of Byron’s death?
“What do I do here? Why am I doomed to live on seeing all expire before me? God grant I may die young. A new race is springing about me. At the age of twenty six I am in the condition of an aged person. All my friends are gone; I have no wish to form new. I cling to the few remaining, but they slide away and my heart fails when I think by how few ties I hold to the world. Albe, dearest Albe, was knit by long associations. Each day I repeat with bitterer feelings, ‘Life is the desert and the solitude, how populous the grave’ – and that region, to the dearer and best beloved beings which it has torn from me, now adds that resplendent spirit, whose departure leaves the dull earth dark as midnight.”
What does Mary Shelley journal after the death of her first baby?
“Dream that my little baby came to life again – that it had only been cold and we rubbed it by the fire and it lived – I awake and find no baby”
What does Mary Shelley desire in ‘On Ghosts’, and how does it link to the idea of “impressions”, either by the dead or living?
The return of Percy: “I walked through the rooms filled with sensations of the most poignant grief … To have seen him but for a moment, I would have knelt until the stones had been worn by the impress”
“He had been there; his living frame had been caged by those walls, his breath had mingled with that atmosphere, his step had been on those stones”
Why can Mary Shelley’s life be considered as one of loss?
“By 1831, Mary Shelley had endured countless losses: the deaths of Percy Shelley, of three of her four children, and of Byron” (Mellor, 16)
How does Mary Shelley appear blended with death in ‘On Ghosts’?
“The earth is a tomb, the gaudy sky a vault, we but walking corpses”
The essay was published in 1824 after most of her chief losses including that of Percy and Byron.
What does the monster say to Frankenstein about language and reading?
“Another circumstance strengthened and confirmed these feelings. Soon after my arrival in the hovel I discovered some papers in the pocket of the dress which I had taken from your laboratory. At first I had neglected them, but now that I was able to decipher the characters in which they were written, I began to study them with diligence. It was your journal of the four months that preceded my creation.” (15.8)
