Introduction
“I busied myself to think of a story, —a story to rival those which had excited us to this task. One which would speak to the mysterious fears of our nature, and awaken thrilling horror—one to make the reader dread to look round, to curdle the blood, and quicken the beatings of the heart” – Mary Shelley, 1831 Introduction.
Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, first published anonymously in 1818, has received great praise throughout the years and it still is very well known and significant to this day. In her novel, Shelley unfolds the story of a series of repercussions caused by an overly ambitious young scientist named Victor Frankenstein and his making of a creature from dead human body parts.However, it is not simply Shelley’s use of the extraordinary that makes her novel so compelling but “her use of it in a more philosophical and refined use of the supernatural in works of fiction, is proper to that class in which the laws of nature are represented as altered” (Scott 614). In order to fully comprehend the text, it is crucial to recognize its hidden themes and criticisms. Although there are many different interpretations of this novel, its correct interpretation becomes much clearer upon performing a close reading of the text and taking into consideration the context in which it was written.
Mary Shelley in her novel Frankenstein presents the single-minded pursuit of knowledge and the desire for power as a problem that brings many consequences. The novel chronicles “the devastating consequences for an inventor and those he loves of his utter failure to anticipate the harm that can result from raw, unchecked scientific curiosity” (Johnston 200). In order to help readers better understand and interpret Mary Shelley's Frankenstein; or The Modern Prometheus, I have created an archive, which contains invaluable materials pertinent to the text. The archive is composed of visual elements from sources that heavily influenced the writing, including Greek mythology, Galvanism, John Milton’s Paradise Lost, and the sublime. By analyzing the meaning of such sources and their significance to the text, it becomes clear that Shelley’s text is a warning against hubris and crossing boundaries without taking into consideration all the possible repercussions.