Item – Theses Canada

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OCLC number
46501831
Author
King, Linda F.,1966-
Title
Mary Shelley's career decision in Frankenstein and Transformation : a biographical approach.
Degree
M.A. -- Simon Fraser University, 1993
Publisher
Ottawa : National Library of Canada = Bibliothèque nationale du Canada, 1995.
Description
1 microfiche.
Notes
Includes bibliographical references.
Abstract
This thesis takes a biographical approach to Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, and suggests that her novel reveals the careful process of consideration she gave to becoming a professional writer of serious literature. Through her three male narrators, the author interprets her heritage, herself, and her future, alluding on several occasions to Samuel Taylor Coleridge's "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner." Identifying with the Ancient Mariner, Walton and Victor represent Shelley's view of her Ancient Mariner-like parents, William Godwin and Mary Wollstonecraft, and her husband, P. B. Shelley. She heeds their life stories just as Walton listens to Victor's and just as the Wedding-Guest hears the Ancient Mariner's. Shelley thereby attempts to understand the implications of transgressing social and moral codes so that she could avoid following in their fateful footsteps. By 1831, after thirteen years of enduring financial hardship, difficulty in finding publishers for her works, and a dubious social reputation, Shelley revises and writes a modest introduction for her first successful novel both to facilitate her publishers' demands as well as to reinforce her adherence to the social and moral codes; further, her revisions emphasize the insurmountable but pedagogical nature of fate. At the same time, she explicitly demonstrates in her moral short story "Transformation" (1831) her acquiescence to social and moral norms. So that she could still earn a living for herself and son through writing, Shelley implicitly defends her radical past by reinterpreting it.
ISBN
0612011321
9780612011328