 How Frankenstein was written
Mary Shelley began writing Frankenstein in 1816 at the age of 18. She completed the novel almost a year later. She had to wait another eight months before its publication to mixed reviews in 1818. What was to become one of the world’s most famous horror stories was conceived by a young girl during a stimulating summer spent amongst a group of intellectual and gifted companions. Mary was staying in Switzerland in the awe-inspiring surroundings of the Alps, in the company of her lover, Percy Shelley and Lord Byron, both “illustrious poets.” (The Author’s introduction to Frankenstein, written for the 1831 edition).
Following a promising spring, the wet summer of 1816 forced the group to spend much time indoors. They spent their time reading each other German ghost stories in French translation and discussing philosophical doctrines and scientific developments of the day. Mary herself describes some of the different subjects covered: “the nature of the principle of life, and whether there was any probability of its ever being discovered and communicated. They talked of the experiments of Dr Darwin…who preserved a piece of vermicelli in a glass case, till by some extraordinary means it began to move with voluntary motion. Not thus, after all, would life be given. Perhaps a corpse would be re-animated; galvanism had given token of such things: perhaps the component parts of a creature might be manufactured, brought together, and endued with vital warmth.”
The reading of ghost stories lead Byron to lay down a literary challenge: each of them would write a ghost story. While her male companions promptly began work on creations which ultimately fizzled out, Mary suffered from “writer’s block”, unable to conjure up a story. Until after an evening spent in particularly animated discussion and unable to fall asleep her semi-conscious brain sent her a terrifying vision: “I saw – with shut eyes, but acute mental vision – I saw the pale student of unhallowed arts kneeling beside the thing he had put together. I saw the hideous phantasm of a man stretched out, and then, on the workings of some powerful engine, show signs of life, and stir with an uneasy, half-vital motion.” She quickly understood that this nightmarish vision was to be the source of the story she had been searching for, and already endowed her dream with a moral message: “Frightful it must be; for supremely frightful would be the effect of any human endeavour to mock the stupendous mechanism of the Creator of the world.”
Frankenstein and the Gothic tradition:
Frankenstein was rejected by some authors of the Gothic tradition for its realistic descriptions and fascination with pursuit of science. The traditional Gothic tale featured supernatural forces at work and its hero was inevitably brought to his end by the working of some almighty force. Victor Frankenstein is not the victim of mysterious powers, but rather that of his own scientific “folly”. Having himself tried to vie with the gods by creating a living being, he succumbs to the madness of guilt. The novel does however share the Gothic motif of “an anxiety with no possibility of escape”. (1)
(1) Mario Praz, ‘Introductory Essay’, Three Gothic Novels, p20
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