Psychoanalysis of Mary Shelleys life and its influence on Frankenstein

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A psychoanalysis of Mary Shelley’s life and its influence on Frankenstein Death, murder, mutilation, reanimation, and procreative science all seem like concepts found only in the movies. In reality, most horror and science fiction movies are based on personal experiences from the writer’s life. Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein is a very good example of this. Her childhood was sad and lonely and her family life, both as a child and a married woman, was nothing but tragedy. Mary Shelley wrote Frankenstein when she was only nineteen years old. In just those few years of life, she had already experienced the loss of a parent, the jealousy of a stepmother, controversial love with a married man, a death of a child, and many other miserable things. The tragedies that the two main characters of her well known novel experienced are similar to the ones that she herself faced. Frankenstein is about a young Swiss student who, by discovering the secret of animating lifeless matter, assembles body parts to create a monster. That monster vows revenge on his creator after being rejected from society. An autobiographical criticism of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein reveals striking parallels between the author and her misunderstood and alienated main characters. Throughout life, when faced with a loss, most people react negatively and dwell on the tragic event. Mary Shelley, however, chose to express her pain by mirroring her own emotions through her characters. By the time her novel was published in 1818, Mary had already lost three of her four children and before she started writing Frankenstein, her illegitimate daughter with Percy Shelley died in infancy. Mary Shelley used her emotions over the death of her child to influence Victor Frankenstein’s obsession with procreative science. Victor became a megalomaniac, obsessed with power and his creation to the point where he pretty much
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