Gothic novel and Mary Shelley

• The Gothic Novel
A novel is a long narrative in prose in which an event is related; generally a novel has a starting point, a development and an end. The adjective “gothic” refers to a dark atmosphere, a gloomy setting (castle, ghost, long corridors, catastrophic natural events..).
“We feel emotions not only from beauty, but from ugliness too” Burke.
• Mary Shelley
She was born in 1797 in a very cultured family: her father was a radical philosopher and her mother wrote in defence of the woman’s rights.

Her mother died when she was 10 days old and she had a bad relationship with her stepmother and half-sister. She had a cultural spurs because her house was the meeting point of artist and writers. In her house she met Percy Bysshe Shelley, a romantic poet, who was already married.
But they fell in love immediately and they eloped , first in Switzerland then to Italy. In Italy Percy Shelley died from a boat accident and he got drowned leaving his wife Mary with a little child and no much money.
Frankenstein or the modern Prometheus.
A scientist, Victor Frankenstein, wanted to create the perfect human being, but after assembling many parts from corpses, he realised to have created a monster which will destroy his life.
Frankenstein is an epistolary novel because there are 3 narrators:
1. Captain Walton who is in the North Pole to do scientific investigations saves the Frankenstein’s life.
2. Victor Frankenstein who after recovering his health, tells his story; he wanted to create the perfect human being and for this reason he was punished.
3. Monster Itself: who tells the story from his point of view; he feels rejected by this own creator. He was born good, but he was forced to became bad. The monster ask his creator a female monster and when Victor refuses to do this the monster kill his relatives. At the end of the novel, captain Walton writes to his sister that he gives up his scientific research because it is too risky for him and his crew.
• Prometeo’s Myth.
Prometheus stole the fire from the gods to bring to human mankind. For this act he was chained to a rock and an eagle tortured his liver which grew again at night.