Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
*contains spoilers* More can be understood about Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein when one considers the full title of the novel: Frankenstein; or the Modern Prometheus. Victor Frankenstein travels to the university of Ingolstadt in pursuit of knowledge, and he somehow stumbles upon the power to give life through his pioneering science – a power reserved only for the gods – and he shall be punished for it. Indeed, Shelley is attempting more than just the ghost story that she, Percy Bysshe Shelley and Lord Byron resolved each to write as a sort of competition on a June night in Switzerland. Mary Shelley had, by the time of writing, lost three of the four children to which she gave birth, and this in no small way contributes to the sense of loss, melancholy and the ponderings on the nature of giving life within the novel. Frankenstein’s monster is at first a creation of curiosity and innovation, though its creation soon becomes a deep regret for Frankenstein – not least because of its size an...