Frankenstein Factors: Mary Shelley’s Influences
Posted: Thursday, December 23, 2004
by Bill Ectric
Billectric
My thanks to CG from England for pointing out an error that has now been corrected.
Mary Shelley began writing Frankenstein when she was 18 years old. She said the idea came to her in a dream, and dreams are assembled by the subconscious mind by connecting various, often unrelated, memories and filling in the gaps. It seems that a number of influences fleshed out young Mary's visions.
Also, historians point out that Mary Shelley never mentions Castle Frankenstein in the extensive journal she kept of her travels through Germany , nor do any of her traveling companions refer to it in their letters or other writings. On the other hand, Dipple was famous during his lifetime, and even though he died before Shelley was born, one must ask: Is easier to believe that Mary Shelley decided to name her fictional scientist "Frankenstein" by coincidence, or because she had heard of Dippel and his connection to Castle Frankenstein?
There is a legend in Jewish mysticism about a clay man who comes to life. This living statue is called a Golem. The best known version of this legend takes place in the 1500's in Prague. The story goes that the Jewish community was being cruelly persecuted by Christians, so Rabbi Judah Loew ben Bezalel built a man from clay and performed a ceremony which breathed life into the Golem, who was very strong and protected the Jewish people from harm. The Golem also helped out by doing physical labor and menial tasks for them. Other versions say that Rabbi Loew brought the Golem to life by writing the name of God on its chest, or placing a piece of paper with God's name on it in the Golem's mouth. The story always ends with the Golem getting out of control, killing too many people or causing damage by doing his chores too recklessly, so the Rabbi has to remove the name of God from the creature, rendering it a lifeless statue again. Percy and Mary Shelley knew of these legends from their studies.
Now it gets really bizarre. In Mary Shelley's classic book, Dr. Frankenstein says that as a young man he studied the writings of Paracelsus (1493-1541), who is an actual historical figure from Germany, both fascinating and outlandish. Paracelsus was a radical hero to young medical students because he called the old, outdated doctors "asses" and scoffed at their practices like padding wounds with dung and "bleeding the sickness out of patients" which often resulted in death. He pioneered the use of chemical medicines, but he angered the academic world by saying things like, "The universities do not teach all things, so a doctor must seek out old wives, gypsies, sorcerers, wandering tribes, old robbers, and such outlaws and take lessons from them." The bizarre thing is that, despite his rational outlook, Paracelsus also mixed some highly dubious claims into his writing. He had a recipe for creating a tiny living person – he called it a homunculus - which is often compared to the Golem by modern day scholars, but this creature wasn't made from clay. Are you ready for this? Paracelsus wrote in his 1572 book De Natura Rerum (The Nature of Things),
"Let the semen of a man putrefy by itself in a sealed cucurbit with the highest putrefaction of venter equinus for forty days, or until it begins at last to live, move, and be agitated . . .at this time it will be in some degree like a human being, but, nevertheless, transparent and without a body. . . if now, after this, it be every day nourished and fed cautiously with the arcanum of human blood, and kept for forty weeks. . .in perpetual heat . . . it becomes thencefold a true living infant, having all the members of a child that is born from a woman, but much smaller. . . should be afterwards educated with the greatest care and zeal, until it grows up and starts to display intelligence."
Maybe this was a primitive idea of cloning, although Paracelsus' method seems a bit one-sided, not giving the female egg credit for its far more patient task. This reminds one of the sexual theories in literary analysys regarding the fact that Dr. Frankenstein shut his fiancé out of his life while he was obsessed with his creating his man. I don't know if Paracelsus had a girlfriend.
Finally, the full title of Mary Shelley's famous book is Frankenstein, or The Modern Prometheus. In Greek mythology, Prometheus stole fire from the gods. The gods punished him by chaining him to a rock and letting eagles pluck at him all day. Prometheus is an obvious reference to man paying a high price for striving to be like a god.
One marvels at young Mary Shelley's skill at crafting one of the most famous gothic horror stories ever written.
To read about Mary Shelley's life, click on http://searchwarp.com/swa29418.htm
For more Frankenstein coverage, check out http://searchwarp.com/swa8393.htm
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Top-level comments on this article: (8 total)it helped me enouh but i need some more information
this information has helped,but which pararaph is the right one to put in an essay.
this realli helped me on why mary shelley wrote frankenstein,what influenced her,thanks :D:D:D
Frankenstein wow i can't believe that !
helped me a lot. thanks. it got me started enough to where i could build my thought and write a stellar essay. thanksBrandon, you just made my day. Thanks, Bill
Great historical background. the theme, of course, is associated with the Humanist, romantic movement in Literature propounded upon by her husband, Lord Byron and others. thanks.
theres not much info, you can do more about what influenced her to write the story frankenstine, but it did help me alot! seeing as im doing a essay about frankienstein and we need to put a little bit about her :) thankyouuuu, :D
thankyouuuuu very much! i got an A* :)
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