Controlling Purpose: To compare events in Mary Shelley's life to that of her novel Frankenstein.
There are many parallels between the novel Frankenstein and the life of its author Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley. In the very beginning, Mary was born in Somers Town, Great Britain to two well-known authors. Mary's father was William Godwin a philosopher, and her mother was Mary Wollstonecraft an author and feminist. Throughout her life, Shelley experienced many deaths of loved ones. The first of them being her mother. Mary's mother died while giving birth to her. From the day she was born Mary had to go through life without the guidance of and the privilege of knowing her mother. This situation is portrayed in her novel Frankenstein. In her novel, a non-human creature is made and brought to life. This creature is alienated and left alone in the world like Mary was left without her mother. The creature and Mary both experienced lots of pain and torment. Mary was then raised by her father and a much resented stepmother (Abrams). .
In her childhood Mary Shelley was left to educate herself among her father's intellectual circle. A lot like the way the creature in Frankenstein had to teach himself about the way the world worked through observations from afar. Mary's childhood was full of fear and abuse. She watched her father abuse his wife for years. This set an unnecessary amount of stress and fear of going home on her. Similar to the creature in her novel, wanting to leave Victor's lab and never return. Mary and the creation in Frankenstein also had fear in common. Fear is the painful emotion excited by the expectation of impending danger. Mary's fear of her father, and the creature's fear of the world around him links these two together ("Mary"). .
Through all the stress and fear Mary and the creature both just wanted to be loved by someone. It takes a lot of time to love a homicidal jumble of walking corpses (Fortey).