Frankenstein

Frankenstein is a novel written by Mary Shelley. This novel is perhaps one of her most famous novels in spite of the fact that it was one of the first items produced and not necessarily the best. The novel has been acclaimed as one of the finest ghost stories and remains as such. But there's much more to this novel the ghost story and in fact it brings with it a great deal of reflection upon pregnancy and birth as well as motherhood, something which men of the age did not fully understand and women of the age did not fully express to their male counterparts.

Mary Shelley lived a life full of despair. She ran away with the love of her life at the young age of 16 by the age of 18 she already experienced pregnancy childbirth and the miscarriage. Throughout the course of her young life she would give birth five times and only one of her children would survive beyond the age of three. One of her childbirth complications almost led to her death in much the same manner as her mother’s childbirth complications lead to hers. When Mary was young she read her mother's autobiography. Contained in this publication or letters that her mother had sent to her father when she was pregnant with Mary. Within these letters she refers to the child inside of her as a monster. She tells her husband that she is positive she will meet with the monster soon, preferring to the feelings of in pending childbirth. Mary's mother died shortly after giving birth because a piece of the placenta remained inside of her causing complications, infection, and death.

As Mary struggled with the death of her mother and her tumultuous relationship with her father and her lover, she began to feel journals with notes and to excel in the world of writing. Friends with many of the popular transcendentalist thinkers of the time she and her lover Percy we're meeting with their friends one evening during which time they had a discussion over ghost stories and proposed a small competition between friends to see who could produce the best ghost story . It was here that Mary Shelley created Frankenstein.

Frankenstein speaks often of the feelings that parents experience with childbirth. The professor looks at the creature he is produced in poorer and finds himself overcome with guilt at the animal he has produced. When he views his child, he sees the creation as an abomination. Much the same way as Mary's mother referred to her in her letters to her father, this feeling is something repeated throughout the novel. In addition to that Mary noted in her letters that she had reoccurring poster medic stress from the loss of her first child and a regular dream wherein the child returned and rose from the dead. The disfigured dead child was put back together in much the same way that Frankenstein was created originally.