An Immortalization of the Life of Mary Shelley It is common to connect the term “horror” with names like Wes Craven, Boris Karloff, or Alfred Hitchcock, but Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin Shelley helped pioneer modern horror and science-fiction in an age of overtly religious oppression. Shelley challenged the standards and social normalities of her time and her greatest work, Frankenstein: or, The Modern Prometheus, is her ultimate testament to this. Mary Shelley’s success as an individual, an author, and a poet would not exist without the influences and wisdom gained by her through her life preceding the publication of Frankenstein, her life after the publication of Frankenstein, and the many people who helped shape her life.
All poets seem to share lives of misery, and even Mary Shelley was not exempt. As a child, Mary did not receive any kind of formal education; instead, her father, William
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In fact, she had a sister named Frances “Fannie Godwin” Imlay. Fannie was the product of Mary Wollstonecraft and an affair she had previously, but her daughter would have even less luck in the department of love then her mother. Fannie developed a strong affection for Percy Shelley, who was, in turn, in love with Mary Shelley. Mary Shelley reciprocated his love, which devastated Fannie. Percy, under the threat of committing suicide, finally won Shelley over and they left together, but this was the final nail in the coffin for Frances and she killed herself soon afterwards. The two Shelleys did have four kids together, and three-fourths did die, but it was the death of William which cut her the deepest. One night, while Percy and Mary Shelley were staying with Lord Byron, she had a dream about bringing her son, William, back to life through methods that utilize galvanic electricity, and which would directly inspire aspects of Frankenstein. His name would also be lent to William Frankenstein a key character in the story