suicidal father from drowning himself . When her own husband disappeared at sea some years later , she found herself following in Matilda ’ s footsteps , convinced the whims of her imagination had become a reality : “[ We were ] driving ( like Matilda ), towards the sea to learn if we were to be for ever doomed to misery .”
Matilda , and Shelley after her , would both arrive too late to save the men they loved . Acknowledging outright the extent of her fate ’ s connection to her writing , and her own accidental prophecy of loss at the cold hands of the ocean , Shelley later wrote in her journal : “ Matilda foretells even many small circumstances most truly -- and the whole of it is a monument of what now is .”
But now we come to what is perhaps the greatest blend of fact and fiction that Shelley would put to paper ; her most powerful of predictions that would sadly come to pass . With Frankenstein , she formed a prophecy of an insatiable hunger for power and a dwindling store of empathy . It was a forecast that would play out across no less than two centuries , lasting right up until the present day ; one that would reach far beyond her own life to encompass the fate and sensibilities of mankind as a whole .
Several factors inspired elements of what would become her magnum opus , from feelings of displacement as a child , to being turned away by her own father in adolescence . Chief amongst them , however , was a morbid fascination with life , death and the grey area in between . This was sparked in part by conversations with Percy Bysshe Shelley , Lord Byron and John William Polidori regarding genuine scientific efforts taking place at the time to reanimate the dead through use of electricity . Living in an era when our understanding of science was coming on leaps and bounds at a rate difficult to keep up with , man ’ s apparent desire to conquer death fuelled both nightmares and creativity in the mind of a then just 18-year-old Mary Shelley . The idea took hold , and throughout the nine-month period that followed , she wrote Frankenstein . The irony of its creation mirroring the length of the human gestation period was not lost on Shelley either . She often referred to the novel as her ‘ offspring ’ or ‘ progeny ’, and it would go on to have a life of its own , superseding the control of its creator . This is , of course , a major theme found within the book itself , and yet another ironic example of the muddied distinction between Shelley ’ s life and work .
The story of Frankenstein has many layers of discernible meaning , hence its enduring popularity amongst both casual readers and the most hardened of literary critics . It ’ s not often a book remains in print for 200 years , after all . At its heart , however , it is a cautionary tale about the dangers of pushing science too far ; a direction in which its young author feared , even all those years ago , we were already heading . In turn , it warns us against the horrors that could follow should mankind continue to pursue autonomy over nature and a depth of knowledge greater than we are psychologically or emotionally equipped to cope with : “… how dangerous is the acquirement of knowledge , and how much happier that man is who believes his native town to be the world , than he who aspires to become greater than his nature will allow .”
Most telling of all , Shelley prudently foresaw the reception that awaited her most famous creation . It ’ s no surprise that modern adaptations of Frankenstein on the stage and screen increasingly portray the eponymous doctor ’ s creature as nought but a brainless ,
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