Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein

1. Learning Target: I can make inferences about a character based on author’s clues. Sstandard #4 Mary Shelley’sFrankenstein

2. Independent Reading • Tuesday’s focus question: Identify a “big idea” in your novel. • Tuesday’s learning target: I can make inferences based on an author’s clues. • Standard # 4

3. Announcements • Yearbook pictures Thursday • JCAP Thursday • Read Frankenstein Chapters 1 - 4 for Friday.

4. Quiz Letters 1 - 4 • The 4 letters are written by a man named __________ to his __________________. • He is embarking on a voyage to do what? • The ship’s crew rescues a man from the sea and this man warns the ship’s captain of what?

5. Background Information on Frankenstein Take notes on each slide • Science and Technology • Arctic Exploration • Myth of Prometheus • Life of Mary Shelley • Gothic Novel

6. Science and Technologyin 1811 • Erasmus Darwin: grandfather of Charles Darwin; famous for his ideas concerning biological evolution • Galvanism: the contraction of a muscle that is stimulated by an electric current. In physics and chemistry, it is the induction of electrical current from a chemical reaction. • Darwin’s experiments in galvanism were an important source of inspiration for Mary Shelley in Frankenstein.

7. Arctic Exploration • During the late 1700s explorers attempted to find a trade route through the Arctic that would connect the Atlantic and the Pacific Oceans. • The Northwest Passage (discovered in 1903): a famous sea route linking the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, providing an alternate shipping route from Europe to Asia. • Lies between Canada and Greenland, above the Arctic Circle and below the north polar icecap. • Sea in this region is frozen over for most of the year with huge icebergs drifting through. • Temperatures in winter often fall to -50°F.

8. The Myth of Prometheus • Prometheus: Titan from Greek mythology • Name means foresight • Relieved Zeus’ headache by taking a rock from the ground and hitting Zeus in the head with it. • From out of Zeus’ head popped Athena, goddess of war

9. The Myth of Prometheus (cont.) Prometheus known as “father to man” • Athena took clay figures Prometheus made and breathed life into them, creating “man” from Prometheus’ work. • Prometheus defied Zeus by giving man gift of fire to protect and warm

10. The Myth of Prometheus (cont.) • Zeus punished Prometheus by giving him woman (Pandora). • Pandora’s box filled with plagues , sorrow, and mischief for mankind. • One good thing was there—Hope

11. The Myth of Prometheus (cont.) • At Zeus’ order, Prometheus was chained to a rock in the Caucasus Mountains where his torture was to be carried out. • Every day an eagle came to Prometheus to eat his liver, leaving only at nightfall when the liver would begin to grow back once more, only to repeat the process again the next day.

12. The Myth of Prometheus (cont.) • Zeus offered to free Prometheus if he would tell the secret of the prophecy that told of the dethroning of Zeus. • Prometheus refused. • Eventually, Hercules slew the eagle that attacked Prometheus each day and freed the friend to men. • Prometheus’ name has stood through all the centuries as that of the great rebel against injustice and power.

13. The Life of Mary Shelley • Born in1797 in London, England • Her mother, Mary Wollstonecraft, was a feminist and an author • Her father, William Godwin, was the father of philosophical anarchism • Mary’s mother died soon after her birth.

14. The Life of Mary Shelley • Mary met her future husband Percy Bysshe Shelley at sixteen. • Percy was unhappily married at the time, and despite Mary’s father forbidding her to see him anymore, he and Mary eloped to France.

15. The Life of Mary Shelley • Started writing Frankenstein in 1816 while in Switzerland, inspired by their many sailing trips on the lake and nights telling each other ghost stories. • Frankenstein is said to have started as a ghost story, inspired by a conversation she had overheard between her husband and Lord Byron talking about galvanism.

16. The Life of Mary Shelley • The Shelleys lost 2 children shortly after birth. • In 1822, Mary suffered a miscarriage which almost took her life. • The same year, Percy was sailing when a sudden storm blew up and his boat sank. Percy’s body washed ashore where his wife found him. • Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley died at home in London at the age of fifty-four in1851.

17. Gothic Novels Gothic novels focus on the mysterious and supernatural. • Mysterious circumstances: Victor gathers body parts for his experiments and the use of little known modern technologies for unnatural purposes. • Supernatural elements: raising the dead and macabre research into unexplored fields of science

18. Gothic Novels Take place in gloomy or far away places that are mysterious to the reader • Frankenstein is set in Switzerland and Germany, where many of Shelley’s readers had not been. • The chase scenes through the Arctic regions take the reader into unexplored regions. • Victor’s laboratory is the perfect place to create a human being.

19. Gothic Novels (cont.) Characters bridge the mortal world and the supernatural world. • Dracula lives as both a normal person and as the undead, moving easily between both worlds to accomplish his aims. • Frankenstein’s monster moves with amazing superhuman speed.

20. Before Leaving Today. . . • File notes in literature section of binder