Frankenstein
As the currents of Romanticism swept through the Eurpe, revolutionizing both the theory and the practise of literature. With the rise of Napoleon the egalitarian ideals ofthe French revolution were crushed, at least temporarily, repalced by an open reliance upon power and might. In spite of this, napoleon for many writers of the period symbolized "the great man" . For those Romantic writers, Napoleon manisfested in real life the same fever of the soul as had legendary figures whom idolized. Their interest in pratical politics shattered and their dreams of democracy, shake, some romantic writers became either cinics or utopians, other turned to the sudy of extreme psychological states and becamefascinated with horror. One such writer Mary Shelley, the daughter of a distinguished philosopher Percy Shelley, the great english poet. Mary Shelley was born, when Napoleon was leading his troops into Italy. Educated by her father, she grew up into a very liberated and intellectual young woman, and at t he age of 17 ran away to Europe with his father. Mary Shelley returned to England and died in 1851, afetr a lifetime spent in writing mostly bad novels. One of her stories, however, powerfully presents certain characteristic ideals of the age and has risen to the status of myth in this century.
Frankenstein wrote in 1818 tells the story of an idealistic young scientist who, in the course of his university studies, discovers how to create life. He assembles a body using parts of corpses and, by sending eletric shocks through it, starts his creation.Frankenstein is a romantic idealist who exalts creation above all other values and who seeks answers to the great mysteries of natures no matter what cost. His idealism leads him to tragic failure: the new, perfect man had hoped to create turns out to be a horrible monster. At the end Frankenstein vows to kill his creation. He persues the monster to the frozen wastes of the Arctic Sea, in the end both perish in the ice.