In Need of Parents: Frankenstein, A Novel of Attachment and Loss

This thesis examines the question of parental duties in Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. I will prove that in the novel, the Monster is not the first identifiable victim of rejection. Victor Frankenstein himself could not have a really good upbringing. He is very likely to have suffered from being neglected. Shelley's parents, William Godwin and Mary Wollstonecraft, too, might have caused pain to Mary: she with their flagrant ideas and lifestyle and Godwin with his cold attitude toward her. Using Shelley's biographies and her parents' writings, I will demonstrate that the novel remarkably mirrors the author's own troubled life and Wollstonecraft's views on parental duties.