This study notes covers Biographical Context: Shelley, Motherhood, and Abandonment within Theme: Responsibility & Abandonment for GCSE English Literature. Revise Theme: Responsibility & Abandonment in Frankenstein for GCSE English Literature with 10 exam-style questions and 15 flashcards. This topic shows up very often in GCSE exams, so students should be able to explain it clearly, not just recognise the term. It is section 8 of 15 in this topic. Use this study notes to connect the idea to the wider topic before moving on to questions and flashcards.
🏛️ Biographical Context: Shelley, Motherhood, and Abandonment
Mary Shelley's own life was saturated with the experience of abandonment. Her mother, Mary Wollstonecraft (the pioneering feminist author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman), died days after giving birth to Mary — making Mary's birth the cause of her mother's death. Her father, William Godwin (a radical philosopher), sent her away from home aged sixteen. Percy Shelley abandoned his first wife (who later drowned) to be with Mary. Shelley began writing Frankenstein in 1816, months after suffering a miscarriage of her first child.
These are not incidental biographical details. They shape the novel's obsessive attention to parent-child abandonment as a moral catastrophe. Victor's flight from the Creature in Chapter 5 draws on lived knowledge of what it means to be the creation a parent refuses.
Practice questions for Theme: Responsibility & Abandonment
In the Creature's final speech (Chapter 24), which word does the Creature use to describe himself as something cast off and unwanted — connecting his state directly to Victor's act of abandonment?
How does Shelley present the act of abandonment in Chapter 5 of Frankenstein? Write about the technique she uses and its effect on the reader.