Full Transcript for Frankenstein

stories I was gonna tell about the book for over a year. 00:05:24.879 --> 00:05:32.800 I sat down at the beginning of the process to what I thought was going to be rereading the novel because I was sure I had read the novel. 00:05:32.879 --> 00:05:37.439 I'm a, you know, I have I have an undergraduate literature degree, I have a master's in English. 00:05:37.600 --> 00:05:42.959 Like I'm I'm my brain was convinced I had I had read Frankenstein at some point. 00:05:43.279 --> 00:05:44.240 I had not. 00:05:44.879 --> 00:05:49.040 I was reading it for the first time as part of the prep for this exhibit. 00:05:49.360 --> 00:05:51.120 Oh my god, that's amazing. 00:05:51.519 --> 00:06:11.519 It ended up being a thing that turned into one of the threads of the exhibit, which is about how our creations get away from us and about how the novel Frankenstein and the narrative of Frankenstein that we all think we're familiar with are actually not the same thing. 00:06:11.759 --> 00:06:12.639 Not at all. 00:06:12.879 --> 00:06:15.120 And they go off in these two very different directions. 00:06:15.279 --> 00:06:20.879 And like, you know, as you said, there there are over 1,200 different adaptations of Frankenstein. 00:06:21.040 --> 00:06:23.759 And that was at last count like five or ten years ago. 00:06:23.920 --> 00:06:27.600 So it's you mentioned Breakfast Cereal because everybody loves Frankenberry. 00:06:27.759 --> 00:06:34.240 There's stage plays, there's comic books, there's multiple TV versions from Scooby-Doo on up. 00:06:34.560 --> 00:06:37.360 You know, there are tons and tons of films, of course. 00:06:37.519 --> 00:06:51.439 But the version of Frankenstein that most of us think about when you say the word Frankenstein without any context is the version, of course, that comes from the 1830s, sorry, the 1931 film, as directed by James Whale. 00:06:51.759 --> 00:06:52.079 Right. 00:06:52.240 --> 00:06:55.680 By Universal Studios with Boris Karloff playing the main character. 00:06:55.839 --> 00:06:56.160 Yeah. 00:06:56.399 --> 00:07:01.040 You know, it's the green head with the bolts on the neck and and a lot of grunting. 00:07:01.279 --> 00:07:06.800 And like the hilarious thing is, of course, in the novel, the creature learns French. 00:07:06.959 --> 00:07:11.600 And like maybe the anglers are arguing that French is kind of a lot like grunting. 00:07:11.680 --> 00:07:23.759 And as a former French major, they're not completely wrong, but the creature is actually pretty articulate for an a living entity that was created from scratch from dead body parts. 00:07:24.319 --> 00:07:35.360 And what we get in pop culture is like a lot of just grunting and groaning and uh, and it and it's like it's nothing like how Mary Shelley has created the character of the creature. 00:07:35.439 --> 00:07:39.519 Like the creature in the novel spends a third of the novel telling his own story. 00:07:39.680 --> 00:07:40.000 Yeah. 00:07:40.240 --> 00:07:41.759 Like from his point of view. 00:07:42.000 --> 00:07:44.399 He has a massive interior life. 00:07:44.879 --> 00:07:47.519 Yes, yes, he's not just a monster. 00:07:47.759 --> 00:07:53.519 It was that was actually my favorite part of the novel was the volume two, which was from his voice. 00:07:53.920 --> 00:07:54.160 Yeah. 00:07:54.480 --> 00:08:01.759 First, I want to say it's astounding to me that someone so young wrote this, wrote this novel. 00:08:01.920 --> 00:08:07.279 I mean, yes, I know that she did revisions before ahead of the 1831 edition or whatever. 00:08:07.519 --> 00:08:07.680 Sure. 00:08:07.839 --> 00:08:09.920 But it wasn't substantially changed. 00:08:10.160 --> 00:08:15.920 She clearly had a command of the written language that was used at that time. 00:08:16.160 --> 00:08:17.199 Absolutely, 100%. 00:08:17.839 --> 00:08:25.759 And what I found so interesting is that volume two, that's from The Monsters POV, the voice is different. 00:08:25.839 --> 00:08:28.800 I mean, the autharial voice is the same, right? 00:08:28.879 --> 00:08:30.399 You know, like Mary Shelley wrote this. 00:08:30.480 --> 00:08:32.720 It wasn't somebody else wrote this section for her. 00:08:32.960 --> 00:08:38.399 Yeah, like the character voice is like markedly different than than the other two volumes. 00:08:38.480 --> 00:08:45.679 And I just thought for such a young author, that that was very deftly done and well done, I thought. 00:08:46.000 --> 00:08:50.000 Well, the fascinating thing about Mary Shelley is that she's weird in a lot of ways. 00:08:50.240 --> 00:08:53.919 So she had a highly unusual education for her time. 00:08:54.000 --> 00:09:08.159 She's the daughter of two political radicals, William Godwin, who wrote one of the what is now considered a central libertarian text, and Mary Wollstonecraft, of course, the author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman. 00:09:08.320 --> 00:09:45.759 And the two of them are these political radicals who basically only got married when Mary Wollstonecraft is pregnant with the child that will become Mary, because Mary Wollstonecraft has already had a child out of wedlock, and it was such a terrible experience that despite both she and William Godwin believing in quote unquote free love as part of their radical anarchist belief system, they got married so that the child, Mary, would have legal and financial protections, which was great and important because Mary Wollstonecraft died 11 days after Mary was born from an infection. 00:09:46.080 --> 00:09:57.919 So Mary is basically raised by her dad, William Godwin, and educated primarily by him in everything that he would think useful to a philosopher. 00:09:58.000 --> 00:10:24.480 So she learned a lot more science and history and literature and multiple languages, and basically had a much more hardcore education that was on a par to what a young man of similar status would have been educated in, only she's a woman, because Godwin is trying to live in adherence to Mary

Wollstonecraft's philosophies about the need for egalitarian education for women. 00:10:24.720 --> 00:10:25.039 Yeah. 00:10:25.360 --> 00:10:28.639 And he's doing that through raising young Mary. 00:10:28.799 --> 00:10:35.600 Now, the problem is that Mary Sh Mary Godwin now, so the daughter who will become Mary Shelley. 00:10:35.679 --> 00:10:36.080 Right. 00:10:36.480 --> 00:10:45.519 She's got a stepsister named Claire that to that comes along a bit later, and the two of them are kind of pitted against one another by her stepmother. 00:10:45.840 --> 00:10:56.799 And William Godwin has all of these random people who come to his house to just sort of hold court, like to hold court with him, to, to, to pick his brilliant brain. 00:10:57.039 --> 00:10:57.360 Sure. 00:10:57.600 --> 00:11:04.320 And so he's got Aaron Burr shows up, you know, uh Thomas, you know, Thomas Paine shows up periodically. 00:11:04.480 --> 00:11:07.039 Um, Mary Wollstonecraft was friends with Thomas Paine. 00:11:07.200 --> 00:11:10.639 Like these are these are folks who are contemporaries of her family. 00:11:11.200 --> 00:11:18.960 Yeah, contemporaries and heavy duty thinkers and people who who really thought of themselves as sort of the intellectual vanguard, right? 00:11:19.120 --> 00:11:19.519 Right. 00:11:19.759 --> 00:11:23.039 And then this this 21-year-old named Percy shows up. 00:11:23.679 --> 00:11:25.360 Percy Bish Shelley. 00:11:26.240 --> 00:11:27.279 That punk. 00:11:27.679 --> 00:11:36.320 He comes in and declares himself an acolyte of William Godwin's and basically love bombs Godwin, and then love bombs Mary. 00:11:36.879 --> 00:11:44.799 And Mary decides that she's going to she's in love with him, and she's going to quote unquote elope with him. 00:11:45.039 --> 00:11:47.679 Except the problem is she's 16. 00:11:48.159 --> 00:11:48.480 Okay. 00:11:49.360 --> 00:11:50.240 He's 21. 00:11:50.480 --> 00:11:50.799 Right. 00:11:51.039 --> 00:11:53.759 He's already married with a kid and another one on the way. 00:11:54.240 --> 00:11:54.559 Okay. 00:11:55.759 --> 00:12:02.000 But he believes in free love, and this is not a group of people who are exploring polyamory in an ethical manner. 00:12:02.159 --> 00:12:12.000 So, like, he just abandons his wife and his child and soon-to-be additional child to quote unquote elope with Mary. 00:12:12.159 --> 00:12:21.440 The apocryphal tale is that they declared their love and Mary lost her virginity on her mother's grave because the her mother's grave was one of her major hangouts as a teenager because she's just that goth. 00:12:21.679 --> 00:12:22.240 Right. 00:12:22.720 --> 00:12:29.200 They go, they decide to elope to Italy and end up not going to Italy. 00:12:29.279 --> 00:12:33.919 They end up going to Germany and Switzerland for a bit. 00:12:34.080 --> 00:12:40.320 They run out of with Claire, who runs, who comes along as a third wheel for reasons that are still kind of opaque. 00:12:40.639 --> 00:12:40.960 Okay. 00:12:41.519 --> 00:12:45.120 And they run out of money after a few months and go back to England. 00:12:45.279 --> 00:12:55.600 And then two years later in 1816, Percy is so deep in debt that he has to leave the country before he gets thrown into debtor's prison. 00:12:55.919 --> 00:12:58.960 So they decide to leave to go to your back to Europe. 00:12:59.120 --> 00:13:04.480 And this time, Claire has thrown herself at Lord Byron, had a very short-lived affair with him. 00:13:04.720 --> 00:13:06.960 She's completely obsessed with Byron. 00:13:07.120 --> 00:13:13.120 Byron is like, Well, if you're gonna fling yourself at me, I can't, I'm not gonna say no, but I really don't give a care about you. 00:13:13.360 --> 00:13:15.039 Like, I give zero shits here. 00:13:15.279 --> 00:13:18.559 Byron saw her as completely disposable. 00:13:19.279 --> 00:13:27.039 Claire convinces Mary and Percy that they should go to Switzerland and hang out near Lake Geneva because she knows that's where Byron's going to be. 00:13:27.120 --> 00:13:32.639 And at this point, she's fundamentally stalking Byron to try to rekindle this relationship that is very one-sided. 00:13:32.879 --> 00:13:36.240 So they all go to Switzerland in the summer of 1816. 00:13:36.480 --> 00:13:41.440 Is this where we say that Lord Byron clearly has like a magical, magical dick or something? 00:13:42.639 --> 00:13:44.080 Like, I don't even know. 00:13:44.159 --> 00:13:51.440 I the thing about like the thing is when I was researching this exhibit, I came into this exhibit thinking Lord Byron was terrible. 00:13:51.519 --> 00:13:55.840 I that you know, my research didn't really change my opinion of him. 00:13:56.080 --> 00:14:00.240 However, by the time I was done with this exhibit, I had decided that Percy was actually worse. 00:14:00.480 --> 00:14:04.320 Well, I mean, Percy doesn't sound like a gentleman and a scholar or anything. 00:14:04.960 --> 00:14:10.799 He honestly, Percy must have been an incredible lay because I cannot imagine putting up with his nonsense otherwise. 00:14:11.039 --> 00:14:15.360 Like the amount of complete bullshit that Mary put up with. 00:14:15.519 --> 00:14:16.080 Yeah. 00:14:16.480 --> 00:14:30.320 This period of time, right, from when they elope, for the next four years, Mary is going to either be pregnant, rearing a child, or grieving a child who has died at a very young age for the next four years. 00:14:30.480 --> 00:14:33.600 She loses four children in that period. 00:14:34.240 --> 00:14:34.879 My God. 00:14:35.759 --> 00:14:50.639 So she's parenting, she's dealing with the grief of the loss of a child, she's pregnant a fair amount of this time, and she still manages to be creative during all of this, especially when Percy and Lord Byron decide to like go off on a road trip together. 00:14:50.879 --> 00:14:56.000 And Percy just leaves her with all the household stuff that's not his problem. 00:14:56.320 --> 00:14:57.600 And he doesn't care. 00:14:58.159 -->

00:15:20.639 And basically, as far as I can tell, both Percy and Byron declared themselves to be followers of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and particularly of the idea that came from Rousseau that, you know, really we're only required to follow societal mores insofar as it matches up with our own interior desires. 00:15:22.240 --> 00:15:27.200 Which is that well, that kind of sounds like the the Peter Thiel bullshit right now, right? 00:15:27.279 --> 00:15:31.600 Like, well, maybe evil isn't really evil if it feels good or whatever. 00:15:31.919 --> 00:15:38.480 I mean, it it very like between the two of them, it's very much like, well, but but I want to, and that's sufficient reason. 00:15:38.720 --> 00:15:42.080 They they they did not care that they had an effect on other people. 00:15:42.399 --> 00:15:47.600 Now, I will say that Percy and Mary did work very closely together in terms of reading and writing. 00:15:47.759 --> 00:15:49.519 Mary edited all of Percy's work. 00:15:49.679 --> 00:15:51.679 Percy edited Mary's work. 00:15:52.000 --> 00:16:02.000 There were initial accusations after Mary published Frankenstein in 1818 that Percy had actually written it, um, because people couldn't believe that a woman could write this book. 00:16:02.240 --> 00:16:02.639 Sure. 00:16:02.960 --> 00:16:14.159 And the the documentary evidence on the extant manuscript that lives at the Bodleian is that Percy didn't provide any more editorial feedback than any given editor in a New York house would provide on a novel. 00:16:14.399 --> 00:16:14.639 Right. 00:16:14.799 --> 00:16:16.320 Like he, in fact, he provided less. 00:16:16.480 --> 00:16:18.879 So, like, yes, he edited, he made suggestions. 00:16:18.960 --> 00:16:25.360 There are pro there are definitely some turns of phrase that he suggested and Mary accepted, but the book is Mary's. 00:16:25.600 --> 00:16:26.159 Right. 00:16:26.399 --> 00:16:32.799 It's just this thing where that whole summer, they're basically all trapped in the house together. 00:16:32.879 --> 00:16:49.679 It's Mary and Percy and Lord Byron and Claire Claremont, and Lord Byron's doctor, John Paulidori, who takes a snippet of something that Byron had tossed off and decided he didn't care about and turns it into a novella called The Vampire, which is a precursor to Dracula. 00:16:49.919 --> 00:16:50.480 Right. 00:16:50.960 --> 00:16:55.759 Where the main character is Lord Ruthfin, who is suspiciously like Lord Byron. 00:16:56.080 --> 00:16:56.320 Ah. 00:16:57.360 --> 00:17:11.519 You know, Mary Shelley writes this story, starts writing Frankenstein, which has a very self-centered young man at the center of the novel who does things because he thinks he wants to, and that's all that matters, and he doesn't care about the consequences. 00:17:11.599 --> 00:17:14.319 And when the consequences show up, he just runs away. 00:17:14.799 --> 00:17:19.680 And she's trapped in, she's basically trapped in the neighborhood with two guys that are just like that. 00:17:20.000 --> 00:17:25.440 So it's it's really not a shock that that that's how Victor Frankenstein turned out. 00:17:25.599 --> 00:17:29.680 And the reason she's trapped is because that summer it rained. 00:17:29.920 --> 00:17:32.480 It rained and it was cold and it was awful. 00:17:32.559 --> 00:17:34.400 It was called the Year Without a Summer. 00:17:34.640 --> 00:17:35.519 Yeah, I've heard of it. 00:17:35.839 --> 00:17:38.559 There was a massive climate event during this period. 00:17:38.720 --> 00:17:45.200 So in 1815, over in Indonesia, there is a massive volcano eruption. 00:17:45.599 --> 00:17:49.599 A hundred times the size of the volcano eruption at Mount Vesubius. 00:17:49.920 --> 00:17:50.079 No. 00:17:50.400 --> 00:17:54.480 It created a smoke and ash cloud the size of Australia. 00:17:55.839 --> 00:18:10.000 And that smoke and ash cloud moved around the planet and basically screwed up the weather everywhere, including in Europe, where crops are failing because there's not enough sun and there's too much rain and it's cold and wet. 00:18:10.319 --> 00:18:12.160 So there's famine happening. 00:18:12.880 --> 00:18:20.640 It also changed the the all of the jet streams and tides and the water temperatures around the Arctic. 00:18:20.720 --> 00:18:22.319 So the Arctic starts to melt. 00:18:22.559 --> 00:18:22.720 Oh. 00:18:23.200 --> 00:18:34.799 And this is why in 1816, there are all of these expeditions between 1816 and 1818 that are going to the Arctic because they're still searching at that point for the Northwest Passage. 00:18:35.039 --> 00:18:35.599 Right. 00:18:35.920 --> 00:19:00.799 So Mary is writing this tale where the monster has deposited himself in the Arctic as a way of getting away from humanity during a period where everybody's talking about Arctic exploration because the snow and ice has melted just enough to cause everybody to decide they're going to go do some exploration and a lot of people to get caught because it refreezes and the and they don't know how to escape and they die. 00:19:01.119 --> 00:19:07.119 So she's actually drawing from her own understanding of what's going on in the world during this time. 00:19:07.359 --> 00:19:12.160 Because the Arctic is melting and Europe is cold and everything is terrible. 00:19:12.480 --> 00:19:17.359 This is, you know, this is before the internet, this is before television, this is before even really radio. 00:19:17.519 --> 00:19:19.920 So, like, how are you gonna entertain yourselves? 00:19:20.160 --> 00:19:25.359 Well, you read a bunch of ghost stories and then you decide, then Lord Byron says, Yeah, we can do better than that. 00:19:25.440 --> 00:19:27.119 I dare everybody to write a story. 00:19:27.279 --> 00:19:28.079 And so they did. 00:19:28.319 --> 00:19:30.240 I was gonna say, well, you're gonna do three things. 00:19:30.319 --> 00:19:34.960 You're gonna like drink, you're going to have sex, and you're going to read or write. 00:19:35.119 --> 00:19:36.559

That's basically what you're doing. 00:19:36.960 --> 00:19:38.160 Yep, exactly. 00:19:38.400 --> 00:19:47.759 And the thing is, as far as I can tell from from the research I've done, and I will say, while I have a lot of familiarity with the period, I do not proclaim myself to be a Mary Shelley expert. 00:19:47.839 --> 00:19:49.359 I want to be really, really clear about that. 00:19:49.599 --> 00:19:54.720 Everything that I am talking about, I have drawn from other people's research from people who are experts. 00:19:55.200 --> 00:19:57.119 So just keep that in mind. 00:19:57.359 --> 00:20:01.920 But as far as I can tell, Mary conceivably believed in free love. 00:20:02.000 --> 00:20:07.599 Like she was she was on board with it from a moral perspective, but she didn't really actively practice it. 00:20:07.839 --> 00:20:08.079 Right. 00:20:08.319 --> 00:20:15.920 Like at one at one point, there is one friend who Percy kind of flings at her in the hopes that she'll take up with him. 00:20:16.480 --> 00:20:20.799 And she sort of flirts vaguely and then just wanders off and that's it. 00:20:20.960 --> 00:20:23.519 And you know, meanwhile, Percy is having affairs left and right. 00:20:23.759 --> 00:20:24.480 Sure, sure. 00:20:24.720 --> 00:20:27.039 But Mary just, I think, wasn't all that interested. 00:20:27.200 --> 00:20:29.839 Like, in principle, she was like, Yeah, free love is important. 00:20:30.000 --> 00:20:31.279 You should be able to love who you want. 00:20:31.519 --> 00:20:32.000 Great. 00:20:32.240 --> 00:20:38.559 Um, but she was fundamentally a monogamous person in a way that Percy and Lord Byron absolutely were not. 00:20:38.880 --> 00:20:39.279 Right. 00:20:39.519 --> 00:20:47.279 I I I I have so many so many titles for this exhibit that did not make the cut because they were um inappropriate. 00:20:48.720 --> 00:20:52.400 The exhibit was at one point subtitled Mary Shelley Deserved Better. 00:20:52.640 --> 00:20:53.519 Oh, yeah. 00:20:53.759 --> 00:20:58.079 There's another version of the title that was Percy Shelley was a fuckboy and you can't tell me different. 00:20:58.400 --> 00:21:00.400 I mean, you're not wrong from the sounds of it. 00:21:00.640 --> 00:21:03.200 I mean, it was just oh, such a mess. 00:21:03.440 --> 00:21:07.599 So, like, they're all trapped in this house and they're all writing these stories. 00:21:07.920 --> 00:21:23.759 And Byron decides to go back to Child Herald, which is the epic poem he was working on anyway, after sort of tossing off this little snippet that then Paul Dori, who's more of a wannabe than anything else, writes The Vampire based on. 00:21:23.920 --> 00:21:27.519 Um, and this is like the only thing Pollidory's ever ever ever published. 00:21:27.599 --> 00:21:30.960 Like he is Byron's doctor, but he's basically a hanger-on. 00:21:31.359 --> 00:21:31.599 Sure. 00:21:31.759 --> 00:21:37.920 He's trying real hard, but there's just not that much there there compared to the group of people he's surrounded by, unfortunately for him. 00:21:38.640 --> 00:21:43.039 And so, like, it's this amazing amount of creativity because people are trapped and bored. 00:21:43.440 --> 00:21:45.039 And that's awesome. 00:21:45.359 --> 00:21:49.440 And it's also terrible because people are trapped and bored. 00:21:49.839 --> 00:21:59.759 And bored, and because Mary is trapped, and she's trapped in a lot of different ways because she spent her entire the she was only married to Percy for eight years before he dropped. 00:22:00.400 --> 00:22:03.279 In a boating accident after refusing to learn to swim. 00:22:03.599 --> 00:22:04.640 Oh my God. 00:22:05.359 --> 00:22:18.319 And having a boat contest with Byron where he commissioned a boat that was supposed to be bigger and faster and better than Byron's boat because it was a whole thing, but never learned to swim. 00:22:18.799 --> 00:22:21.119 So Mary was actually only married for eight years. 00:22:21.200 --> 00:22:34.799 And then she spends the rest of her adult life raising the one son that survives, fighting Percy's dad, Sir Timothy, because Sir Timothy didn't want anything of Percy's work to be out in the world. 00:22:35.039 --> 00:22:42.000 For the rest of Mary's lifetime, she's actually better known as the editor of Percy Shelley's works than she is as an author in her own right. 00:22:42.079 --> 00:22:54.400 Even though she publishes five more novels after Frankenstein and a whole bunch of travelogues and essays and short stories and poems in different gift books and annuals and things like that. 00:22:54.480 --> 00:23:04.079 Like she is consistently working as a writer for the remainder of her adult life and as an editor, but she is primarily known at that point as the editor of Percy's work. 00:23:04.799 --> 00:23:22.000 Sir Timothy, Percy's dad, is so horrified by Percy's anarchism, his atheism, his political stuff overall, that he wants everything that Percy ever produced to fall out of print. 00:23:22.160 --> 00:23:37.920 And Mary spends the rest of her life fighting that and trying to put Percy out in the world and rehabilitating Percy's image so that his politics get put on the back burner and his poetics get put on the front burner. 00:23:38.160 --> 00:23:38.400 Right. 00:23:38.559 --> 00:23:42.559 And so Percy's work lives on as a poetical genius. 00:23:42.880 --> 00:23:56.079 Mary writes very carefully crafted biographical essays at the beginning of the books because she's not allowed by Sir Timothy to actually publish a biography of her late husband. 00:23:56.720 --> 00:24:03.279 Because if she does, Sir Timothy will withdraw any and all funding from her son, Percy Florence. 00:24:04.240 --> 00:24:05.599 I mean, it's this whole thing. 00:24:05.680 --> 00:24:17.680 It's the fact that she was a functional human at all, given the sheer amount of bullshit to which she was subjected in her life, is astonishing. 00:24:17.839 --> 00:24:23.519 It's an amazing tale of resilience that should not have

had to be gained, frankly. 00:24:23.839 --> 00:24:38.079 Yeah, because so I'm listening to this, and I'm listening to just just you know how big of a fuckboy Percy was, uh the bullshit that she's going with her, you know, ex-father-in-law or you know, whatever throughout the remainder. 00:24:38.319 --> 00:24:41.440 It's like, dude, I want to like burn everything fucking down. 00:24:41.839 --> 00:24:44.880 Yeah, but she she she loves Percy. 00:24:45.039 --> 00:24:46.079 She really does. 00:24:46.400 --> 00:24:58.799 And I mean, I I get a certain amount of it because Percy did from all accounts actually appreciate and love her for her brain and her intellectual prowess. 00:24:58.880 --> 00:25:02.559 And you know, they a lot of their relationship was deeply intellectual. 00:25:02.720 --> 00:25:05.759 They read books together and would talk about them and all of that kind of thing. 00:25:05.920 --> 00:25:11.839 Like I think that, you know, I think there was an actual romantic relationship there that had some basis. 00:25:12.079 --> 00:25:12.640 Right. 00:25:13.039 --> 00:25:16.319 It's just that Percy couldn't keep it in his damn pants. 00:25:16.559 --> 00:25:16.880 Sure. 00:25:17.039 --> 00:25:19.279 And Percy was deeply self-centered. 00:25:19.519 --> 00:25:23.119 And Mary was fine with Percy being self-centered most of the time. 00:25:23.440 --> 00:25:30.480 And it's just, it's really frustrating because it's just like I Mary, Mary does Mary Shelley deserved so much better than Percy as a husband. 00:25:30.799 --> 00:25:32.480 Oh, yeah, absolutely. 00:25:32.720 --> 00:25:42.799 I well, it's interesting because one of my notes that I had that I wanted to talk about, and we we've kind of covered it, but I want to circle back a little bit because I was like, is Mary Shelley a Nepo baby? 00:25:42.960 --> 00:25:44.559 Because it it kind of sounds like it, right? 00:25:44.640 --> 00:25:54.319 In terms of like having the privilege and having, you know, her her father had these contemporaries and but the thing is the privilege was only intellectual, it was not financial. 00:25:55.039 --> 00:25:55.279 Okay. 00:25:55.440 --> 00:25:56.079 Yeah, that's fair. 00:25:56.319 --> 00:26:13.119 So the the thing is that so William Godwin, for basically for all of Mary's childhood and for the bulk of Mary's life, and for the rest of William Godwin's life, you know, he remarries about four years after his after Mary Wollstonecraft passes away. 00:26:13.279 --> 00:26:17.839 And he and his new wife, Mary Jane, because everybody's named Mary, just to keep it really confusing. 00:26:18.079 --> 00:26:18.319 Sure. 00:26:18.480 --> 00:26:24.079 Um, he and he and Mary Jane start a publishing company where what they do basically is publish inexpensive children's books. 00:26:24.160 --> 00:26:25.839 That's fundamentally the whole business model. 00:26:26.000 --> 00:26:27.519 They never really make money at it. 00:26:27.680 --> 00:26:34.480 In fact, William Godwin spends a fair amount of time asking Percy and Mary for money, even though Percy and Mary don't have money. 00:26:34.799 --> 00:26:35.200 Yes. 00:26:35.359 --> 00:26:44.079 He vacillates between being deeply disapproving, especially initially, of their relationship, because they aren't able to get married until December of 1816. 00:26:44.240 --> 00:26:54.799 So after she started writing Frankenstein, after they're back for the second time from Europe, because that's when Percy's first wife commits suicide. 00:26:55.119 --> 00:26:56.960 Oh, how convenient. 00:26:57.279 --> 00:27:00.079 And now Percy is eligible to be married. 00:27:00.400 --> 00:27:03.119 Is there any indication that he actually murdered her? 00:27:03.599 --> 00:27:03.839 No. 00:27:04.000 --> 00:27:04.240 No. 00:27:04.559 --> 00:27:05.519 She drowned herself. 00:27:05.680 --> 00:27:05.839 No. 00:27:06.079 --> 00:27:06.960 Oh, okay. 00:27:07.359 --> 00:27:07.759 Yeah. 00:27:08.079 --> 00:27:09.039 It's a whole thing. 00:27:09.359 --> 00:27:18.319 So Percy is so notorious politically at this point that he can't even get custody of the two kids that he had with his first wife. 00:27:18.559 --> 00:27:21.920 They end up going getting turned over to other family members. 00:27:22.160 --> 00:27:32.160 Which, in a legal system where his wife literally doesn't exist legally, except under him, the person she married, he couldn't get custody of the kids. 00:27:32.400 --> 00:27:34.480 He was that badly viewed. 00:27:34.720 --> 00:27:36.319 He was like that big of a fuck up. 00:27:36.720 --> 00:27:38.319 Yeah, he was that big of a fuck up. 00:27:38.640 --> 00:27:40.319 That's kind of astounding. 00:27:40.640 --> 00:27:41.920 It's amazing. 00:27:42.240 --> 00:27:48.799 So, like Mary was an intellectual Nepo baby, but she never had money. 00:27:49.039 --> 00:27:53.039 You know, she was she was scraping by for the bulk of her career. 00:27:53.519 --> 00:28:15.279 And she was, you know, she got to a point when she was in her 30s and 40s and moving a little later in her life where she got to be just about comfortable, but not until after her father-in-law died, and her son inherited enough money to actually and the title so that she had some so that he had some security so that she only had to take care of herself. 00:28:15.519 --> 00:28:15.920 Right. 00:28:16.400 --> 00:28:31.599 She didn't have the financial privilege, and she did not have the social privilege that Percy came from, for example, or Lord Byron came from, because both Percy and Lord Byron are from titled families, and Mary is absolutely not. 00:28:32.160 --> 00:28:32.880 Interesting. 00:28:33.039 --> 00:28:33.359 Okay. 00:28:33.519 --> 00:28:33.680 Yeah. 00:28:34.160 --> 00:28:36.400 All of this context is really, really great. 00:28:36.640 --> 00:28:40.720 I mean, obviously, art is created, not created in a vacuum. 00:28:40.799 --> 00:28:46.319 It's created by somebody who's living in a society with different pressures and different perspectives

and everything. 00:28:46.480 --> 00:28:52.720 And by everything you're telling me, it's like, oh yeah, no, I can see all of this in the story that she's creating. 00:28:53.119 --> 00:28:56.240 Obviously, she's going to pull all of this from her own life and whatever. 00:28:56.480 --> 00:29:01.039 And and and this isn't specific to Frankenstein, I don't think. 00:29:01.200 --> 00:29:08.319 I think it's more typical in literature of that time, like how present death is. 00:29:08.799 --> 00:29:17.279 It always strikes me, because in current American society, we are so divorced from death, right? 00:29:17.440 --> 00:29:17.839 Like death. 00:29:18.240 --> 00:29:19.119 Yeah, we're terrible at it. 00:29:19.200 --> 00:29:19.759 Oh, yeah. 00:29:19.839 --> 00:29:21.839 We are terrible at death, dying and grieving. 00:29:22.400 --> 00:29:23.519 Awful at it. 00:29:23.839 --> 00:29:26.160 You know, no one generally dies at home. 00:29:26.400 --> 00:29:32.240 You know, you die in a hospital, the body is whisked away, there's people in back rooms that deal with it. 00:29:32.400 --> 00:29:35.279 The next time you see it is either in an urn or a coffin. 00:29:35.440 --> 00:29:40.400 You know, like we just are not, we are so emotionally divorced from the process. 00:29:40.720 --> 00:29:46.960 And I was as I was reading the first part, because like I said, I actually kind of uh I'll I'll be completely honest. 00:29:47.039 --> 00:29:52.160 Sometimes I got bogged down by the by the nature of of the prose, so I was just kind of skimming some of it. 00:29:52.240 --> 00:29:55.920 So I'm like, all right, all right, I think I got, I think I I get this or whatever. 00:29:56.160 --> 00:30:01.759 And then several times I had to go back, especially after the the monster was created in the first part. 00:30:01.839 --> 00:30:04.160 I'm like, wait a minute, the the monsters already exist? 00:30:04.240 --> 00:30:05.039 Did I miss that? 00:30:05.200 --> 00:30:09.759 Wow, I I sure did because it's two sentences in the in this in this novel. 00:30:10.160 --> 00:30:12.480 One thing that really struck me was all of the death. 00:30:12.559 --> 00:30:16.480 And so during the first part, I was like, wait, is this all kind of an allegory? 00:30:16.640 --> 00:30:19.440 Is he like, is this creature not really a thing? 00:30:19.519 --> 00:30:36.079 It's just like an external metaphor for the grief he has from his, you know, siblings dying or whatever, like the the death that the uh that Victor had already experienced in his life or whatever, this is like a physical man is manifestation of that guilt. 00:30:36.160 --> 00:30:38.000 I'm like, oh yeah, this is this is great. 00:30:38.160 --> 00:30:41.279 And then I'm reading it, I'm like, oh wait, no, this isn't an allegory. 00:30:41.359 --> 00:30:43.920 This monster's actually real, it's already been created. 00:30:44.240 --> 00:31:01.599 So it's just really interesting, like reading something like this as a modern reader, because I have such different expectations of like the storytelling and the story framework that I'm not necessarily appreciating what the story is on the actual page. 00:31:02.000 --> 00:31:02.240 Sure. 00:31:02.400 --> 00:31:21.119 I mean, it's one of those things where, in the same way, that if you are relatively new to reading contemporary to us science fiction and fantasy, like the first 50 pages of any given book is there to sort of teach you how to read the book itself because that's where your world building is getting established, right? 00:31:21.200 --> 00:31:26.960 That's where you're learning about the language and the economics and the interrelationships and all of that kind of stuff in a modern novel. 00:31:27.359 --> 00:31:30.559 We have expectations in terms of how the structure needs to work. 00:31:30.799 --> 00:31:42.799 We have expectations in terms of what character arcs look like and things like that, but the the individual world that is built is one that you sort of learn to read at the as you're beginning to read the novel itself. 00:31:43.119 --> 00:31:43.519 Right. 00:31:43.759 --> 00:31:51.039 Now, with literature from Mary's era, and keep in mind that Frankenstein is fundamentally a regency novel. 00:31:51.440 --> 00:31:53.039 Oh, it 100% is, yeah. 00:31:53.359 --> 00:31:58.880 Yeah, it's published exactly the same year as Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen. 00:31:59.200 --> 00:32:05.200 And it is part actually of a much longer literary tradition of Gothic literature. 00:32:05.359 --> 00:32:31.440 So there's there's this whole generation of female writers who write quote-unquote sensation novels from like the 1780s to the 1820s, who are really well known at the time and have sort of disappeared at this point in terms of history because the way that English literature is taught, you sort of get, you know, you get the survey course, which like you get one Jane Austen book, you wave at Mary Shelley, but that's kind of genre, so we're gonna skip it. 00:32:31.519 --> 00:32:38.480 And then you move on to all the other male authors who are clearly way more important than the one woman we put in the syllabus who who will fit, right? 00:32:38.720 --> 00:32:39.039 Right. 00:32:39.359 --> 00:32:50.079 It's Mary is coming actually from an entire tradition of women's writing that modern readers are are generally really unaware of. 00:32:50.240 --> 00:32:57.200 Like Mary Shelley, if you look at sort of the pop culture version of her, like what has happened in terms of the memefication of her on the internet. 00:32:57.599 --> 00:32:57.839 Right. 00:32:58.079 --> 00:33:04.720 Like she's she's this weird, super hyper gothic one-hit wonder who's more badass than you because she had sex on her mother's grave. 00:33:04.960 --> 00:33:09.599 And like the only thing she ever did was write this one novel at 19, and what are you doing with your life? 00:33:09.759 --> 00:33:14.559 And it's and it's just like, no, she's part of a literary tradition. 00:33:14.799 -->

00:33:21.519 She has all of these literary forbears that she shares in common with Jane Austen, even though she and Jane Austen didn't read one another. 00:33:21.920 --> 00:33:22.480 Interesting. 00:33:22.720 --> 00:33:30.480 So, like, there she's but she's part of this whole tradition that is not necessarily talked about in the context of people reading the novel. 00:33:30.559 --> 00:33:45.599 So a lot of the things that made Frankenstein special outside of the way that we think of it as special, but at the time, what set it apart was her emphasis on the scientific factor in the work. 00:33:45.839 --> 00:34:05.039 Like the fact that Victor is this histrionic crybaby who takes no responsibility for himself and his work, A is absolutely a reflection of Byron and Percy, and also is a version of a character that has already existed in Gothic literature. 00:34:05.200 --> 00:34:13.519 Sometimes it's a self-centered young lady rather than a self-sunk self-centered young man, but it's it's already a character that exists in the literature. 00:34:13.599 --> 00:34:18.880 But but it was her approach to the scientific part of it that set it apart. 00:34:19.039 --> 00:34:27.679 Because as a woman who was educated in science beyond what was typical, she's reading contemporary science works at the time. 00:34:27.760 --> 00:34:40.400 So she's reading Galvani in translation, who is the scientist in Italy who discovers that you can make flesh move if you add electricity, which is where, of course, the how the creature is brought to life comes from. 00:34:40.639 --> 00:34:56.239 So she's reading this contemporary science and she's putting it into the novel, but she's doing it in a really graphic way because she is openly admitting that graveyards are being robbed and that that the dead are being defiled. 00:34:56.320 --> 00:34:59.519 And that's the thing that makes it so punk rock, basically. 00:34:59.760 --> 00:35:00.159 Right. 00:35:00.400 --> 00:35:08.719 Like from a linguistic point of view, she is writing in a style that is reasonably similar to what is going on around her. 00:35:08.880 --> 00:35:09.119 Right. 00:35:09.199 --> 00:35:13.920 Um, it's not, you know, she is she is not an island by any means in that sense. 00:35:14.159 --> 00:35:14.480 No. 00:35:14.719 --> 00:35:28.559 But but reading 19th century literature overall is a thing that you learn to do through practice the same way that you learn to read a new science fiction novel as you're reading it. 00:35:28.719 --> 00:35:28.880 Yeah. 00:35:29.199 --> 00:35:32.239 Like it it really is, it really is just practice and comfort. 00:35:32.320 --> 00:35:38.800 And I happen to have a background where when I did my literature degrees, I focused on 19th century liter literature. 00:35:39.039 --> 00:35:42.639 So for me, going to Frankenstein was like, yep, here we go again. 00:35:42.719 --> 00:35:51.119 I know what to do with this because my brain has had over a decade of tr uh like two decades at this point

of training and practice in reading these kinds of novels. 00:35:51.360 --> 00:35:51.599 Right. 00:35:51.760 --> 00:35:54.239 So it was less of an issue for me. 00:35:54.480 --> 00:36:01.760 But I can totally get how it would be an issue for folks who don't have that 20 years of reading things like this. 00:36:02.000 --> 00:36:08.960 And and like if you think about how you sort of miss the monster, miss the creature being created, and like you had to go back, right? 00:36:09.199 --> 00:36:09.599 Yeah, yeah. 00:36:10.880 --> 00:36:15.760 Think of it in the same way that the Battle of Helm's Deep in The Lord of the Rings. 00:36:15.840 --> 00:36:20.719 Yeah, Tolkien does that off page, it's not actually depicted in the novel. 00:36:20.960 --> 00:36:28.880 Peter Jackson is the one that created our concept of the Battle of Helm's Deep because he needed a 20-minute set piece in his film. 00:36:29.199 --> 00:36:32.480 But Helm's Deep happens off camera. 00:36:32.960 --> 00:36:37.760 Not on page, it's off camera in the novels, and it's a it's a similar thing. 00:36:38.000 --> 00:36:43.440 Basically, the creation of the creature mostly happens off camera. 00:36:43.679 --> 00:36:47.840 Suddenly he's there and he is figuring out how to human right. 00:36:48.159 --> 00:36:55.039 And one of the fascinating things about Frankenstein as a novel going forward is that it's really heavily studied. 00:36:55.199 --> 00:37:07.440 So, like when you look at like the secondary literature of people writing about Frankenstein, just about every single school of literary thought has taken a crack at this novel and found something there. 00:37:07.760 --> 00:37:08.320 Right. 00:37:08.559 --> 00:37:12.159 Like it's so rich in and of itself. 00:37:12.480 --> 00:37:13.199 It really is. 00:37:13.760 --> 00:37:24.960 You can choose any framework of approach to this novel and get a quite reasonable, backed up by the text reading of it. 00:37:25.199 --> 00:37:36.239 There are readings of it that are about climate literature, there are readings of it that are about queer literature, there's disability critique readings of it, there's new historicist readings of it. 00:37:36.320 --> 00:37:42.960 Like you you can Marxist readings of it, feminist readings of it, like anti-feminist readings of it. 00:37:43.039 --> 00:37:49.119 Like there are lots and lots of ways to read this novel, which is one of the reasons it's so persistent in our culture. 00:37:49.519 --> 00:37:55.119 I was gonna say there are a lot of lenses through which to view this this text for sure. 00:37:55.599 --> 00:38:07.760 What what struck me, and I think it's because maybe part of where we are today, like in the world or whatever, and just how profoundly patriarchy and men have fucked things up for everybody. 00:38:08.000 --> 00:38:12.159 Well, for the first part of the novel, like like Victor being like you're saying, right? 00:38:12.239 --> 00:38:24.480 Like he's this hotshot, he's doing this, I want to do this because I think I can do it, not really thinking about any potential consequences or harm he's doing by actually, you know, robbing graves and making this monster. 00:38:24.719 --> 00:38:27.199 It felt a little Jurassic Park to me, right? 00:38:27.280 --> 00:38:34.719 Where it's like, yeah, you were just so, so, so worried about whether or not you could do it, you didn't stop to think of whether or not you should. 00:38:35.039 --> 00:38:36.079 Yep, absolutely. 00:38:36.239 --> 00:38:43.840 It is, it is in in that sense, like Jurassic Park is drawing from exactly the moral stance that Mary Shelley is taking with that novel. 00:38:44.079 --> 00:38:46.719 Oh, one person says you can doesn't mean you should. 00:38:46.960 --> 00:38:48.079 Right, absolutely. 00:38:48.239 --> 00:38:59.760 And then also another thing that struck me was that he he made a a man monster or a male, male presenting, I guess, or whatever monster. 00:39:00.000 --> 00:39:16.079 And once the monster, you know, becomes sentient and educated and he has, you know, educated by blind people that don't know he's a monster, essentially, that kind of thing, once he becomes like a an educated man, he's like, Well, you know, it sucks. 00:39:16.400 --> 00:39:21.840 I exist, I don't like this existence or whatever, but I want you to make me a wife. 00:39:22.079 --> 00:39:28.719 Because if I'm going to be miserable in this life, by God, I want somebody just like me so I can be happy. 00:39:28.960 --> 00:39:32.000 And it's it's that inherent selfishness. 00:39:32.159 --> 00:39:38.079 I don't I don't know if it's selfishness, but it's also maybe it's selfish selfishness, but it's also entitlement. 00:39:38.320 --> 00:39:43.599 Where it's like, nope, I if I exist and I have to do go through all this, I'm not doing it alone. 00:39:43.679 --> 00:39:45.440 You have to create another thing for me. 00:39:45.679 --> 00:39:49.440 And I just found that a really interesting thing to pick at. 00:39:49.840 --> 00:40:00.719 If you think about it, one of the lenses that you can read Frankenstein through is one of this being a novel of male entitlement from beginning to end. 00:40:01.039 --> 00:40:01.679 Front to back. 00:40:01.840 --> 00:40:02.880 Front to back. 00:40:03.199 --> 00:40:05.280 So yeah, I mean, it absolutely tracks. 00:40:05.360 --> 00:40:10.079 And that's, you know, that's one of the things that makes it so fascinating. 00:40:10.480 --> 00:40:22.400 So one of the things that I ended up doing when I was putting together the exhibit, I was I was writing the label for the case that was full of like contemporary responses to Mary Shelley. 00:40:22.480 --> 00:40:26.480 So, like what it was like when the book came out and how people responded. 00:40:26.719 --> 00:40:33.760 And, you know, there was parody, there were entire plays that were written mostly about the drama at the villa and not the work of the people. 00:40:34.000 --> 00:40:45.039 There were novels that were sort of weird riffs on

Frankenstein that didn't make a whole lot of sense, except you had to know that they were riffs on Frankenstein. 00:40:45.280 --> 00:40:45.519 Right. 00:40:45.760 --> 00:40:58.559 But one of the things that I realized as I was like writing this novel was like all of the critique was exactly the same critique that is the chapter headings in Joanna Russ's How to Suppress Women's Writing. 00:40:58.880 --> 00:40:59.199 Really? 00:40:59.599 --> 00:41:02.400 She wrote it, but yeah, she wrote it, but she shouldn't have. 00:41:02.719 --> 00:41:04.960 She wrote it, but she didn't really write it. 00:41:05.199 --> 00:41:07.039 She wrote it, but look at what she wrote. 00:41:07.199 --> 00:41:09.039 Like, it's all of those things. 00:41:10.239 --> 00:41:11.840 It's it is really fascinating. 00:41:11.920 --> 00:41:14.800 Like, I ended up basing 200 years. 00:41:15.039 --> 00:41:18.880 200 years, Lynn, and we're still in the same fucking place. 00:41:19.280 --> 00:41:23.760 Yeah, I ended up basing the exhibit on three books primarily. 00:41:23.920 --> 00:41:30.880 I based it on Charlotte Gordon's biography of Mary Shelley and Mary Wollstonecraft that's called Romantic Outlaws. 00:41:30.960 --> 00:41:34.639 It's a dual biography where she goes through their lives in alternating chapters. 00:41:34.800 --> 00:41:35.679 Really, really amazing. 00:41:35.840 --> 00:41:38.800 One won the National Book Award in like 2015. 00:41:39.039 --> 00:41:39.440 Nice. 00:41:39.599 --> 00:41:54.159 I I read Sarika Davis's uh Humans a Monstrous History, which is a historical survey of how humans create monsters of each other, of ourselves, in culture, in reality. 00:41:54.800 --> 00:41:58.000 And Frankenstein is literally in the opening chapter, of course. 00:41:58.239 --> 00:41:58.559 Obviously. 00:41:58.880 --> 00:42:03.519 Because it's like at this point, it's the cultural monster we all think of if you say the word monster. 00:42:03.760 --> 00:42:04.320 Right. 00:42:04.880 --> 00:42:08.400 And the third book was Joanna Russ's How to Suppress Women's Writing. 00:42:08.800 --> 00:42:15.199 Because all of the critiques that happened to Mary Shelley also happened to Mary Wollstonecraft especially posthumously. 00:42:15.440 --> 00:42:16.079 Yeah. 00:42:16.400 --> 00:42:31.039 Because William Godwin, in an attempt to ensure that Mary Wollstonecraft's work was appreciated and moved forward, wrote a memoir of her where he laid out her two previous suicide attempts. 00:42:31.199 --> 00:42:34.320 He laid out the fact that she had two children out of wedlock. 00:42:34.639 --> 00:42:46.159 Uh, he laid out a whole bunch of other things that were considered socially horrific as a way of demonstrating how truthfully she lived her stated values. 00:42:46.320 --> 00:42:54.000 And as a result, all of her philosophical work was disregarded and she was just treated as a dumb whore for centuries. 00:42:54.239 --> 00:42:54.559 Wow. 00:42:54.800 --> 00:43:04.719 It's not until the 1970s that Wollstonecraft's work starts to actually come back as part of the feminist rediscovery of the historical female canon. 00:43:04.960 --> 00:43:09.360 Yeah, I was gonna say like the big feminist push in the 70s would have would have brought that back out. 00:43:09.760 --> 00:43:14.559 But that's the so that happens to Wollstonecraft and it absolutely happened to Mary Shelley too. 00:43:14.800 --> 00:43:17.840 Which is how you get she she wrote it, but she only wrote one of it. 00:43:17.920 --> 00:43:20.159 No, she wrote five, she wrote five other novels. 00:43:20.400 --> 00:43:23.920 Yeah, like she had a whole career, a beautiful career. 00:43:24.159 --> 00:43:25.360 And people don't know that. 00:43:25.440 --> 00:43:27.920 They just think, oh, Frankenstein and nothing else. 00:43:28.239 --> 00:43:28.559 Right. 00:43:28.719 --> 00:43:30.880 Like she wrote this book when she was 18 or whatever. 00:43:31.039 --> 00:43:34.079 Haha, how's that isn't that great, and then nothing else. 00:43:34.559 --> 00:43:35.920 And what have you done with your life? 00:43:36.000 --> 00:43:36.239 Yeah. 00:43:38.000 --> 00:43:40.079 It's it's the most amazing thing. 00:43:40.480 --> 00:43:48.719 It is a novel that is so incredibly modern and so incredibly of its time at the same time. 00:43:48.880 --> 00:43:56.079 And I think that's one of the reasons that it ends up being it ends up having such legs, having the longevity. 00:43:56.480 --> 00:43:59.440 Because it it covers so many universal themes. 00:44:00.239 --> 00:44:05.679 That every generation comes back to it and finds something different or finds the same things again. 00:44:06.559 --> 00:44:17.119 Well, I think Shelley did what good authors and good filmmakers or good storytellers, let's say, do, which is find the humanity in the work. 00:44:17.920 --> 00:44:20.079 And they're truthful to that humanity. 00:44:20.639 --> 00:44:25.920 You know, obviously they're writing through their own lens or whatever, but she's truthful to that humanity. 00:44:26.000 --> 00:44:29.760 And I think that that's why that's why we can read it today. 00:44:30.079 --> 00:44:37.440 Like parsing the language aside, you know, like what you're saying is like all of these themes, they're absolutely still relevant. 00:44:37.760 --> 00:44:40.239 We still look in the mirror and think, am I a monster? 00:44:40.719 --> 00:44:41.920 Have I created a monster? 00:44:42.079 --> 00:44:42.320 Uh-huh. 00:44:42.559 --> 00:44:50.000 Like, is this is this novel an entirely long allegory about how difficult it is to go through childbirth? 00:44:50.320 --> 00:44:50.800 Yeah. 00:44:51.039 --> 00:44:51.440 Yeah. 00:44:51.679 --> 00:45:02.559 I mean, because that's an given that she had multiple miscarriages as well as she was pregnant and had children, and then had the children die at a very young age while she's writing this novel. 00:45:02.960 --> 00:45:05.440 That is not an unreasonable reading either. 00:45:05.760 --> 00:45:07.679 No, no, it is not.

00:45:08.400 --> 00:45:20.639 Because I mean, Victor Frankenstein, of course, thinks he's making life, and and like Mary Shelley pregnant, having had just given birth and then had that baby die, is like, you don't know jack shit about giving life about creating life. 00:45:20.880 --> 00:45:21.519 Yeah, fuck you. 00:45:22.639 --> 00:45:25.519 You histrionic self-centered piece of shit. 00:45:27.599 --> 00:45:28.000 Yeah. 00:45:28.159 --> 00:45:28.400 Yeah. 00:45:28.480 --> 00:45:28.960 Well, you know what? 00:45:29.280 --> 00:45:30.639 I'll show you giving life. 00:45:30.880 --> 00:45:37.840 Well, in Victor's thought process, like I mentioned Jurassic Park, but it's not that different from like the AI companies now, right? 00:45:38.000 --> 00:45:40.159 It's like look, let's let's look at this cool thing. 00:45:40.239 --> 00:45:44.320 Ooh, we need we're like within within reach of the singularity. 00:45:44.400 --> 00:45:49.440 Let's totally fucking do that and not think about any of the consequences of it. 00:45:49.599 --> 00:45:54.559 Not thinking about like, hey, is this actually going to like end human civilization if you do this? 00:45:54.639 --> 00:45:56.000 Like, what the fuck are you doing? 00:45:56.239 --> 00:46:03.519 You know, it's the same kind of, I think, thought process where somebody just wants to be, wants to have been the one to have created this new science. 00:46:03.760 --> 00:46:04.000 Yeah. 00:46:04.239 --> 00:46:11.039 Well, and again, these are these are young men who have never been held accountable, Percy and Lord Byron both. 00:46:11.280 --> 00:46:17.039 They are they are from wealthy families, even though they are constantly scraping for funds individually. 00:46:17.360 --> 00:46:20.079 And arguably they're the models for Victor Frankenstein. 00:46:20.159 --> 00:46:26.880 It's that entitled thing where they've where there are no consequences for the dumb shit that they do. 00:46:27.199 --> 00:46:32.480 Not for them, anyway, in the same way that there are for all of the people that are affected by the dumb shit they do. 00:46:32.559 --> 00:46:34.559 I mean, the monster kills a bunch of people. 00:46:34.800 --> 00:46:35.920 A whole bunch of people. 00:46:36.159 --> 00:46:36.960 A whole bunch of people. 00:46:37.039 --> 00:46:40.559 And and Victor Frankenstein is like, oh no, what shall I do? 00:46:40.719 --> 00:46:42.639 I guess I'll wander off and do nothing. 00:46:42.960 --> 00:46:43.840 Poor me. 00:46:44.480 --> 00:46:45.360 Poor me. 00:46:45.599 --> 00:46:50.559 I have created something terrible, but there's nothing I can do about it now. 00:46:51.599 --> 00:46:52.239 Really? 00:46:52.880 --> 00:46:53.199 Men. 00:46:53.599 --> 00:46:55.119 Like, seriously? 00:46:55.920 --> 00:47:02.800 As I would reread passages when I was like working on the exhibit and stuff, like the the barely contained rage that is underneath. 00:47:03.039 --> 00:47:03.760 Oh, yeah. 00:47:04.159 --> 00:47:04.880 Is real. 00:47:05.119 --> 00:47:06.480 It is absolutely real. 00:47:06.880 --> 00:47:13.199 And it's interesting that even at such a young age that she is like tapping into that and not afraid to put it on paper. 00:47:13.360 --> 00:47:14.239 You know what I mean? 00:47:14.719 --> 00:47:16.400 And that's the thing to freak people out. 00:47:16.559 --> 00:47:20.000 Like, that was why people were like, why is she writing this? 00:47:20.239 --> 00:47:24.159 Like, that's that's not proper womanly stuff to write about. 00:47:24.559 --> 00:47:26.400 Women don't get to own anger. 00:47:27.599 --> 00:47:29.519 And Mary's like, hold my beer. 00:47:29.679 --> 00:47:31.840 Oh, contraire. 00:47:32.079 --> 00:47:32.719 Yeah. 00:47:33.360 --> 00:47:37.280 Well, because that is not the training for women during the period. 00:47:37.599 --> 00:47:39.599 Dude, that's not the training for us now. 00:47:39.840 --> 00:47:41.599 We still don't get to be angry. 00:47:42.000 --> 00:47:42.320 No. 00:47:42.800 --> 00:47:47.519 Even though all pretty much every single woman I know right now is like just a seething ball of rage. 00:47:47.920 --> 00:47:48.320 Mm-hmm. 00:47:48.480 --> 00:47:49.679 Yeah, not wrong. 00:47:50.000 --> 00:47:53.440 So I'm going, I know that we're kind of nearing the end of our time. 00:47:53.599 --> 00:48:01.760 I want to ask you the question, and I obviously the answer is going to be no, but I ask it in every episode: should this work be banned? 00:48:01.920 --> 00:48:03.440 And of course Absolutely not. 00:48:03.760 --> 00:48:06.000 Of course, of course it shouldn't. 00:48:06.159 --> 00:48:11.360 But I think that it's a commonality I'm finding in both the books and the and the movie podcasts. 00:48:11.519 --> 00:48:14.960 Like the reason, like we were just kind of talking, talking, right? 00:48:15.119 --> 00:48:23.119 Like the reason that stuff like this is banned is because, oh, it's saying something that we powerful people don't want you to think about. 00:48:23.440 --> 00:48:32.320 Or we're not banning this because of the graphic nature, we're banning this because women get to be mad on the page, and that's a problem, or whatever. 00:48:32.559 --> 00:48:32.960 Yeah. 00:48:33.519 --> 00:48:37.519 Or it puts, you know, entitled young men in a bad light. 00:48:37.840 --> 00:48:38.079 Right. 00:48:38.239 --> 00:48:44.159 And not kissing their ass and being like, no, this is a really shitty thing that he that he's doing and has continued to do. 00:48:44.400 --> 00:48:50.079 And yeah, where's like the text does not feel sorry for Victor Frankenstein at all. 00:48:50.320 --> 00:48:50.880 Not one bit. 00:48:51.039 --> 00:48:51.920 And nor should it. 00:48:52.239 --> 00:48:52.960 And nor should it. 00:48:53.920 --> 00:48:55.039 Yeah, and nor should it. 00:48:55.119 --> 00:48:59.599 And I think maybe that's some of the pushback from the critics of the time was like, no, you should have cut him some slack. 00:48:59.679 --> 00:49:01.119 Like, look at this cool thing he did.

00:49:01.280 --> 00:49:04.239 But look at all the people that this cool thing he did killed. 00:49:04.480 --> 00:49:04.880 Murdered. 00:49:04.960 --> 00:49:05.199 Yeah. 00:49:05.280 --> 00:49:05.360 Yeah. 00:49:05.679 --> 00:49:06.079 Dead. 00:49:06.239 --> 00:49:06.719 Gone. 00:49:06.960 --> 00:49:07.599 Done. 00:49:08.000 --> 00:49:12.719 So tell me first, I'm gonna ask you for for any of your final thoughts. 00:49:12.960 --> 00:49:16.800 And as part of that, I do want to hear more about this exhibit. 00:49:16.880 --> 00:49:18.800 Like, can we can we go see it? 00:49:18.880 --> 00:49:19.599 When's it running? 00:49:19.760 --> 00:49:20.559 Where's it at? 00:49:20.960 --> 00:49:21.199 Yep. 00:49:21.280 --> 00:49:23.280 So the exhibit is it's open. 00:49:23.360 --> 00:49:27.519 It is available in the Rare Book and Manuscript Library at the University of Illinois. 00:49:27.679 --> 00:49:31.440 It will be open through May 14th of 2027. 00:49:31.519 --> 00:49:33.440 So it's staying in the cases for a year. 00:49:33.599 --> 00:49:38.719 Uh we're open Monday to Friday, 9 to 5, generally speaking, when the university is in session. 00:49:38.800 --> 00:49:44.719 Uh over the summers, we tend to have more limited hours, but through the spring semester, it'll be Monday to Friday, 9 to 5. 00:49:44.880 --> 00:49:56.320 There will be an online version of the exhibit, as well as video recording of my opening talk uh will be posted on the RBML YouTube channel at some point. 00:49:56.480 --> 00:50:00.320 Both of those things are going to be asynchronous as time and energy permit. 00:50:00.400 --> 00:50:08.800 So the video of my talk has to be captioned before it can go up so that we're in compliance with ADA too, as is right and proper. 00:50:08.960 --> 00:50:11.440 And so that'll come up probably in a few weeks. 00:50:11.599 --> 00:50:25.280 The online version, it'll take a couple of months because it takes some organizing on the back end in terms of digitization and building things appropriately in our digital platform for exhibits, but there will be an online version as well. 00:50:25.440 --> 00:50:27.119 But I do encourage people to come and see it. 00:50:27.199 --> 00:50:27.760 It's free. 00:50:27.840 --> 00:50:29.920 You don't have to pay anything to come and see it. 00:50:30.079 --> 00:50:33.039 Um, we're in the main library on campus on the third floor. 00:50:33.280 --> 00:50:33.840 Awesome. 00:50:34.000 --> 00:50:42.960 I think I might have to take a road trip down and grab some of my science fiction nerd friends and and come see it because it sounds it sounds really awesome. 00:50:43.199 --> 00:50:44.239 Well, I hope you do. 00:50:44.559 --> 00:50:45.760 I hope lots of people do. 00:50:46.000 --> 00:50:46.320 Yeah. 00:50:46.480 --> 00:50:46.719 Yeah. 00:50:46.880 --> 00:50:55.840 Everybody go drive to Champaign Urbana, go get some Poppadell's pizza and get get yourself to this Mary Shelley exhibit. 00:50:56.000 --> 00:50:57.519 This sounds awesome. 00:50:57.840 --> 00:51:07.599 Well, Lynn, thank you so much again for taking the time to share your wealth and all of your uh great insights on Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. 00:51:07.679 --> 00:51:09.360 I loved our conversation. 00:51:09.519 --> 00:51:10.559 I learned so much. 00:51:10.719 --> 00:51:12.320 I know our listeners did. 00:51:12.639 --> 00:51:18.559 And uh speaking of you listeners, don't forget to subscribe, like, tell your friends everything. 00:51:18.800 --> 00:51:24.639 If you want to hear podcasts like this before the rest of the world can, make sure to subscribe to our Patreon page. 00:51:24.800 --> 00:51:28.079 I believe that's patreon.com slash frozen shoulder. 00:51:28.239 --> 00:51:30.719 And you know, you can get us on Spotify or wherever. 00:51:30.880 --> 00:51:33.280 So again, thank you so much, Lynn. 00:51:33.599 --> 00:51:34.800 Thanks, Kelly, for having me. 00:51:34.880 --> 00:51:36.000 It's a pleasure.