On October 30th, Dr. Sheryl Wilson spoke on the History of Frankenstein for the 200th Anniversary of the novel. In the presentation Dr. Wilson gave, she discussed many points, but certain one’s grabbed my attention. The first interesting point she gave was about the narrative structure of Frankenstein, which we also discussed in class. She labeled the Creature as the center layer, Victor Frankenstein as the middle layer, and Robert Walton as the outer layer.
The next interesting point she covered was Orientalism, and how Safie represented wisdom at the center of the book, just by the meaning of her name, and her origin. Then, she asked “How long did it take Victor to create the Creature?”, leading the class (and other participants) into guessing numbers, until we ultimately learned that Mary Shelley purposefully chose the time of nine-months; this also added onto our in-class discussions on Shelley’s interest in the “rhythm of creation”, as explained by Dr. Wilson.
The last point that spoke to me was the discussion of the meaning of “my hideous progeny”. Dr. Wilson explained this phrase, by including Shelley’s statement in reference to her novel.
After this presentation, I learned that Frankenstein has an ingenious writer that does not make any mistake in the way the novel is written. Every word and phrase has meaning. Although Shelley is credited for Frankenstein, I also learned that the original journal entries of the novel show evidence that Percy Shelley may be the co-author. Dr. Wilson left us with the question, “Is Frankenstein co-authored”, and I do not have an answer; yet.