The novel "Frankenstein or Modern Prometheus" by the English writer Mary Shelley (translated Slavka Stevović) is probably the most famous and widely read horror story of all time.
The main character of the novel is Viktor Frankenstein, a scientist who wanted to become the creator of a new, perfect man, and thereby discover the fundamental secret of life hidden from ordinary people, but, unfortunately, he failed in this and instead of a perfect man he created a horrible monster. A freak that has become the embodiment of horror and the punishment that follows a man who transgresses the ethical boundaries of human progress.
That is why part of the original title of this novel is the mythological Prometheus, the son of Iapetus and the goddess Themis, who had made a man out of clay, stole the fire from Olympus and gave it to the people. Certainly, he too had to be condemned to eternal torment for that; he was left chained to the Caucasus where an eagle would fly to him every day, peck at his intestines and eat his liver because in ancient Greece the liver was considered the seat of human feelings. However, one day Heracles found him there and freed him.
Viktor Frankenstein was making a monster, not from clay as his mythical predecessor Prometheus did, but from various parts of human corpses. In fact, Frankenstein was a kind of rebel, he didn't want the role of an ordinary mortal on earth, he didn't want to be just a creation, a created being, he wanted to be much more than that, he even wanted to be a creator. To be what, as it was believed, man was not given to be.
He believed too much in his own creative potential, and besides, he had the audacity to overcome the limitations of human power and intellect, if he was at all aware of the existence of those limitations. Or, he did not know where the lines of those limitations begin and end.
His composure was clouded by too strong intellectual curiosity and unrealistic ambitions, which, as it is said in the book "Frankenstein or Modern Prometheus", did not contribute to society and its prosperity, but led him to the very opposite side, that is, to his own ruin.
Let's take a look at the fate of Prometheus, the forerunner of Victor Frankenstein, who is first mentioned in Hesiod's exhausted Theogony, in the eighth century before Christ: wasn't he also condemned to eternal torment and suffering precisely because of the search for forbidden knowledge.
Of course it is; that's why since January 1, 1818 (when the book "Frankenstein or Modern Prometheus" first saw the light of day), readers were fascinated by Frankenstein's monster and intrigued by the moral and ethical questions that triggered such a story told by the pen of the famous writer Mary Shelley .
This novel was presented as a classic of English literature that very quickly grew into a literary myth. Into a myth that still lives its intriguing life today through numerous theater, film and media adaptations.
Frankenstein has become so popular that even those who know the character and the history of horror know that every monster is Frankenstein, even though they know that the monster is not Frankenstein, that the monster is Frankenstein's work. Frankenstein was a distinguished Swiss doctor, a true scientist, a character from Mary Shelley's novel whose baptismal name was Victor.
He was a scientist of brilliant mind, whose sense of inventiveness drove him to do far more than any man had done before him. He wanted to make his own life, to create a human being with perfect characteristics, with qualities that ordinary people lack.
He considered the cemetery to be the most reliable place where he could find suitable material for the realization of his plan, so he dug around the cemetery at night, unearthing coffins, removing corpses that had not yet decomposed from them, looking for suitable organs, parts of the human body. He took individual organs from the corpses of people who, during their life on earth, were celebrities, famous scientists, athletes...
So he took brains from learned people, legs and arms from sportsmen, and so on until he made a man according to his idea. And when he did that, he would revive him in his laboratory.
He would revive him with the help of high voltage current. Since there was no plastic surgery at that time, Frankenstein could not give his being the appropriate appearance, physical attractiveness, beauty, but he had some feelings, especially loyalty to his creator.
However, that monster of Dr. Frankenstein was not satisfied with himself. First of all, because he couldn't find a girl to his liking: a beautiful, likable girl, the chosen one of his heart, with whom it would be happy to hang out and have fun. So, the monster needed someone to serve as a refuge from the chaos that surrounded him.
How Viktor experienced the transition of his monster from imagination to reality, only he knows, but the story says that the fate of Doctor Frankenstein was difficult, gruesome. Namely, it is said that in the end, disappointed, he fell into a depression, mild at first, and then deeper and deeper, and in the end he was enveloped by a psychosis from whose embrace he did not know how to escape.
So distraught, he wandered the cold north and, as the novel goes on to say, he eventually wandered off somewhere quite far away, so fishermen accidentally found him even at the North Pole.
The author of "Frankenstein or the Modern Prometheus", Mary Shelley, says that this story was so convincing that many readers took it as a real-life story and because of this they bombarded her with letters and extremely strange questions about Dr. Frankenstein and his monster. .
That is why she gladly accepted the publisher's proposal that she, as the author, write an extensive foreword for one of the next editions of this book, because she already had a real need to address the readers in some way and to explain in detail that she wrote the book for pure fun and that virtually everything is fiction.
This information in itself had a special weight and significance because it opened up the question: how is it possible for such an attractive lady who has a peaceful and comfortable family life to write hard horror, a novel of death and horror, and just like that - for fun. Given that it doesn't happen that often, this novel by Mary Shelley has attracted the special attention of readers and especially literary critics for that reason.
Meri Šeli was the wife of a famous poet Persia Shelia (Percy Bysshe Shelley) and with the story of Dr. Frankenstein actually participated in an internal competition of idle literary socialites who at that time enjoyed the natural charms of Lake Geneva, so out of boredom they competed in writing stories of fear and horror.
And it all started one summer night, rainy, cool and stormy, on June 16, 1816, in one of the many rooms of the Chateau de Chillon. They are guests of the famous poet Lord Byron (Lord Byron) was found by a group of five famous literary creators, his friends, such as the poet Percy Shelley and his wife Mary Shelley.
During the conversation and reading of the story about the possessed castle, there was a strong thunder and it evoked a particularly unusual atmosphere in the castle. Then Lord suggested that they do a little horror story writing contest.
Percy Shelley and Byron were considered favorites, so young Mary Shelley, although she also joined the bet and competition, was not taken seriously by anyone. They thought that someone as young and tender as Mary was, could not come up with and write a good story of horror and horror. It was agreed that they would write a story during the night, and that they would read it the next day and decide whose was the best.
But fate wanted it so that on that very occasion and quite unexpectedly, the two greatest writers of that era, the princes of romanticism as Percy Shelley and Byron were usually called by the readers of the time, were defeated. They were defeated, and they were defeated precisely by Mary Shelley, that tender and young wife of Percy who was only 19 years old, who suddenly became the mother of the famous Frankenstein.
The stories of Percy and Byron that were written that night were quickly forgotten, while the story written by Mary Shelley was made into many movies, and even today, more than two centuries later, it knows how to inspire many science fiction writers. So, from Mary's pen was born a grotesque figure of a monster composed of parts of a dead man's body.
Later, the story of Doctor Frankenstein was elaborated and developed by Mary into the form of a novel of modern science fiction, entitled "Frankenstein or Modern Prometheus", which she published on January 1, 1818. This novel is not only a horror story characterized by a vivid narrative style that describes the characters in a comic-monstrous form, but is much more than that. Its multi-layered subject matter, in which the author has mastered extremely well and with experience, gives it other attributes characteristic only of literary masterpieces.
Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (1797 - 1851) was born in London. Her father was a radical philosopher William Godwin, and the mother Mary Wollstonecraft, writer, known for her early feminist work Defense of women's rights. Her mother died eleven days after her birth, so her upbringing was exclusively taken care of by her father until his remarriage. She received her education mainly at home. She showed inclinations towards reading and writing very early, and she wrote her first text at the age of eleven. During the summer of 1812, she stayed in Scotland, where she got to know the charms of the harmonious provincial life.
In 1814, Mary met Percy Bysh Shelley, an admirer and follower of her father William Godwin's views. She soon began a complicated relationship with him, and they married in 1816, after the death of Shelley's first wife. Herijet. Although they lived in relative poverty, they spent their lives traveling around Europe.
In May 1816, they went to the shores of Lake Geneva, where their friend Byron was already staying. Mary Shelley's life was marked by loss: of the four children she gave birth to, only one survived, The Persians flourished, and her husband drowned in 1822, when the boat he was sailing in capsized during a summer storm near La Spezia in the Tyrrhenian Sea. After his death, Mary returned to England, where she lived as a professional writer until her death in 1851.
Until the seventies of the 20th century, Meri Šeli was known above all for her work on editing and publishing the works of her late husband Persi Bish Šeli, as well as for the novel "Frankenstein or Modern Prometheus".
Although Persija Šelija's father forbade her to write a biography of her husband, Meri prepared and published a complete edition of his poems in 1839.
Recently, interest in her literary work has been increasing, which includes the historical novel "Valperga", the apocalyptic novel "The Last Man", as well as her two last novels "Lodor" and "Faulkner".
On the occasion of two centuries since the publication of the first edition of the novel "Frankenstein or Modern Prometheus", a number of critical works, monographs and anthologies were published in English, which finally and irrevocably placed Mary Shelley among the emblematic figures of an era of European literature.
Her mother was a feminist, philosopher and writer, and her father was no less famous. so Mary grew up reading books from the huge family library, reading both her mother's and her father's works, and their house was constantly visited by members of the intellectual elite, the smartest minds of their time.
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