Prose context

• Shelley eloping context

  • 1814 she runs away to Europe with Percy Shelley and becomes pregnant almost immediately
  • Her father, William Godwin is furious and refuses to see his daughter for over 2 years
  • Can make links to parental negligence between Frankenstein and the monster.
• Shelley's baby dying context

  • 1815 baby Clara dies after a few days
  • Shelley's diary recounts a dream where the baby came back to life when warmed by the fire
  • Can be compared to the birth of the creature and themes of going against God
• Rousseau and society context

  • Saw a divide between society and human nature and that man was only good when in the state of nature
  • Thinks man is best when guided by learning experiences
  • Links to the socialization of the monster and the location of the De Lacey sequence
• Rousseau and women context

  • Believed women's education should be relative to mans
  • Though they should please, be useful to and take care of men
  • Link to Elizabeth being seen as a gift for Victor
• Romantic movement context

  • Romantic writers topics involved deep connections to nature, the depth of human emotion and the conflict between the individual and society
  • Includes Byronic Heroes, who are arrogant, intelligent and educated outcasts
  • Characteristics links to Victor and Walton
• Scientific revolution and Enlightenment context

  • Revolution began in the 15th century and promoted the ability of the human mind to understand the laws of nature and to control them
  • Enlightenment thinkers believed in the power of reason to find new solutions to centuries-old social and political problems and build a better world
  • Links to the ideologies of Victor and the monster
• Galvani and Aldini context

  • Galvani - discovered that the muscles of dead frogs legs twitched when by an electrical spark
  • Aldini - generated an electrical current with a voltaic pile, the forerunner of the modern battery
  • Links to inspiration of the monster's creation
• 'The Modern Prometheus' context

  • Was a Greek legend who made man from clay and stole fire from Zeus, he was punished by an eagle eating his liver everyday
  • Comparisons to Victor as he made man and stole the gift of creation (fire) from God, his punishment is that everyone around him dies, like how the eagle slowly picks away at Prometheus' life
• Atwood in Afghanistan context

  • Inspired to write the book after witnessing the state control of women's bodies in Afghanistan
  • Their dress inspired the handmaids as it "might signify a fear of women or a desire to protect them from the gaze of strangers" - Atwood
• Religious Right in the 1980s context

  • A movement to counteract the sexual revolution
  • Widespread coalition of Catholics, Mormons and Jews, united with the Protestants against growing sexual morality
  • Aimed to appeal to the public with beliefs of traditional family values, resisting abortion rights and fighting against rights for homosexuals
  • Links to the origins of Gilead
• Ronald Reagan context

  • Was president while Atwood was writing
  • He was anti-abortion, pro-capital punishment and opposed civil rights during the 60s
  • Opposed legislation that ended compulsory prayers in schools, which mirrors the Red Centre
• Tammy Faye and Phyllis Schlafly context

  • Both opposed feminism, believed women's role was to be a housewife
  • Faye was a televangelist
  • Schlafly had a masters degree in the arts, and was at the time a political alumni, but she continued to preach that women should be enclosed into a housewife role
  • Both inspired Serena Joy
• The White Rose Group context

  • An underground resistance group in Nazi Germany, formed from students from the University of Munich
  • Links to the Mayday movement, emphasises that a totalitarian regime cannot fully control it's people as it cannot truly eliminate independent thought
• Romania's Decree 770 context

  • Due to rapidly falling birth rate, abortion and contraception were criminalised in Romania in 1966
  • Coupled with mandatory monthly gynaecological check-ups for women over 25
  • Links to Gilead's rules and doctor check ins
  • Reminds reader that Gilead is merely an escalated version of our own world
• Language context

  • Nazis making 'heil Hitler' a compulsory greeting
  • Soviet Russia newspaper was called 'Pravda' meaning truth, despite featuring heavy propaganda
  • George Orwell's 'newspeak' in 1984
• Paradise Lost context

  • Lucifer believes he can become more powerful than a God, causing the fall of man
  • Adam and Eve, representatives of humanity, are expelled from Paradise and forced to confront the pain of the real world
  • Mirrors how the creature is expelled from the Edenic woods into the harsh modern world
• Narrative leap

  • Half way through the book, we go from the supposedly rational narrators of Walton and Frankenstein, to the mind of the creature
  • Reflects the juxtaposition between logical and urban environment to an increasingly incoherent, primal natural world
• John Locke's 'Tabula Rasa' theory context


  • Shelley reading it while writing Frankenstein
  • Epistemology - study of knowing
  • believes we are born with no knowledge whatsoever, we can only know that things exist if we first experience them
  • Inspired transgression of the creature
• Weather context

  • 1816 was deemed 'year without a summer'
  • Due to the cold conditions and torrential rain throughout Europe
  • May have influenced the dark gothic tone as Shelley was writing the book that year
• Berlin wall context

  • Atwood wrote the book in Berlin 1985, while the wall was still up
  • May have influenced choice of The Wall setting
  • May have influenced themes of control and oppression within settings
• The Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner context

  • Victor directly quotes the poem after creating the creature - "like one, that on a lonesome road"
  • Sailor forced to carry albatross around his neck, link to Victor carrying grief
  • Mariner forced to repeat his story, link to multiple narrations
  • Further link when Victor says "this deadly weight yet hanging round my neck" after the creature tells him to make a companion
• Sufi proverb 


  • Islam proverb
  • Suggests that there need be no laws against the obvious
  • Because people were not meant to eat stones, a traveller in the desert would not expect to see a prohibition against such a meal
  • Could also mean that although rules may be implemented strictly, leaving few options, people still have free choice
• Jonathan Swift epigraph 


  • Proposes the raising of children for sale as a food and commodity item in order to alleviate the poverty of poor families who produce more infants than they can afford to rear
  • The controlled, sincere tone of the unnamed proposer of this mad scheme parallels the earnest fanaticism of Atwood's Gilead
• Biblical story of Jacob and Rachel


  • Provides the biblical precedent for sexual practices in Gilead, and raises the issue of religious fundamentalism
  • Jacob and Rachel can't have kids, so they talk about sleeping with the maid and Rachel claiming the kid as her own
• The Sorrows of Young Werther


  • First book that the creature reads
  • A tale told through letters about a young man's romance and ensuring suicide
  • Teaches the creature about deep thoughts, and learns to question life, death, and suicide
• Lives of the Ancient Greeks and Romans 


  • teaches the monster about men of the past, the great and the evil
  • He learns that while some humans can show great virtue, others are full of vice