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Summary Frankenstein and Scientific Discovery- contextual notes £4.49
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  3. OCR
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  5. English Literature
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  7. Frankenstein, Mary Shelley

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Summary Frankenstein and Scientific Discovery- contextual notes

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Contextual notes on scientific discovery for the novel of Frankenstein by Mary Shelley. Discusses the relative and contextual importance of Shelley's scientific exploration within her novel Frankenstein.

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  • March 20, 2023
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  • 2022/2023
  • Summary

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Scientific Discovery
- Frankenstein was written in 1818 by author Mary Shelley
- Much of Frankenstein is based around scientific discovery and scientific advancement.
- The idea that electricity really was the stuff of life and that it might be used to bring
back the dead was certainly a familiar one in the kinds of circles in which the young
Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley – the author of Frankenstein – moved.
- By the time Frankenstein was published in 1818, its readers would have been familiar
with the notion that life could be created or restored with electricity.

Scientific discoveries in 1800s:
- Rene Laennec's Stethoscope Changed Medical Examinations Forever. The first entry on
our list of medical inventions of the 1800s is one that not many people are aware of.
René Leanne's groundbreaking stethoscope has helped save countless lives since its
invention in 1816.
- Asparin
- First X-rays
- First blood transfusion

Electricity:
- Electricity was the craze of the eighteenth century.
- Although the details of the monster's creation are not described later in the book,
Shelley hints that Victor uses his knowledge from the science books and of electricity to
create his monster.
- In 1730, the English astronomer and dyer Stephen Gray demonstrated the
principle of electrical conductivity.

Batteries:
- The most exciting electrical invention at the beginning of the 19th century was the
battery. It produced a constant electric current, opening the way for many other
discoveries and inventions; it also provided power for the telegraph and telephone
industries.

Arc Lamps:
- Humphry Davy demonstrated to the Royal Society in 1806 that a powerful light could
be produced by establishing an electric arc between two charcoal rods. His
experiments, powered by banks of batteries, did not result in practical lighting devices.
But, the appearance of good generators in the 1860s and 1870s encouraged the
invention and application of a wide variety of arc lamps.

What inspired Frankenstein?
- January 17th 1803 a young man’s body, after his decapitation was ceremonially carried
through a crowd and publicly dissected.
- In France in 1746 Jean Antoine Nollet entertained the court at Versailles by causing a
company of 180 royal guardsmen to jump simultaneously when the charge from a
Leyden jar (an electrical storage device) passed through their bodies.
- Just a few months after the book appeared, the Scottish chemist Andrew Ure carried
out his own electrical experiments on the body of Matthew Clydesdale, who had been
executed for murder. When the dead man was electrified, Ure wrote, “every muscle in
his countenance was simultaneously thrown into fearful action; rage, horror, despair,
anguish, and ghastly smiles, united their hideous expression in the murderer’s face”.

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