Coincidence? I think not.

In the letters, Captain Walton is obviously writing to his beloved sister, Margaret. But, in one of the four letters, the Captain inserts a small clip from Samuel Taylor Coleridge's poem Rime of the Ancient Mariner. I've been pondering the poem, and it's meaning to Walton, and even the book of Frankenstein. As it turns out, Captain Walton, Victor Frankenstein, and the ancient mariner himself are related through these few lyrics.

All three of these men defy and disrespect nature and God/the gods.


DEEDS
-Ancient Mariner: killed the albatross (which led his ship to the correct route)
-Captain Walton: refuses to leave the Arctic until he reaches the North Pole (even though nature is not allowing his ship to move whatsoever)
-Victor Frankenstein: creates his "monster" (practically a mockery to the Creator)


All three of these men are also punished by Karma.


KARMA
-Ancient Mariner: condemned to tell his story over, and over, and over again
-Captain Walton: never fufills his "great purpose" of finding
-Victor Frankenstein: mocked by his own monster



It's not just a coincidence. I think Mary Shelley stratigically place that clipping of The Ancient Mariner in her novel. In the men's ultimate quests for knowledge, all of them failed, only because of selfishness and ignorance towards greater powers, but did they really seek just knowledge, or glory as well? Defying higher forces and seeking knowledge and glory is what connects Walton, Victor, and the mariner. Could this stanza be foreshadowing the end?

Marry Shelley

In 1818, Mary Shelley wrote her most popular work: Frankenstein, but, there are several suggestions to why and/or how Mary Shelley came up with this story and plot-line.

Most scholars and other writers believe she either:

• had an obscene vision during an opium waking dream, or nightmare:

During the seventeen and eighteen hundreds, opium, a highly addictive narcotic, was a drug popularly used by writers, artists, and philosphers. The drug was used to stimulate creativity and promote their imagionation to stretch as more so than others. There is a theory that Mary Shelley had conceived the idea from a waking dream in whish she saw "the pale student of unhallowed arts kneeling beside the thing he had put together." Mary Shelley's use of this narcotic drug is very possible, but not know as actualy fact.

• participated in a scary story contest with a rival poet

Mary and her husband, poet and philosopher Percy Shelley, stayed with friends one summer (in the early 1800's) at the Villa Diodati by Lake Geneva in Switzerland. Supposedly, the weather was consistantly cold and dreary, so the group began discussing science and telling tales of the paranormal and supernatural. This eventually led to a friendly competition to compose the scariest story. This is sometimes said to be the birth of our monster, and the tale of Victor Frankenstein.

• furthered her thought about bringing her baby, who had died several month before, back to life

It is also rumored that Mary Shelley lost a baby in previous months to writing this classic, and she actually imagioned rubbing it and reviving to live again. In her earlier life, Mary Shelley was disowned and disinherited from her father for running away with Percy Shelly, who was already married. These two combined ideas led to the created of her novel, Frankenstein.

There is historical evidence to back up all of these theories, but we can never sure of which is fact or folly.
Which theory would you believe?