What is the difference between revolution and reform?
6:
How, according to Smith, is Wollstonecraft's argument in A Vindication
of the Rights of Woman contradictory?
How, according to Smith, does Wollstonecraft's life contradict her feminist
arguments?
10:
In what ways was Mary Shelley's life with Percy "checkered" (10)?
14:
Explain: "Alternation between fear of vengeful revolution and sympathy
for the suffering poor was characteristic of Mary Shelley's culture" (14).
17:
Explain: "A society and not its outcasts creates revolutionary
violence" (17).
19:
Why did Mary Shelley have reservations about writing an Introduction
to Frankenstein? Why did she decide to do it?
21:
Explain: "My husband . . . was, from the first, very anxious that
I should prove myself worthy of my parentage, and enrol myself on the page
of fame" (21).
23:
Explain: "Invention, it must be humbly admitted, does not consist
in creating out of void, but out of chaos" (23).
26:
According to the Preface, what is the author's chief concern in writing
Frankenstein?
Other Discussion Questions:
4:
What is so special about the years 1789 and 1832?
5:
What does it mean to say that "women and workers were equally disadvantaged
under the current political order" (5)?
8:
Why were booksellers prosecuted for selling Paine's Rights of Man?
How, according to Smith, is Godwin's Political Justice "antirevolutionary"
(8)?
11:
How, according to Smith, would Percy's encouragement be a burden to
Mary?
13:
Explain: " The contradictions in Mary Shelley's views, then,
are best approached as symptomatic of England's uneven industrial development
and its political consequences" (13).
15:
What exactly did the Reform Bill of 1832 accomplish?
16:
To what extent, according to Smith, can the relationship between
Victor Frankenstein and his creature be viewed in terms of the Reform Bill
debate?
