Introduction

Mary Shelley’s waking and dreaming worlds conspire to create the most famously human “monster” in literature, giving the world a taste of what a woman could write and inventing a whole new genre in the process. Justifying her unconventional life and enduring personal tragedies, Mary follows in her feminist mother’s footsteps, as she contemplates a woman's place in literature and the world.

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Excerpt

24 June 1816The dismal weather continues unabated, which engendered the perfect setting for the reading of our stories. First, Byron narrated his story about a dying aristocrat. I wondered if perhaps he was referring to himself. What could he be hiding? Had his licentiousness finally caught up with him for good? I didn’t have long to ponder my speculation, because as soon as Byron finished his tale and poured himself a tumbler of wine, Shelley started to read his short tale about “ghost chasing” and stealing bodies in Highgate Cemetery. I was the only one who knew that his story was autobiographical and I wondered if anyone would try to connect Shelley’s tale to mine, which I was eager to read. I started to speak when Shelley laid down his manuscript but then Byron turned to Polidori and said, “John, please scare us silly. Shelley’s story did not make me quiver. I found it rather comedic with all of the gravediggers stealing corpses and then heading straight to the pub.”

Polidori looked smug, believing that for once he might best Shelley, whom he considers his rival for Byron’s affection. He rose from the couch on which he was lounging and read his tale of Lord Ruthven who got drunk on blood. I began to wonder if all three of these stories were autobiographical and looked closely at Polidori to see if he cast a shadow. The candles barely illuminated the room so it was difficult to see. I felt a bit uneasy, but I tried not to think about it further. Surely vampyres were fiction but he wrote so convincingly that I feared that he had at least some experience with the Undead. When Polidori said “Fini,” Byron, who acted as judge, said, “Marvelous. Now that sent chills through me. You scared me so that I may need to take Claire into my bed for comfort.”

He looked at Claire, who was grinning as if she had won the contest. Shelley turned to Byron and said, “Stop jesting, George. Which story did you deem the best?”

“Why Mr. Polidori’s, of course! I believe we have a winner.”

Polidori smirked at Shelley and then reached out to Byron to grasp his hand.

“No, wait,” I piped up, “I have a tale too.”

Shelley seemed surprised and Byron looked at me oddly and smiled sardonically as if to say, Little girl, how could you write a grisly tale equal to or better than what we have just heard? I ignored his dismissive look and moved closer to the candlelight. The light flickered on the page, but then grew stronger, illuminating it.

My voice trembled as I began. “It was on a dreary night . . .” I had to stop. I had never read the tale aloud nor to anyone and reading it in near darkness with shadows surrounding us made me tremble even more. I tried to quiet my racing heart. I then looked at Shelley. His encouraging smile gave me confidence and I felt bathed in light. I began again. “It was on a dreary night in November, that I beheld the accomplishment of my toils. With an anxiety that almost amounted to agony, I collected the instruments of life around me, that I might infuse a spark of being into the lifeless thing that lay at my feet. It was already one in the morning; the rain pattered dismally against the panes, and my candle was nearly burnt out, when, by the glimmer of the half-extinguished light, I saw the dull yellow eye of the creature open . . . ”

I heard gasps and I paused. Claire was grasping Shelley’s arm and I saw that Byron had closed his eyes and folded his hands like a steeple in front of his chest. Shelley wore an anxious look; he nodded to me, indicating that I should proceed.

“How can I describe my emotions at this catastrophe, or how delineate the wretch whom with such infinite pains and care I had endeavoured to form? His limbs were in proportion, and I had selected his features as beautiful. Beautiful!—Great God! His yellow skin scarcely covered the work of muscles and arteries beneath; his hair was of a lustrous black, and flowing; his teeth of a pearly whiteness; but these luxuriances only formed a more horrid contrast with his watery eyes . . .”

I glanced up to see Polidori, Byron, Shelley, and Claire staring at me. Their eyes grew wide as they imagined the scene in the dismal room and young Victor’s act of creation, a moment that belied and mocked the image of the act of creation as rendered by Michelangelo, when the creator imparts life by touching Adam’s extended finger. Unlike Adam’s creator, my creator touched his creature with profane hands, and thus his creature was a loathsome, vile replica of a man. His creature “became a thing such as even Dante could not have conceived.”

I continued and revealed Victor’s tortured dream, after he fled his creation, whereby he thought that his beloved cousin Elizabeth, whom he held in his arms, had been transformed into his dead mother, her shroud crawling with grave-worms. Claire shrieked and suddenly cried out, “No! It can’t be!” I ignored her and proceeded as the candle momentarily sputtered as a gust of wind blew in from the veranda.

As I completed my tale, I felt an eerie presence. Like Victor, who fretted that the miserable monster remained in his apartment, I looked around to see if my creature had arrived in our midst. I saw shadows play against the wall but fortunately no creature emerged.

When I finished, I was shaking as indeed all in the room seemed to be. Claire looked horrified as did the rest of the audience who remained completely silent. Byron opened his eyes and for a brief second they looked like the dull eyes of Victor’s creature.

“Mary, where did that tale come from?” Byron asked. “Did Shelley write that for you?”

“Of course not. It’s solely a product of my imagination. My own dreams. I dreamt it,” I replied. “As we know, we are such stuff as dreams are made on.”

Byron laughed and then Shelley added, “And our little lives are rounded with a sleep.”

Then Byron began to clap slowly and all joined in. “Well done!” he exclaimed. “I believe we have our winner.”

I saw respect in his eyes for the first time. Although I wanted to, I refrained from saying, “You thought that a young girl could not write a grisly tale, didn’t you? And you think that women are incapable of imagination. What’s your opinion now of the female sex and our ability to exercise imagination? Are we not worthy writers?” view abbreviated excerpt only...

Discussion Questions

1. Most people are familiar with the “monster” in the Frankenstein films. How does Mary’s creature, as portrayed in the novel, actually compare with the film versions? In what ways does Mary, like Victor in her story, assemble her creature?

2. Being motherless is a central theme of VINDICATED. How has Mary Wollstonecraft’s death affected young Mary Godwin? What do you make of the supernatural scenes where Mary’s mother appears to her?

3. Historically, women authors often had difficulty balancing motherhood and their need to write. Few nineteenth-century women authors had children. How does motherhood and the loss of four of her children affect Mary Shelley’s art?

4. Percy Shelley was one of the great Romantic poets but was he a great man, according to this historical fiction? What’s your reaction to the way he’s portrayed?

5. VINDICATED is imagined as Mary Shelley’s private journal. How does this choice of voice shape the details and telling of the story? In what ways does that approach deepen or limit the narrative?

6. The title VINDICATED is a reference to Mary Wollstonecraft’s most famous work, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, but what does vindication mean to Mary Shelley? Do you think she is vindicated by the end of the novel? If so, in what ways?

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