Introduction to Frankenstein
Almost all students have had some kind of experience with the idea of
"Frankenstein." Whether their ideas come from old movie versions,
cartoons, the television series "The Munsters," the cereal Frankenberry,
or the newer "Mary Shelley's Frankenstein" movie, most students
will have some knowledge of what the novel is about.
This activity is designed to determine the students' knowledge base
before they begin reading the actual novel and to conduct a general discussion
about what modern culture has done to these literary figures. It will be
interesting to find out many the myths the students have heard about Frankenstein
and determine what the popular culture has made of the scientist named
Victor Frankenstein and his unnamed Creation. It also will lead in nicely
to a biographical lecture about Mary Shelley.
This activity is written to prepare students for reading the novel Frankenstein.
- The students will discuss various myths concerning "Frankenstein."
- The students will listen to and take notes on biographical information
about the novel's author, Mary Shelley.
- The students will speculate why the popular culture has been fascinated
for nearly 80 years with this story and what this fascination might have
to do with society's current and differing views of biotechnology.
Class Time Needed
One class period will be needed for this activity.
- Ask students to write down on scratch paper what they know about the
story of Frankenstein. They may use lists, a narrative, or whatever they
feel will work best.
- After about five minutes, call on students to volunteer information
they know about the story. Ask them how they "know" this information
- from cartoons, movies, books, or general knowledge (frequently they don't
know how they know). Use an overhead, white board, or chalkboard to record
the students' responses. You may choose to categorize how they know the
- All this information may cause some confusion, so it may be useful
to tell students that sometimes the myth behind a character becomes even
greater than the character itself; list examples of how this is true for
the Creation of Frankenstein. Reading a list of titles of various movies
using the Frankenstein name may be useful here.
- Give the lecture on Mary Shelley's Biographical Chronology (see the
overhead). Have students take notes. Students are generally very interested
in Shelley's biographical information.
- Discuss the origin of the story - the contest to come up with a ghost
story. Most editions of the novel give this information in the introduction.
- Discuss possible reasons why this figure of Frankenstein has gained
and over the years held so much popular culture attention; lead to a discussion
of people's fear's exaggerations, and hopes for genetic engineering.
- In discussion of genetic engineering, refer to the experiments with
DNA students have experienced in their science classes. Also ask students
to refer to the videos they may have seen in their social studies classes
- "Murder, Rape, and DNA" and the segment "DNA" from
the television series 60 Minutes.