Activitat

Frankenstein's still alive.

Personatges:

Mary Shelley

Tema: Reading comprehension of an expository text.

Competències

Competència en Comunicació Lingüística

Competència en consciència i expressions culturals

Matèries i cursos per Sistema Educatiu

Espanya > Anglés > 4t ESO > Comunicació

Enunciat

<img title="Women's Legacy logo" src="//inclusion.womenslegacyproject.eu/images/LogoWL.svg" /><hr />Read the text about Mary Shelley&rsquo;s Frankenstein. Then, answer the questions. &nbsp;
 Mary Shelley&rsquo;s Frankenstein&nbsp; Mary Shelley&rsquo;s Frankenstein is frequently called the world&rsquo;s first science fiction novel. Films like Edward Scissorhands or Avengers are adaptations of Frankenstein in disguise. &nbsp; Mary Shelley&rsquo;s Frankenstein is one of the most famous horror novels ever. She published it in 1818 and, since then, hundreds of film adaptations of it have been made. The novel&rsquo;s success lies in the fact that it poses philosophical questions that continue unresolved today. Mary Shelley created this novel in the Romantic spirit of her time and added gothic and horror elements to create a spooky story that warns us about the dangers of an irresponsible use of science and technology. &nbsp;
Mary Shelley was born in 1797 in London. Her parents were William Godwin, a philosopher, and Mary Wollstonecraft, a feminist writer, who died soon after giving birth to Mary Shelley. Mary Shelley received a great education, not common for women at that time. While other girls&rsquo; education consisted in learning to be good wives and mothers, Mary Shelley read a lot of books of philosophy and politics and literature. She was only 19 years old when she wrote Frankestein, a novel about a scientist who gives life to a creature and then cruelly rejects it, causing the creature become brutal as it tries to make friends.
Mary Shelley&rsquo;s idea for her most famous novel came while she was spending some days in Geneva (Switzerland) with her husband, the poet Percy Shelley, their friend Lord Byron, and other famous authors. During those days, the weather was very bad, and it rained almost every day, so the group of friends had to stay indoors most of the time. They were reading horror stories when Lord Byron suggested having a horror story contest. Everyone wrote their story and read it to the rest, but Mary could not think of one. One night, Mary had a fantastic dream while she was sleeping. As soon as she woke up, she wrote it down and read it to her friends. They all felt amazed. It was brilliant. Percy Shelley encouraged Mary Shelley to make it longer and create a novel. &nbsp;The novel was published as Frankenstein two years later, and it became more successful than any of the other writings produced that summer. &nbsp; Since then, Frankenstein has been present in the popular culture worldwide and has influenced many of the science fiction films that we know today, such as Edward Scissorhands, about an artificially created human-like creature whose scissor-hands provoke the scorn of people, or Avengers: Age of Ultron, with the figure of a mad scientist who achieves something god-like but ends up creating something terrible. (10/04/2022)&nbsp; Adapted from: &nbsp; <a title="Mary Shelley's Frankenstein" href="https://junkee.com/the-blockbuster-films-you-didnt-realise-owe-everything-to-mary-shelleys-frankenstein/56548">https://junkee.com/the-blockbuster-films-you-didnt-realise-owe-everything-to-mary-shelleys-frankenstein/56548</a> &nbsp; (10/04/2022)&nbsp; <a title="Mary Shelley wikipedia" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Shelley">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Shelley</a> (10/04/2022)&nbsp; <a title="N. Geographic Mary Shelley" href="https://historia.nationalgeographic.com.es/a/tormento-literario-mary-shelley_15577">https://historia.nationalgeographic.com.es/a/tormento-literario-mary-shelley_15577</a> (10/04/2022)&nbsp; &nbsp; 1- Why does Mary Shelley&rsquo;s Frankenstein continue to be so popular today?&nbsp; 2- Who were Mary Shelley&rsquo;s parents?&nbsp; 3- What type of education received Mary Shelley?&nbsp; 4- What is Frankenstein about?&nbsp; 5- Why did Mary Shelley decide to write Frankenstein?&nbsp; 6- When did Mary Shelley&rsquo;s inspiration to write Frankenstein come?&nbsp; 7- What do the films Edward Scissorhands and Avengers: Age of Ultron have in common with Frankenstein?&nbsp; &nbsp;

Observacions i context

This activity can be combined with the activity Learning about Frankenstein, which includes a warm-up activity and a review of the past simple and continuous tenses, based on the same text as this activity.

Other examples of films based on Mary Shelley's Frankenstein are:

Frankenstein (1910) by Edison Productions.
Frankenstein (1931) by Universal Studios.
La Novia de Frankenstein (1935) by James Whale.
La Maldición de Frankenstein (1957) by Hammer Films.
La Familia Monster (1964) by Universal Television.
Carne Para Frankenstein (1973) by Paul Morrisey.
El Jovencito Frankenstein (1974) by Mel Brooks.
Frankenstein de Mary Shelley (1994) by Kenneth Branagh.
Frankenstein (2011) by Danny Boyle.
Frankenweenie (2012) by Tim Burton.

Some of Mary Shelley's contemporaries, who influenced her work, are mentioned in the following points:

- Mary Wollstoncraft (1759-1797), Mary Shelley's mother and one of the pioneers of the modern feminist movement (most notably her work A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, 1792). She was a strong advocate of a social order based on reason. She established herself as a professional freelance writer in London, which was unusual for the time.

- Anna Laetitia Barbauld (1743-1825), poet, essayist, literary critic, editor and children's author. She had great influence on the Romantic movement of the time by promoting Enlightenment values and sensibility. Her poetry contributed to the development of Romanticism.

- Charlotte Brontë (1816-1855), writer of what is considered the first Romantic novel in the English language, Jane Eyre, which incorporates elements of the Gothic novel.

- Emily Brontë (1818-1848), whose novel Wuthering Heights also incorporates elements of the Gothic and has become established as one of the classics of British literature.

- Elizabeth Gaskell (1810-1865), one of the great novelists who wrote about "the condition of England", that is, the society and problems of the working class. Her novels include Mary Barton and North and South.

- George Sand, pseudonym of Amantine Lucile Aurore de Dudevant (1804-1876), one of the most notable writers of Romanticism and immensely popular in her time.
Her work as a British author and her anthology of 18th century novels helped to establish the literary canon of today.

Descripció

Reading comprehension activity based on a text about Frankenstein and its author.

The aim of the activity is to understand a text in English, extract main and secondary ideas, make inferences and develop hypotheses.

Resposta

Documents

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