We are going to read an article about British writer Mary Shelley, author of the novel Frankenstein. To do so, here there are some activities:
ACTIVITY 1
PART A (Warm-up):
QUIZ: What do you know about Frankenstein? Do this quick quiz and find out.
1) Frankenstein is, in origin,...
a) A film
b) A novel
c) A theatre play
2) According to the story, who is Frankenstein?
a) A monster
b) An alien
c) A scientist
3) Who wrote Frankenstein?
a) Lord Byron
b) Mary Shelley
c) Bram Stoker
4. When was Frankenstein published?
a) 1818
b) 1923
c) 1765
PART B
Read the article about the famous writer Mary Shelley and her novel Frankenstein. Fill in the gaps with the Past Simple or Past Continuous of the verbs in brackets.
Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein
Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein is frequently called the world’s first science fiction novel. Films like Edward Scissorhands or Avengers are Frankenstein’s adaptations in disguise.
Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein is one of the most famous horror novels ever. She (1) ___________ (publish) it in 1818 and, since then, hundreds of film adaptations of it have been made. The novel’s success lies in the fact that it poses philosophical questions that continue unresolved today. Mary Shelley (2) ______________ (create) 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.
Mary Shelley (3) _______________ (be) born in 1797 in London. Her parents (4)_______________ (be) William Godwin, a philosopher, and Mary Wollstonecraft, a feminist writer, who died soon after giving birth to Mary Shelley.
Mary Shelley (5) _______________ (receive) a great education, not common for women at that time. While other girls’s 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 (6)________________ (write) 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’s idea for her most famous novel came while she (7) _________________ (spend) some days 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 (8) __________________ (rain) almost every day, so the group of friends had to stay indoors most of the time. They (9) ________________ (read) 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 (10)_______________ (have) fantastic dream while she (11) ________________ (sleep). As soon as she (12) _______________ (wake) up, she wrote it down and read it to her friends. They all (13) _________________ (feel) amazed. It was brilliant. Percy Shelley encouraged Mary Shelley to make it longer and create a novel. The novel was published as Frankenstein two years later, and it (14) ___________________ (become) more successful than any of the other writings produced that summer.
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 scissorhands 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.
Adapted from:
https://junkee.com/the-blockbuster-films-you-didnt-realise-owe-everything-to-mary-shelleys-frankenstein/56548 (13/04/2022)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Shelley (13/04/2022)
https://historia.nationalgeographic.com.es/a/tormento-literario-mary-shelley_15577 (13/04/2022)