Marry Shelley :: essays research papers

  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley was born on August 30, 1797, in London, England. She was destined to live an extraordinary life. Her parents were two of the most noted freethinkers of the Enlightenment era. Her father, William Godwin, was a celebrated philosopher and historian. He was known for overeating and borrowing money who would give him a loan. He didn’t have much time for anything but his philosophical ideas. He met his match in Mary Wollstonecraft, Mary’s mother. She was every bit as much a radical thinker as Godwin. She declared herself independent at the age of 21. She and her sisters ran a school in France, where she had an affair with an army captain and had her first child, Fanny, out of wedlock. After being abandoned, she and Fanny moved back to England and attempted suicide. She began writing. She was well-known for her revolutionary feminist writings. Wollstonecraft and Godwin met a dinner party at Godwin’s home and the two began an affair. Wollstonecraft was five months pregnant when she married Godwin. Although Godwin and Wollstonecraft didn’t agree with the whole marriage thing, they wanted Mary’s children to be legitimate children. Mary’s mother died of complications just ten days after Mary was born. Her father was a self-absorbed intellectual and was left to take care of his daughters all alone. Although he loved his daughters, the responsibility of raising them on his own was too much for him and soon began looking for a wife.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Godwin married four years later to Mary Jane Clairmont. She turned out to be a mean and shallow woman who favored her own two children over Mary and Fanny. Mary was a lively child and was often treated unfairly by her stepmother. She received frequent whippings which led to her rebellion of a girl’s traditional role. As a result of this, Mary kept to herself and was unhappy and alone. Although she didn’t have a formal education, she picked up on the intellectual environment created by her father and his visitors. Mary was quite bright and began reading the writings of her mother around the age of eight. She had memorized every word by the age of ten. Mary spent many hours at her favorite reading spot, her mother’s grave.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Percy Shelley, a poet, was an admirer and friend of William Godwin and spent a great deal of time at the Godwin house. Shelley also admired the writings of Mary’s mother.