but what follows birth the trauma." .
During this era, children died young due to diseases and birthing complications; Before she wrote her novel, Shelley had three children who each died at an early age or prematurely, which is similar to the novel since the savage's first victims are children. The first victim is William, who the monster strangles. Coincidentally, William has the same name as Shelley's son, and both were the same age when they passed. The second was a young woman named Justine Moritz who represents Shelley's daughter Clara, who died at the age of one (Franklin 3). After the death of her children, Shelley fell into a depression, and mourned them for over a year because they never lived to adulthood. It was "as though some dark angel hovered over her. to snatch away all her loved ones" (Miller 74). Shelley even dreamed of her child, William. Ruston uses a quote from Shelley's Diary that reads, "he was once reanimated after. death. and he lived for four days" (8). .
When the cluster of body parts are finally stitched together and reanimated, Victor abandons it in horror, regretting his decision to devise it. The creature, without no parental guidance, matures by itself, learning how to become human. It's abandonment is similar to Shelley's life in which she had no mother to watch over and raise her. Instead, she was left with her inattentive stepmother. Shelley's mother, Mary Wollstonecraft, died on August 9, 1797, ten days after her birth due to several birthing complications. She left Shelley's father, William Godwin, to raise her and Fanny by himself (Discovering Authors 3). Four years later, Godwin remarried; Shelley's stepmother favored only her two children and, therefore, led to the development of Shelley's unhappy and solitary mood (3). Shelley's alienation and abandonment is clearly seen in her novel. .
Evidently, the creature has several moments in the novel when its anger derives from its desertion from Victor.