.
Similarly, Baudelaire examines religion in his adapted sonnet to death 'Dream of a Curious Man'. However conversely he takes a more critical view of theism. This is most probably due to the fact that many artists of Baudelaire's era rejected religion as a result of their historical context. Not only did these composers grow up in the age of Enlightenment (the dawn of a society that used science to describe the natural world), these composers saw the horrors of the French Revolution and this made people question the existence of a benevolent God. Such doubt about God and religion was only exacerbated by the beheadings of the King and Queen of France in the French Revolution – people put in positions of ultimate ruling by God. This criticism of religion can be seen at the end of this sonnet when Baudelaire writes "- And what! That's all there is to tell? The curtain was raised and I was waiting still". Here Baudelaire questions the existence of God after interrupting the flow of his poem with a mid-line caesura. By using the metaphor of the curtain as the barrier between life and death, Baudelaire expresses his disappointment that God is not waiting to greet him on the other side by writing "I was waiting still". The effect of this is that the reader is able to discern that Baudelaire has far more doubt about Religion than Shelley and other pre-modernist composers. From these two examples it can be seen that cultural context has had a profound influence on the way these two literary works have been written.
In addition, we see these two composers discuss the role of women, sharing the opinion that women are valuable members of society and should be treated as such. In Frankenstein, Shelley addresses this issue with irony by characterising women to be passive and almost docile, making the comment that a society that undervalues women can only end in a tragedy akin to that of Frankenstein.
