Mutability


 * __Percy Shelley__**

In a life spanning just 29 years (b. Aug. 4, 1792-d. Jul. 8, 1822), Shelley became considered one of the finest lyric poets of the English language. The son of a member of Parliament, he grew up in Horsham, Sussex, England, recieving his early education at home. Shelley later attended University College, Oxford, where he published his first novel __Zastrozzi__ in 1810, one that projected his atheistic view of life. In 1811 he reinforced these ideals a pamplet entitled __The Necessity of Atheism__, which led to his expulsion from the University. After his father intervened, Shelley was given the opportunity to be reinstated in exchange for recanting the opinions expessed in his work, but refused. Soon after, at 19, he married Harriet Westbrook, but spent most of his time distracted by political events in England and Ireland, often devoting himself to radical pamphleteering, something that caused him to be disliked be the British government. He left his wife after about three years, and after moving to London for some time, fell in love with and married Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin, who would become Mary Shelley, author of __Frankenstein__, which was in fact written as the result of a contest between Lord Byron, Percy, Mary, and Mary's stepsister Claire to see who could write the best horror story. Throughout the rest of his short life, Percy Shelley explored many questions of inevitability, the relationship between the human mind and the natural world, and transcendence in the supernatural, heavily influenced by fellow poets Byron and Wordsworth, as well as various travels across Europe and personal tragedy.

//We are as clouds that veil the midnight moon; How restlessly they speed, and gleam, and quiver, Streaking the darkness radiantly! -yet soon Night closes round, and they are lost for ever:
 * __Mutability__**

Or like forgotten lyres, whose dissonant strings Give various response to each varying blast, To whose frail frame no second motion brings One mood or modulation like the last.

We rest. -A dream has power to poison sleep; We rise. -One wandering thought pollutes the day; We feel, conceive or reason, laugh or weep; Embrace fond woe, or cast our cares away:

It is the same! -For, be it joy or sorrow, The path of its departure still is free: Man's yesterday may ne'er be like his morrow; Nought may endure but Mutablilty.//

Mutability can most simply be defined as the liability to change. It's a theme clearly stated throughout the poem, expressed by Shelley through descriptions of the fleeting nature of everything we come in contact with as humans. He, as most humans do, gives this view a sort of negative connotation to start with, emphasizing the fact that though aspects of our world have a certain inherent power, radiance as he says, they gone just as quickly as they appear, "lost for ever." The metaphor making us, humans, these fleeting clouds streaking the darkness, goes deeper into the same theme, following Shelley's exploration of the inevitable, and in this case, the finite nature of life. He paints the picture of death as most humans tend to see it, one of obscurity, in darkness, something quickly and mercilessly taking without warning. The second stanza follows the same theme of inevitable change as well the tone of hopelessness. Instead of focusing on the beauty and creativity that could just as easily be interpreted through the varying tones of an instrument, Shelley instead chooses to notice dissonance over consonance. His description seems almost woeful, fruitlessly wishing for some sound to replicate instead of clash. Change once more looks negative, here perhaps in a different sense than in the instance of nature in that the lyre is frail, wavering, unable to sustain its power of that note, while the clouds just move too fast, too powerful in their flight that they can't stay. In the third stanza we see somewhat of a change in that tone, as although Shelley maintains some negative connotation in his diction (poison, pollute), he seems to acknowledge a kind of absurdity in the human mind, putting our mutable tendencies and emotions on kind of enveloping and neutral level. Although these concepts are what spark the fickle nature that makes us human, they are only what they are, not good or bad in the end, just feelings, just human. And this continues into stanza four with Shelley stating his purpose, "...be it joy or sorrow, The path of its departure still is free." That departure is the essence of the inevitability Shelley is expressing, and regardless of our nature, nothing can stay, gold or not. We see the the metaphor of the changing tones of the lyre revealed in Shelley's closing lines, and it becomes part of of our nature. Our days are the notes. Our seconds are the notes. Each is its own; the only continuity is the lack of. Shelley was a radical; it makes sense that he would see humans as beings of change.

__**In Frankenstein**__

"Mutability" is directly alluded to in __Frankenstein__ as Victor is coming to terms with Justine's wrongful death on somewhat of an introspective vacation, self-medicating through an observation of the natural world and its beauty. The poem helps add to his realization of the fickle nature of the human mind, summed up as he states, " I remained in a recess of the rock, gazing on this wonderful and stupendous scene...My heart, which was before sorrowful, now swelled with something like joy." The fact that he encounters the creature just a few moments later, his thoughts quickly turning to fear and anger, only reinforces the theme of the poem, as well as its place in the novel. The emotions he feels in one situation virtually never sustain into another, and as each day brings with it a new joys or problems (Henry's friendship and Elizabeth's love, along with the eventual deaths of them and most of Victor's other loved ones) that twist his feelings across both sides of the spectrum. The theme of constant difference in the poem also relates to the contrasting traits of most characters in __Frankenstein__. Henry and Victor are a perfect example, in that at times when Victor feels his lowest especially as the two travel together before he creates the second creature, Henry answers his depression with complete cheerfulness and optimism. He has no knowledge of Victor's dire situation, and since the two are in different states, they can look upon the same sight and have two completely different emotional reactions. It exemplifies the maleability of the human mind, that it can have such varying views based on some prior knowledge, in Victor's case, some moral doubts and fear of loss along with it. Finally, a connection can be seen through Victor's reactions to the creature. Before its creation, it was not just his work, but his life. He abandoned all of those he loved, went into complete solitude to perfect its being. After finally completing it, his greatest and most impressive challenge, he is so immediately disgusted that it is almost hard to believe. "...the beauty of the dream vanished, and breathless horror and disgust filled my heart." He spends the greater portion of the rest of this novel in fear of or trying to destroy the thing he once devoted himself too, as he desperately grasps for the lives of the very people he once left behind to create it. Mutability.