The Peterloo Massacre of August 16, 1819 was a famous political demonstration of the working class and the poor. As a response to the French Revolution and the Industrial Revolution, 60,000 people gathered at a meeting in St Peter's Field led by the radical leader Henry Hunt. The purpose of the meeting was to rally together to protest against high rents and prices, as well as public discontent and political reform coming from parliament. However, the protest was quelled by an army sweep, a completely unequal battle between the army's professional weapons and the tools of workers and bare hands. The brutal massacre left hundreds injured and 15 killed. Even so, the voices of the people demanding liberty and equality led to large numbers of people to stand up and uniting for a better society. This had became a great inspiration for Romanticism poets and writers of the late 18th century, as Percy Bysshe Shelley with the The Mask of Anarchy, England in 1819, etc. In Frankenstein, the "creature" was born in a time of technological and industrial development, like the present time. There are connections between the "creature" and the working class at this time when both are abandoned and both are in search of their own liberty and equality. Through Frankenstein, it can be seen that Mary Shelley's sympathy for the unemployed has been left behind in this age of economic and industrial crisis.

MLA Works Cited Entry

Barham, Marc. “Frankenstein: The Shelley's and the Peterloo Massacre.” Medium, Medium, 16 Aug. 2021, https://marcbarham.medium.com/frankenstein-the-shelleys-and-the-peterloo....