In the chapter titled “Recovering Nightmares”, Thomas explains that Shelley’s novel is basically an account of the dream that she had before writing the novel. “Frankenstein is an extended, elaborate account of it’s author’s remarkable dream…She regards her dream, on the one hand, as something she created-as the product of her own ‘imagination’ and ‘fancy’” (82). He notes that there is a strong connection between the novel and Shelley’s dream, not only because that is where her idea came from, but because it reflected so much of who she was.The major theme is the comparison of Shelley’s dream to the story of Frankenstein, and the dreams within the story. In Shelley’s introduction into the novel, she refers to her “waking dream”, explaining the situation behind the novel itself. She had a dream about the monster, and therefore went on to write about it. Thomas states: “The connection between Mary Shelley’s dream and Frankenstein’s is made explicit when the author places the manifest content of her dream into a scene in the novel in which Frankenstein himself awakens fr...
