The theme of Darwinism in Frankenstein

At the time of its writing and publication, Mary Shelley's Frankenstein was part of a world still in shock at the implications of Charles Darwin's "dangerous" theories of Natural Selection and evolutionary biology, known collectively as Darwinism. Expectedly, Frankenstein is filled with allusions to Darwinism, both in a biological and natural context, as well as in reference to the introspective idea of man still carrying a bestial nature as part of himself from his evolutionary past. Shelley also utilizes the theme of Darwinism in the more abstract context of the emotional and adaptive gr…