A complicated compassion: the paradox of sympathy in Mary Shelley's fiction by Square, S

“…Yet, as she demonstrates in her fiction—from <em>Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus</em> (1818) to Falkner (1837)—when felt to excess, sympathy can mutate into an unnatural and harmful emotion capable of provoking antisocial, immoral, incestuous, and even suicidal behaviour. More than this, Shelley’s investigation of sympathy exposes its serious limitations. …”