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Posted: 1826 Updated: 2025-1-18
The Last Man: An Underrated Dystopian Vision by Mary Shelley
Mary Shelley, author of The Last Man, was the first to write an example of dystopian fiction. Published in 1826, criticized during its time, and remained largely ignored until the 1960s when the loss, political decay along with human fragility found new meanings. The novel sets in the late 21st century, combining tenderness with the prophetic voice, an autobiographical eulogy of a woman from the early 21st century, as well as a bitter jab at Romantic ideals and political failure.
The Impending Plot
The novel begins with a fictional recounting of Shelley’s discovery of prophetic writings from the Cumaean Sibyl; she then narrates a story from 2073 to 2100, which is about Lionel Verney — a person who sees the whole human race die of a terrible plague.
Lionel was a roguish lawless child, but later he matured under Adrian’s influence — a philosophical nobleman but transparently an allusion to Percy Bysshe Shelley. Under Adrian’s radicalism, Lionel becomes civilized and learned, standing against the Romantic principles of perfectibility and the high ideal of the connection between man and nature.
However, this plague soon attacks this beautiful creation. There are several Romantic influences in the characters of Adrian and Lord Raymond (another Byronic hero touched with passion and ambition) who aspire to lead humanity, but their character will not allow them to fulfill such an ideal. And so the population dwindles to the titular Last Man, wandering alone in a wasted world full of memories of his killed fellows.
Images of apocalypse, such as the sun-blackened earth, storm-wounded, and plaguified, provide an allegory of the ineluctable dissolution of human ideals and structures. In the end, the story encompasses a vision of how humanity failed to bring its wishes to correspondence with the natural and moral order, which has condemned Lionel to be but a tragic witness of a fractured world.
Data
Characters in Shelley
Shelley’s characters mostly originate from her real-life connections.
Lionel Verney
“The being of his humanism develops in terms of his relationship with Adrian from an outsider to that of a man of culture” Lionel, in this survival, bears the flesh of an intrinsic isolation but also becomes the touchstone of surviving humanity.
Adrian, Earl of Windsor
A character based on his peer Percy Bysshe Shelley, Adrian symbolizes the Romantic ideal as philosopher and philanthropist. He is the moral compass of mankind, yet is destined to fade along with everything else.
He is represented through Lord Raymond
Lord Raymond is as heroic as the self-centered leader inspired from Lord Byron. That man who is very ambitious and changes through his heated sentiments leads to his destruction where uncontrolled passions stand to show a man’s fate.
Perdita and Idris
Here are two opposite types in Perdita, Rohood’s proud and domineering sister and in Idris the loving and self-sacrificing sister of Adrian. Their better acquaintance with Raymond and Lionel, respectively, leads to matters of loyalty and full allegiance towards their beloved ones.
Evadne
The very miserable character of Evadne, reflected in her unfulfilled love for Raymond and her later action in the war, suggest a theme of sacrifice and pride for ill-placed devotion.
The Imposter
False prophet: This type shows a deception by manipulating faith that highlights the madnesses and misinformation when there is crisis.
Themes
Several themes in the Last Man include:
Life-writing
Lionel and Adrian memorialize the author through losses, especially those of Percy Shelley, Lord Byron, and fellow members of her Romantic circle.
Critique of Romantic Ideals
Utopia is criticized here by the argument that ideals are compromised by human failings and the collapse of society.
Isolation
The only survivor of Lionel suggests the ultimate emotional isolation of mankind, and in that will be found an echo of Wordsworthian and Byronic poetry.
Science and Medicine
Shelley reflects her engagement with scientific thought by contrasting Merrival’s ineffectual astronomical fantasies with Lionel’s immunity that he is a symbol of human endurance, and using it as a metaphor.
Political Corruption
Democracy loses, and authoritarian populism start becoming the norms. All this is due to her experience with post-revolutionary Europe. She critiques such phenom as a result.
Conclusion
The Last Man is a highly private and uncommonly philosophical piece. It is well ahead of its time because, while it speaks of isolation, political failure, and the weak human civilization, it finds resonance with the new audience in many ways. Although the novel was reputedly rejected at first, it nevertheless found itself rediscovered and became cemented as an excellent precedent of dystopian fiction in the 20th century.
Mary Shelley’s lament for the lost generation of Romantics becomes a eulogy as well as a caution. From intertwining lives in the form of autobiography and apocalypse, it becomes a haunting meditation for a humanity lost within the indifferent universe. In The Last Man, she shows how, even while we strive for progress, underlying human frailty may lead ultimately to solitude; and that is a lesson as true today as it was under the shadow of the Romantic era.