William Godwin was Mary Godwin's father, the leading radical political philosopher of the Romantic period. A prolific writer, Godwin was known primarily for his political works, most notably Enquiry Concerning Political Justice and its Influence on Morals and Happiness (1793), but also for the novel Things as They Are; or, The Adventures of Caleb Williams (1794) and the biography of his late wife Mary Wollstonecraft, Memoirs of the Author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1798), an early example of biography.

Mary may be borrowing from her father's work in her account of Victor's childhood. Regarding children, William Godwin's Political Justice recommends that we: "Refer them to reading, to conversation ... but teach them neither creeds nor catechisms, either moral or political ... Speak the language of truth and reason to your child, and be under no apprehension for the result. Show him that what you recommend is valuable and desirable, and fear not but he will desire it. Convince his understanding, and you enlist all his powers animal and intellectual in your service" [Godwin, An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice (London, 1798) I: 43].

The religious connotations of the passage connect Victor to the human project of playing God, much as Adam was said to be formed of clay. Historically, Jewish rabbis were also thought to have created golems from clay to seek revenge on enemies. However, following orders literally, the golems inevitably became destructive. Cautionary tales about technology and hubris were not only frequent in Shelley's time but have proliferated. In Karel Čapek's R.U.R (1920), for example, robots confound expectations by violently rebelling against their creators. Cadavers for anatomical training in this period were scarce, and thus a medical education meant to study and extend life also fostered serial killers who committed murders for the sake of selling fresh corpses. Such killing sprees were ended by the Anatomical Act of 1832 in England, which made corpses legally available for medical research.

Women were not allowed to address the court or testify in criminal cases unless there were special circumstances, including in the United States. The legal silencing of women in law courts was discussed in Mary Wollstonecraft's The Wrongs of Woman (published posthumously by William Godwin in 1798).