FRANKENSTEIN AS A GOTHIC NOVEL

 The Monster. It is horrific to look at, it commits murder and it has been constructed out of
the body parts of dead people.
 The settings. Dimly lit laboratories, graveyards in the dead of night and hostile threatening
foreign landscapes all appear.
 The weather. Thunderstorms, driving rain and icy blizzards all feature.
 Females in danger. Caroline Frankenstein dies of a fatal illness, Justine is executed,
Elizabeth is murdered and Safie (the guest of the De Laceys) is victimised.
 Extreme emotions. Both Victor and the Monster vow to revenge themselves on each other.
 Atmospheres of mystery and suspense. We are never actually made aware of how the
Monster is bought to life and at the end we cannot be really certain that it has died.
However, the structure of Frankenstein is much more complex as Mary Shelley uses a
technique called embedded narrative. In an embedded narrative, the main story is told within
a framing narrative (think of a painting in a frame which makes up the whole picture).
In Frankenstein, Mary Shelley starts with a framing narrative (Walton's letters to his sister),
before moving to the main narrative (Victor's story) and then contained within this is the
Monster's story of survival and how he learns from the De Lacey family.

There are three separate narrators. As readers, we learn directly about Robert Walton's
expedition in his own words. He then meets Victor Frankenstein and his narrative is told to us
through the letters which Robert Walton is writing to his sister. Finally, we hear the Monster's
account of his development, but this is conveyed to us by Victor, which is in turn told to
Walton who is telling it both to his sister and to us as readers. The novel then returns to
Victor's point of view and then finally to Walton's framing narrative.

By the time we get to the Monster's story in its own words, we are ready to believe that not
only can it speak but that it can argue in a logical and rational manner.

In Frankenstein, three notable motifs are: the moon, the doppelganger (lookalike) and light
and fire.

One of the first experiences the Monster has after it is created is of seeing the moon in the
sky:

Although it has no name for what it has seen, the moon fills the Monster with a sense of
pleasure and wonder and acts as a guiding light in the absence of any human contact.

Thus a link between the Monster and the moon is created.

The doppleganger

In Frankenstein, it is possible to see the Monster as the dark side of Victor's nature. As the
young scientist pursues his studies, he divides his desire for knowledge from his feelings and
responsibilities towards other people and therefore becomes more monstrous. The Monster for
quite some time is rational and uses education to better itself - just like Victor. So the two
 characters become increasingly alike and Shelley emphasises this by making them similar in
many ways.

Both Victor and the Monster are:

 outsiders who are isolated from society

 passionate and driven by ambition
 intellectually gifted
 able to use language to persuade and control each other
 driven by thoughts of justice and revenge
 monstrous - one because of physical appearance and one because of the actions he takes
 Light and fire
 Many of the key events in Frankenstein take place at night or in dark and gloomy
circumstances. Its opposite, light, is used to show the power of knowledge and
discovery.

Like light, fire also both comforts and supports at the same time as being potentially
dangerous. When the Monster first sees a flame it is 'overcome with delight at the warmth I
experienced from it'. However he gets too close and discovers that it also has the power to
harm:

2. Allusions

The full title of the novel is Frankenstein or The Modern Prometheus. In the ancient myth,
Prometheus creates man from clay then steals fire from the Gods so that his creation can be
more godlike. Victor Frankenstein, in a similar way, trespasses on what should be God's role
when he created the Monster. Prometheus was continuously punished for his actions in the
same way that both Victor and the Monster live lives of torment.

Paradise Lost

John Milton's epic poem Paradise Lost, written in 1667, is based on the Biblical story in
which God creates Adam and then Eve. The reader is encouraged to link Victor to God, the
Monster to Adam and the uncompleted female creature to Eve. The key figure in Paradise
Lost, however, is Satan. He is an angel who rebels against God, is expelled from Heaven and
brings sin and misery to the world. The Monster declares to Victor: 'I am thy creature; I ought
to be thy Adam, but I am rather the fallen angel, whom they drivest from joy for no misdeed.'
Victor also links himself to Satan when he says 'Like the archangel who aspired to
omnipotence, I am chained in an eternal hell.' One of the books the Monster finds in the
forest and which helps him to learn to read is a copy of Paradise Lost.

The Rime of the Ancient Mariner

In the poem, the mariner tells of a sea voyage to the Antarctic where his ship becomes ice-
bound. This directly parallels Walton's voyage to the Arctic and at one point Walton even
directly refers to the poem. In Coleridge's tale, the mariner is guilty of shooting a harmless
albatross. As a punishment, he is made to suffer continuously while all around him die.
Victor, too, exists in a living hell as his family and friends are killed. The mariner eventually
becomes an outcast having little contact with society; this directly parallels the experience of
the Monster.

PSYCHOANALYSIS ANALYSIS - FRANKENSTEIN BY MARY SHELLEY

Just as the creature haunts Victor Frankenstein, his creator, our unconscious can haunt us. At
least, according to Freud's theory of psychic life. If we don't put in the work to acknowledge
what's going on in deep in our heads and souls, we risk falling prey to the monsters within.

Her creature represents human nature at its darkest.

Dr. Frankenstein is now pursuing his creature, seeking revenge. Once a doctor but now an
evildoer, he rushes toward a fate that he knows will ruin him. He really should have let well
enough alone.

In this sense he's a bit like Antigone: driven toward death by a desire to honor the dead. In, his
case, the dead are his family and friends—those murdered by the creature he created.

But Shelley's take on the death drive is a lot less hopeful than Sophocles's. There is nothing
freeing about Victor Frankenstein's obedience to the impulse toward revenge. This impulse
turns him into a slave, not a master.

And the fact that the once-good doctor becomes a subordinate to his own unconscious is
deeply ironic, of course. Victor was supposed to be the creature's master, but now he's just a
walking ball of brutal desires.

In Frankenstein, Shelley uses rather mysterious circumstances to have Victor

Frankenstein create the monster: the cloudy circumstances under which Victor gathers body
parts for his experiments and the use of little known modern technologies for unnatural
purposes. Shelley employs the supernatural elements of raising the dead and macabre research
into unexplored fields of science unknown by most readers. She also causes us to question our
views on Victor's use of the dead for scientific experimentation

Frankenstein is set in continental Europe, specifically Switzerland and Germany, where many
of Shelley's readers had not been. Further, the incorporation of the chase scenes through the
Arctic regions takes us even further from England into regions unexplored by most readers.

Victor's laboratory is the perfect place to create a new type of human being. Laboratories and
scientific experiments were not known to the average reader, thus this was an added element
of mystery and gloom.

Likewise, the Frankenstein monster seems to have some sort of communication between
himself and his creator, because the monster appears wherever Victor goes. The monster also
moves with amazing superhuman speed with Victor matching him in the chase towards the
North Pole.
 Perhaps the most overlooked plot line, in terms of importance, is the monster's story. Mary
Shelley gives the monster a voice, and the reader can sympathize with his pain and suffering
at the hands of mankind.

n Shelley's novel, the secret is tinged with shame and fear. Victor is not trying to uncover
another's falsehood, sin, or mistake. As the monster's creator, Victor is the author of his own
fate.

His secret is run amok. It's not buried in some ancient castle, nor is it hidden in the depths of a
tomb, another Gothic convention. Victor has quite literally resurrected his secret from the
grave and breathed life into it. It is an active agent able to seek out and destroy everyone
Victor most wants to shield from it: his friends and family.

One of the most prominent characteristics of Gothic literature is the constant threat, real or
imagined, that the characters must suffer. Danger lurks at every corner. Shadows menace,
populated by evils that have no face or name.
Victor's shadow has a name and an agenda. The monster is an agent of rage, an instrument of
revenge. He loathes his creator for rejecting him at birth then abandoning him to the cruelty of
the human race. He blames Victor for subjecting him to loneliness and isolation when he was
born with a heart craving love. He also begrudges Victor for failing to give him the one thing
that would quiet his pain and prevent his war on humanity: a mate.

Dark Settings – There are lots of dark settings in Frankenstein. When the monster is created,
Frankenstein describes how it was a, ‘P58 on a dreary night of November’. This pathetic
fallacy sets the scene for the start of chapter five which features the birth of the monster. It is
a foreshadows the darkness to come further on in the novel.

‘I saw, by the light of the moon, the daemon at the casement’. The moon is associated with
the monster as being evil. Therefore, dark is evil.

Therefore, Shelley is making the connection between the moon and the monster seeing that
the monster had ‘P58 yellow skin’. This makes clear that the reader is meant to associate the
monster with being something of darkness. If light represents life and heaven, then darkness
represents death and hell. The moon is trying to be light, but it is tinted with the colour of
death. The monster is alive, but it is tinted with death from the body parts used to make it and
foreshadowing evilness.

Extreme Landscapes and Weather

 The start of the novel has the setting as the North Pole: a strange unknown and weird area
that is a place God could potentially be.
 The remote setting of the North Pole creates a isolated and mysterious mood, (P25)
‘surrounded by ice, which closed in the ship on all sides’, ‘thick fog’, ‘vast and irregular
plains of ice’, ‘lost among the distant inequalities of the ice’ and ‘many hundred miles from
any land’.

Death, Decay, Darkness and Madness

 I never saw a more interesting creature; his eyes have generally an expression of wildness,
and even madness’. The reader’s first description of Frankenstein is of him being mad – this is
a punishment for evil deeds.

 The monster cannot be loved because of his ugly appearance which is Victor’s fault.
Therefore, the monster destroys the people that love Victor so that Victor feels the same as
the monster: loneliness (some sense of justice here maybe?).
Passion-Drive, Wilful Villain-Hero or Villain

Victor wants to kill the monster for killing his family. Frankenstein + monster
= doppelgänger.

Heroine with the Tendency to Faint and Need to be Rescued

Although the women are stereotyped in the novel as powerless, it is Frankenstein that it
closest to being that of Heroine.
 P181 ‘passed like a dream from my memory’. Victor faints at the sight of Clerval’s dead
body. This should have been the typical reaction for a women – Victor is feminised. This
creates the juxtaposition from the doppelgänger that Victor is feminist and the monster is
masculine (an example binary opposition too).

Horrifying Events or the Threat of Such Happenings

Gloom, Mystery, Suspense, the Dramatic, Macabre and Sensational

 (P25) ‘the shape of a man, but apparently of gigantic stature’. This is the first sight of the
monster which is a dramatic moment to the plot of the novel. Already, the reader can tell
this ‘thing’ is not normal and possesses abnormal qualities.
 P55 ‘I dabbled among the unhallowed damps of the grave or tortured the living animal to
animate the lifeless clay?’ Here, it is clear Frankenstein is obsessed with death with him
knowing that what he is about to do is cruel.
 P90 ‘graves of William and Justine, the first hapless victims to my unhallowed arts’. This
sets the reader up for Volume 2 because it foreshadows the monster as something that is
likely to kill again.
 P133 ‘Why did you form a monster so hideous that even you turned from me in disgust?’
This mimics when Adam complained to God in Paradise Lost.
 P138 ‘my feelings were those of rage and revenge’. The monster was born innocent.
However, with his bad experiences with humanity, he has turned vengeful towards them.
 P222 ‘I [monster] abhorred myself’. From everyone hating the monster has led the monster
to hating himself.

THE SUBLIME IN FRANKENSTEIN

‘Sublime’ refers to the effect of nature on the human -the beauty and/or terror of the scene
creates a sense of awe in the observer.
While the natural landscape ispresented as a place of tranquillity and beauty, it is also amidst
this naturalbeauty that Frankenstein’s monster confronts him and commits some of his
atrocities.

ANALYSIS OF MONSTER

Monstrous? We'll say. And when you take a closer look at this description, the real horror
seems to be the contrast: flowing black hair and white teeth juxtaposed with his shriveled face
and "straight black lips."

Unfortunately, Victor isn't the only one who's terrified of the monster on sight. The sweet,
gentle family he's been spying on in the forest falls to pieces when they see him: Agatha
faints, Safie runs away, and Felix beats him with a stick (15.37). Not a good beginning. Even
Walton, who knows the whole story, can't deal: "Never did I behold a vision so horrible as his
face," he says: "I shut my eyes involuntarily" (24.56).

Heart of Gold?

When the monster describes himself, it's all sunshine and light. He has visions of "amiable
and lovely creatures" keeping him company (15.11); he admires Agatha and Felix as
"superior beings" (12.17); he describes himself as having "good dispositions" and tells De
Lacey that "my life has been hitherto harmless and in some degree beneficial" (15.25); and he
uses "extreme labour" to rescue a young girl from drowning" (16.19). But no matter what he
does, his actions are always misinterpreted. Felix and Agatha think he's come to attack their
father; the public assumes he's trying to murder the young girl instead of rescuing her;
William Frankenstein assumes that he's going to kill him.

The moment he's accused of trying to murder the girl is a real turning point for the monster.

Essentially, Shelley seems to be saying that we (society) get the monsters we deserve. By
neglecting and shunning people with socially unacceptable appearances or behaviors, we
create mass murderers. If we accept the monster's word—that he was born good and made
evil—then one of the book's major moral points is that we as a society have a responsibility to
reach out to our outcast members.

But what if we saw the monster as a Romantic figure, too? Check out his description of
himself: If you leave out the bit about the "hideous" person, this is a pitch-perfect description
of a Romantic hero: a radically independent dude who won't let the man tell him what to do, a
kind of superhero who sets out to solve the mysteries of life.

Monster? Maybe. But if you closed your eyes, he'd sound a lot like a better version of
humanity.

Lone Ranger
But being a superhero isn't all it's cracked up to be. It's lonely at the top, and not just because
the monster is "shunned and hated by all mankind" (17.5). He's shunned and hated by all
womankind, too: "Shall each man," he says, "find a wife for his bosom, and each beast have
his mate, and I be alone?" (20.11). Even our cold hearts are touched by this plea. He begs
Frankenstein to make him a mate, and he really seems sincere when he says that he's just
planning to move to South America and eat "acorns and berries" (17.9).

Essentially, the monster has no community. Even Satan, he says, had fellow fallen angels—
but the monster is totally alone. No wonder he has a death wish.

Adam or Satan?

The Adam/ Satan duality is super important, because one of the monster's favorite books is
Paradise Lost. In Paradise Lost, Milton suggests that Satan is jealous of Adam for having Eve
and a sweet garden to live in. Sounds a lot like the monster, right? Sure.

Eating berries, living in the "wilds," sleeping in the leaves, not to mention being "created"
rather than born: it sounds a lot like Book 5 of Paradise Lost. So, which is it?

Well, both. The whole point (we think) is that the monster is both. He's both good and bad.
He's a little scientist, trying to figure out the secrets of life—and then setting fire to the ants
he's been studying with a microscope. (Figuratively, folks.) He loves people, but he hates
them. He wants to run away and live in the woods, and he just wants his mommy to love him.
In other words, he's a lot like us.