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Attitudes Toward Nature In Mary Shelley's Frankenstein

Decent Essays

Mary Shelley exemplifies the Romanticism ideas of the love and reverence for nature in the excerpt from her novel, Frankenstein. The narrator of the excerpt, Victor Frankenstein, employs naturalistic imagery, abstract diction, and cumulative sentences to convey his attitude that nature is rejuvenating and restoring. The narrator utilizes naturalistic imagery to illustrate his attitude towards nature. As Frankenstein is travelling through the mountains he describes the scene around him. He describes the “vast mountains” and “icy wall of the glacier,” which creates the image of the “solemn silence” of nature. That image provokes the feeling of reverence and awe for nature because in silence the narrator can take in all the sounds and beauty of what is around him. Frankenstein then goes on to say how these scenes gave him the “greatest consolation,” which reveals his attitude towards nature and how he believes it is rejuvenating because it is lifting his spirits and comforting him when it is implied he is upset over something. Furthermore the narrator reflects on all the images he took in on his day of travelling, “the unstained snowy mountaintop, the glittering pinnacle, the pine woods, the eagle.” …show more content…

Abstract diction such as “sublime,” “magnificent,” “tranquillised,” and “majestic” portrays the feeling that one cannot fully comprehend or describe nature, but that the mood when one is surrounded by it is of awe and love for it. The narrator’s usage of these abstract words also highlight his own attitude toward nature. As he gazes on the “sublime and magnificent scenes” around him, he is serene and rejuvenated by them, depicting his attitude of the restorative effects that nature has on people, because one can imply from the text that the narrator was melancholy over something, but being out in nature has restored his

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