Critical Analysis of the First Four Letters of ‘Frankenstein’

Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein has several literary devices- such as structure, imagery, and many intricate details. She perfectly places words and puts them in such a way that the passage has a dual tone. Shelley begins with establishing the monster’s nature as being peaceful, because he wanted to reason with Victor. Him wanting to reason shows the importance of his decision to meet with Victor and shows that even though he has been through a great deal, he is still respectable to others. The audience gets to see the creature’s humble nature and makes the audience feel sympathetic towards him. This creates a peaceful tone to the passage. The monster wants to be loved by “any being and if they showed benevolence to me, I would return them hundred an hundred fold” (Shelley 148). The creature’s begging makes it sound like Victor will answer his plea. Using a broad term like “being”, demonstrates the monster’s need to be loved, putting him in a position with the audience again feeling empathetic towards him. Eventually, Victor’s compassion begins to fluctuate. The desperation the creature has looks like the desperation a human might have. This only gives the readers another reason to relate to him which leads to the other tone, impossible. Victor’s unreasonableness heightens this shared discontent as not only has the build up of the creature’s wistful nature made him an utmost identifiable character, but our views are adjusted in such as way that Frankenstein is seen

Friends will determine the direction and quality of your life. Loneliness is a battle that all people will once face at a certain point in their life; it is how they handle it that determines the outcome of that battle. In Mary Shelley's Frankenstein loneliness is the most significant and prevailing theme throughout the entire novel. Shelley takes her readers on a wild journey that shows how loneliness can end in tragedy.

Walton is isolated in different ways: his boat is stuck in the ice, in the middle of nowhere up north, and he is also isolated because “I have no friend”. The first type of seclusion, “encompassed as I am by frost and snow”, is one that is also found later on in the novel when Frankenstein would lock himself away to create his monster for example, and mirrors Walton’s state of mind, thus being loneliness. Consequently both types of separations are greatly linked. However, the lonely seclusion of having no friends is the most prominent and important in this novel. Shelley stresses this idea by having Walton communicate his constant desire for “the company of a man who could sympathise with me” and how he “bitterly feels the want of a friend”. This theme is also crucial in the play as Walton’s desire at the beginning of the novel, will then be echoed by the monster’s request to his creator for a companion which, by his refusal, ignites the feeling of revenge in the monster. Furthermore, this theme of isolation is key in the story also because, it plays a great part in why Walton welcomes Frankenstein on his ship in the hope of making a friend. Walton even declare that “my affection for the guest increases every day” despite him being miserable and mysterious. This idea that Walton feels deep liking for a guest he knows nothing about yet accentuates his social isolation as his desire for a friend is so strong, that he would be ready to befriend a complete stranger thus clouding his judgement on hearing Frankenstein’s story. This thus influence the reader’s view of the rest of the novel as we begin to doubt the reliability of the narrator thus picturing Frankenstein in an even more negative light throughout the

The novel Frankenstein; or the Modern Prometheus cannot be categorized into only one genre because it has various features of different genres. It is certainly a tragedy. Although the core narration starts with a story of how Frankenstein’s father meets and marries the protagonist’s mother, she first has to endure the death of her father called Beaufort. Thus, the novel already begins as a tragic exposition. As a result, the narrative fiction ends with almost everyone including the protagonist and the antagonist as dead.

On October 19, 2017, I went to the Black Box Theatre at Lee High School in Huntsville, Alabama to see Young Frankenstein. The Independent Musical Production Incorporated produced the play. The play was Directed by Vivianne Atkins and Peter-John Sligting. Newt Johnson was the Musical Director. Upon arriving at the theater there was prerecorded music playing in the auditorium. Theme music from Halloween and the sound of thunder could be heard as guest were awaiting the opening of the show. The musical was presented on a Proscenium stage which controls the point of view of the audience, with an Orchestra just in front and below the stage. The sight lines were great and all of the seats in the auditorium allowed for a fantastic view of the stage. The title of the play, Young Frankenstein was visible thru a scrim and revealed the castle were Frankenstein lived. There were lighting strikes that could also been seen thru the scrim. The direction that the light hit the scrim and the spread were perfectly done. I found the way the title behind the scrim, along with the music playing in the background very appealing and proper for a play about Frankenstein. The mass, color and décor were perfectly done for the opening act.

“He is dead who called me into being; and when I shall be no more, the very remembrance of us both will speedily vanish. I shall no longer see the sun or stars, or feel the winds play on my cheeks. Light, feeling, and sense, will pass away; and in this condition must I find my happiness.”(161)

Victor Frankenstein and Robert Walton’s creation holds the intention to make them almost the exact same person. Both men search for fame, yet refer to it as a, “quest for knowledge.” Unfortunately the need for fame leads to an over-dedication to research, obsessive tendencies, and injuring those who surround the men. Walton speaks of his ongoing journey to Frankenstein and says he would, “...sacrifice [his] fortune, [his] existence, [ his] every hope to the furtherance of [his] enterprise. One man’s life or death were but a small price to pay for the acquirement of knowledge which [he] sought…”(22) Also, Frankenstein admits his studies took priority when he says, “my cheek had grown pale with study, and my person had become emaciated with confinement… [it] caused me to forget those friends who were so many miles absent”(44) While Walton chose his expedition over his crew, Frankenstein chose his creature over himself and his family. Frankenstein’s decisions ruin his life, and if Walton kept his expedition on the intended course he would have an extremely high chance of ruining his life as well. The men’s similarities help the reader understand Walton truly does have the potential to destroy his life just like Frankenstein does. If not for Frankenstein’s cautionary tale Walton would have continued on even if it meant the potential danger of running into many more complications. Shelley decides to make the men extremely similar to let the few differences between them shine

Community in Frankenstein." Bloom 's Literary Reference Online [Facts On File News Services]. N.p., 2005. Web. 26 Apr. 2015.

Frankenstein was reflecting on his past when he shares his guidance of knowledge to Walton. He was thinking about his mistake and how different his life would be if he were not creating the monster. He was passing this helpful knowledge onto Walton, hoping that Walton would learn from his mistake or it would help Walton to understand the power of using knowledge unreasonably. Surely, Walton was able to learn from Frankenstein‘s advice and thus prevent his crew from enduring cruel death by turning back and leaving his ambition behind. “I cannot lead them unwillingly to danger, and must return.” (Shelly, Walton, in CONTINUATION, p. 161) Walton was a seeker who learned the limits of seeking.

Fictionally, the greatest-written villains in history possess attributes that give them cause for their behavior, with the most universal and essential of these core traits being a deep, personal backstory behind their acts. For instance, in classic stories like Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, the Monster presents thorough reason to its Creator in terms of why it has turned to wickedness. The Monster does not kill purely for the sake of being evil, its actions are resulted from its desire to be loved by man, yet failing at every attempt to achieve it. Motivation behind monstrous acts is necessary in works of fiction because non-fictionally, people labeled as monsters by society possesses motivation behind their actions as well, whether it be

A family is the most important and fundamental processes of development in childhood. There are many examples of works that deal with family. In Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, the reader sees how neglection from a family setting can invoke horrible events. In The Fifth Child by Doris Lessing, presents how Isolation and dislike can and will lead to unfortunate events. In Macbeth by Shakespeare, shows the betrayal of a family and how it affects the mind by playing with it in several different ways. Before a person can see effects of isolations, neglection, and betrayal of a family he/she must “climb into his skin and walk around in it.”

My definition of romanticism is when nature played a huge part to all the great artists and writers of the time. The Period of romanticism took place during the 1800s when individuals put emotion into their work and cared about education, literature, and natural history. The true romantics wanted to escape the industrial age and move away from urbanization and population in general. The romantic revolution paved the way for many writers and artists because people felt free and it gave inspiration for original ideas. Some of the great novelists surfaced during the Romanic age, one of which was marry shelly who wrote Frankenstein a masterpiece during its time.

Frankenstein is a novel that gives readers an opportunity to imagine a world very different and unique from their current one. One where man can in fact create a creature who exhibits human like qualities such as loneliness, kindness, intelligence and anger even if it looks like a monster. Mary Shelley does a fantastic job in writing a work of fiction that is filled with imagination, mystery, knowledge of human anatomy, loss and love. Many critics find the novel Frankenstein to be a great work of literature and believe Mary Shelley does a wonderful job in writing this beautiful novel. The Edinburgh Magazine and Literary Miscellany; A New Series of the “The Scots Magazine” included a review of the work edited by Shanon Lawson describing the novel as “the highest style of caricature and exaggeration.” The Edinburgh Review or the Critical Journal was a Scottish Magazine that was published from 1802-1929. This magazine provided literary and political criticism making it very prestigious during that time “contributing to the development of the modern periodical of literary criticism” (Encyclopedia Britannica). The Edinburg Magazine effectively argues that Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein is a beautifully written fiction novel that also has some reality attached to it.

Possibly the most significant trait that connects Victor Frankenstein and Robert Walton is the desire to have knowledge of the forbidden, a theme that is echoed throughout Shelley 's book. During Shelley 's time, industrialization and science began advancing at unfathomable rates and Shelley feared that these innovations were in some ways inhuman and that boundaries should exist of what man truly requires knowing. Thus, she created two parallel characters to illustrate the different paths the search of forbidden knowledge produces, whether it is a science that resembles sorcery, or uncharted territories covered with impenetrable ice. Victor will stop at nothing to pursuit this forbidden knowledge and explains, "Curiosity, earnest research to learn the hidden laws of nature, gladness akin to rapture, as they were unfolded to me, are among the earliest sensations I can remember." However, his endless search to create life ironically triggers the destruction of lives, including his and the monster 's. He even symbolically hunts the creature, the product of his own doing, to stop the destruction he has spawned. He explains:

Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein is a literary classic that tells a story of a young scientist Victor Frankenstein who created a monster that tries to live in society but is rejected. The monster will later seek revenge by going after his creator. In this essay I will be evaluating two critiques about the novel. Beginning with Professor Naomi Hetherington’s critique and the second critique written by Professor Sherry Ginn.