Erin Lashley
Kathryn Schroder
English IV Honours
6 December 2016
The Landscapes of Frankenstein
Gothic stories often display extreme landscapes, power struggles, and passionate characters, all of which Mary Shelley includes in her novel Frankenstein. By including these in her writing, Shelley has expanded her metaphors to help the reader gain extra knowledge about both of her main characters, Victor Frankenstein and the Monster.
From the opening landscape, the reader begins to get the feeling that this will be an interesting story. A man found wandering the North Pole, who the reader later learns is Victor Frankenstein, suffers through sub-freezing temperatures, intense winds, lack of adequate food and water, and an exhausting lack of
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No matter how much he learns about the world and about himself, he will always be treated as an outcast and as a monster. He no longer trusts humans, as his attempts at friendship were ruined due to his hideous and intimidating appearance. He tries to befriend an old man, but the family chases him off. He tries rescuing a little girl, but her father shoots him. He tries talking to a passerby, but once he discovers he is the brother of his creator, he kills him in his rage and blames another. Because of what he has learned since his creation, the Monster pleads with Frankenstein. He tries to explain his loneliness, and feels as though a companion who would share the same disconnect from the rest of the world would be the only one who could be able to understand him.
While working on his second Monster, Frankenstein moves to the Orkneys for solitude. He joins the five inhabitants, rents out one of the three huts there, and begins to work. He soon realizes that although his first experiment brought him enthusiasm and excitement, his new project sickens him and fills him with dread. With the cold wind whipping around the small island, he decides that bringing another Monster into the world is not worth it, no matter the consequences. The reader sees the power struggle between the two - the creator versus the created. Frankenstein feels as though he owes it to the world to never repeat his mistake, while
The consequences of isolation can be both physical and emotional. For the characters in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, isolation does both in varying degrees.Through Victor’s self-destructive path for knowledge and revenge, the creature’s descent from curiosity and benevolence to misery and revenge, and Walton’s journey to the Arctic, Mary Shelley explores the theme of isolation in that whether it is intentional or not, isolation only leads to negative consequences.
In Mary Shelley’s novel, Frankenstein, the unnamed creature brings terror to civilians and commits horrific acts against his creator, Victor Frankenstein. However, his redeemable acts of kindness makes his character morally ambiguous. He struggles between doing well and causing trouble because of isolation, the excerpts of society, and his pursuit for love.
In Frankenstein, Mary Shelley emphasizes that Frankenstein’s Monster was a sad and extremely lonely creature. At the beginning of the book, Frankenstein’s Monster tried to communicate, connect, and socialize with people; however, the whole village was terrified of him, and even his own creator ran away and left him
Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, illustrates an interesting story focusing in on many different themes, but what most readers may miss, is the similarities between Victor Frankenstein and the creature he created. As the story develops, one may pick up on these similarities more and more. This is portrayed through their feelings of isolation, thirst for revenge, their bold attempt to play god, and also their hunger to obtain knowledge. These are all displayed through a series of both the actions and the words of Frankenstein and his creature.
“I was a poor, helpless, miserable wretch; I knew, and could distinguish, nothing; but feeling pain invade me on all sides, I sat down and wept” (Shelley 91). In Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, Mary depicts a hideous, macabre, creature as one of the main characters, who seeks to discover and connect with the unknown world that it has been born into. The creator, Victor Frankenstein, studies life cycle of human beings, ultimately learning the secret of creation through unnatural means. These experiments result in a monster, who must to learn and grow in consciousness, much as an infant would awaken gradually to life. He is, at first, overwhelmed by new sensations, experiencing hunger, thirst, and exhaustion. The monster begins on a clean slate, starting in his adolescence, but experiences continuous vulgar abuse from beings who show to be quick to judge. Though the monster proves to have a positive heart initially, maltreatment gradually changes his response to people and causes him to react negatively to negative stimuli from experiences and necessity. The creature’s response to society is constructed through the mistreatment by Victor Frankenstein, the DeLacey family’s rejection, and his first meeting with Victor Frankenstein in the Alps.
The character is bold and majestic demonstrated when he rejects his duties and responsibilities and goes to the country side where there is peace and nature which contradict widely with his bothered mind. It is clear that nature is significant in Frankenstein’s life. There is sympathy for the creature because there is great significance on the power of nature that people would not complicate life and there would be more sensations and empathy for each other. It is clear that a child’s innocence is corrupted by evil acts due to victimization at some point in their
Originally able to persuade his creator to create a companion, the monster follows Frankenstein to a remote island to see its wish realized; near completion, Frankenstein destroys his work to prevent a potential “race of demons” in addition to the monster’s one chance at beating loneliness. Victor’s negligence toward his creation throughout the novel arguably turned it wicked, leading to the monster’s strangling of William, the framing of Justine, the murder of Henry Clerval and Elizabeth, and the inadvertent death of Alphonse. While the monster has a lengthy death toll, its innocence and kindness are shown through its reaction to spring and the elements, willingness to learn, collection of wood and admiration for the cottagers, enjoyment of books such as Paradise Lost, and the friendly recollection of the family that rejected it despite the kindness it had shown to them. The bad acts interact with the good revealed the monster to be human, with the capacity to commit both extremes. The seriousness of its murderous rampage was dulled by its kindness and desperation for a companion. If Victor had accepted responsibility for his creation and tended to it, all horrid acts might have been avoided
The monster is in need of help from his creator, for he is new to the world and does not know anything about living yet, but instead, he has nobody and is forced to figure life out by himself. Readers understand the monster’s emotion because he says “I sat down and wept”. By understanding his emotion, it will cause readers to feel sympathy for him. This also proves one of the larger themes of the novel, that people should treat others with empathy, because as his creator, Frankenstein should have been able to understand and share his feelings, for he was often alone and left to teach and fend for himself during his studies. Frankenstein’s reject to his creation is what caused the monster to feel so alone, and ultimately, what led to both of their destructions.
He is beaten and utterly rejected by the family which he loves and wishes to be a part of, his only connection to human society. Filled with “feelings of revenge and hatred” and “a kind of insanity…that burst all bounds of reason and reflection” for the first time, the monster burns the cottage, signaling a turn from the kind and loving character he once was (Shelley 127, 128). Moreover, when he saves a little girl from drowning and then approaches her and the man accompanying her, perhaps trying to connect with them, the man shoots him. His act of kindness is unappreciated, and his attempt to be accepted by mankind fails again. The monster swears to revenge himself against all human beings in order to “compensate for the outrages and anguish I had endured” (Shelley 130). At this point, the monster still has hope, as shown by him approaching William, assuming that he is “unprejudiced and had lived too short a time to have imbibed a horror of deformity” (Shelley 131). Unfortunately, he is rejected again, and this failure shatters his last hope to connect with human society. Learning that William is a part of Frankenstein’s family, he murders William and frames Justine as the murderer, carrying out the first step of his revenge against mankind, Victor in particular. When he finally
Frankenstein is a novel by Mary Shelley that challenges the reader to consider what it really means to be human, specifically when impacted by loneliness and isolation. In the opening letters of Frankenstein, Captain Robert Walton craves a real connection with someone while out at sea, and feels sad and isolated as a result. Later in the novel, Victor Frankenstein is disconnected from the outside world and feels misunderstood, so he recreates life in his isolation. Most importantly, however, the creature is provoked by his isolation and loneliness to act out against the world around him. His actions are driven by his experiences with humanity, and although he is not actually a human, the creature experiences real human emotions. The creature desires to be accepted, loved, and understood, and when these desires become unattainable, he feels lonely, bitter, and angry, just as any human would.
In the novel, the shift from summer to winter could be read as a representation of Frankenstein's characteristics. In addition, the transition from a warm to a cold climate might be a warning to the readers that the story may have a sad end. At the beginning of the story, there are
As shown in Frankenstein, Mary Shelley uses the different elements of gothic literature to show that there are limits to what mankind is meant to know. The element of man as his own worst is often used to show what happens when Frankenstein gains more knowledge than he is suppose to have. Violence and horror are each results to Frankenstein's over ambition like the death of many of his loved ones. This then leads to the mystery and supernatural elements of gothic literature that appear throughout the book. At last, the sublime nature displayed conveys the mood and feelings of each character.
Mary Shelley creates a sense of gloom, mystery, and suspense, in her novel Frankenstein. The book generates these perceptions though the setting and the terrible events that go on throughout the book. Gothic novels came from the English genre of fiction popular in the 18th and 19th centuries. Gothics are defined by the mysterious and horrific atmosphere, similar to that of Mary Shelley’s writing. Frankenstein is a gothic novel because of the combined elements of extreme and sinister landscapes, horrifying events, supernatural elements, and a passionate, wilful villain.
Even though it is mysterious and cannot be fathomed, just like Romanticism, the mystery in Gothic Literature is horrific, while in Romanticism it is beautiful. Gothic fiction relates to prudishness (especially in the Victorian era) as it focuses on taboo subjects, such as: sex, vice, and murder. Therefore, it is, to great extent, going beyond peoples emotional limitations. To add to that, the typical feature of Gothic Literature would be expressing nature in the threat of monsters, ghosts, or in other words, supernatural forces conflicting with humanity. On the whole, a great representation of these gothic and romantic influences would be the novel Frankenstein (or The Modern Prometheus) by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, which was published in 1818 and written during the Romantic Period.
Gothic Literature is a style of literature popularized during the late 18th century and the early 19th century with the publication of Frankenstein by Mary Shelley. This style usually portrays fantastic tales dealing with the horror, despair, the grotesque and other “dark” subjects. Characteristics of gothic literature includes the presence of victims and their victimizers who usually hold immense powers along with their evil purpose. The setting of this kind of literature generally takes place within impenetrable walls, whether physical or mental. This setting creates a sense of hopeless isolation within the victim. The summarization of the characters and situation creates an atmosphere pervaded by a sense of mystery, darkness, oppressiveness, fear, and doom.