Frankenstein Rhetorical Analysis Essay

Frankenstein is full of ideas and warnings, which are relevant to a modern day audience; in what ways does Shelley explore. Frankenstein Coursework Q. Frankenstein is full of ideas and warnings, which are relevant to a modern day audience; in what ways does Shelley explore these ideas? The novel Frankenstein is set in the pre 1914’s, when there were theories on certain things that they did not understand. It is full of darkness and tragedy in some places.

“No human being could have passed a happier childhood than myself. My parents were possessed by the very spirit of kindness and indulgence. We felt that they were not the tyrants to rule our lot according to their caprice, but the agents and creators of all the many delights which we enjoyed. When I mingled with other families I distinctly discerned how peculiarly fortunate my lot was, and gratitude assisted the development of filial love.”

Mary Shelley makes us question who really the “monster” is. Is it the creature or Victor? While the creature does commit murder, he does not understand the consequences of his actions. He is like an infant who is unfortunately left to learn about the workings of society, and his place in it, on his own. He has no companions and feels a great sense of loneliness and abandonment. The creature voices his frustration and anger and seems to try to project his feelings of guilt onto Victor, as if to show him that he is the ultimate cause of the creature’s misery while he is simply the victim of Victor’s manic impulse. Shelley utilizes words, phrases, and specific tones when the creature vents his misery to Victor and this evokes, amongst the

Shelley uses Victor’s lack of humanity as a metaphor for mankind’s negligence of the dying essence of romanticism in the time the book was written. It is evident in the chapter where Victor uses the serenity of nature to attain tranquility in a troubled mind. The visual imagery created in Montanvert accentuates the

In the gothic novel Frankenstein, Mary Shelley weaves an intricate web of allusions through her characters’ expedient desires for knowledge. Both the actions of Frankenstein, as well as his monster allude to John Milton’s Paradise Lost. Book eight of Milton’s story relates the tale of Satan’s temptation and Eve’s fateful hunger for knowledge. The infamous Fall of Adam and Eve introduced the knowledge of good and evil into a previously pristine world. With one swift motion sin was birthed, and the perfection of the earth was swept away, leaving pain and malevolence in its wake. The troubles of Victor Frankenstein begin with his quest for knowledge, and end where all end: death. The characters in Frankenstein are a conglomeration of those

Page 1 of 2 Far away setting- “I accompanied the whale-fishers on several expeditions to the North Sea; I voluntarily endured cold, famine, thirst, and want of sleep; I often worked harder than the common sailors during the day and devoted my nights to the study of mathematics, the theory of medicine, and those branches of physical science from which a naval adventurer might derive the greatest practical advantage” (letter 1 Walton) Far away unexplored areas like the Artic were very mysterious to people of the 1700’s. This setting creates a tense feeling for the reader because they don’t know much about where the characters are and what could be hiding there. Dark and gloomy places- “We saw many ruined castles standing on the edges of precipices,

A common tactic used by many anti-slavery writers in the Romantic Era is “in speaking for and/or giving voice to an estranged or silenced other”, by giving the victim of the power struggle the rhetorical devices needed to gain power (Kitson, 519). Shelley gives the creature not just a voice, but an entire Volume of the book. However, she does this in an effort to reinforce the “moral superiority [which] means that [Frankenstein] will rarely question the validity of his own society’s formation and that he will not be inclined to expend any energy in understanding the worthless alterity of the colonized” (JanMohamed, 65). In other words, the creature’s words only reinforce the struggle of power between the creature and Frankenstein. Instead of giving a voice with which the creature can gain power, Shelley uses this voice to break the monster further by reinforcing the ideas of Frankenstein. Directly, Shelley allows Frankenstein to initially sympathize with the creature, whose “words had a strange effect upon me…[but] when I saw the filthy mass…my heart sickened and my feelings were altered to those of horror and hatred… I could not sympathize with him,” (Shelly, 103); but eventually, when the reality of the creature as a monster (and not a human) is recognized, Shelley leaves no room for sympathy. Not only does Frankenstein’s perception go against prominent anti-slavery writer Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s message that “no man is wicked without temptation, no man is wretched

When man decides to assume the role of God, consequences are bound to plague such an ambition. In the case of Victor Frankenstein, the protagonist in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, the product of such an ambition is a creature born of the dead. Despite the frightening process of his creation, the creature wakes into the world as a benevolent being. He simply longs for acceptance and friendship, but due to his unsightly features, the world is quick to condemn him as the monster he appears to be. With an unbearable sense of rejection in his heart, the monster begins to turn wicked. Soon enough he is responsible for multiple deaths in the name of revenge. Although many treat him unfairly, the monster is fully aware of his actions

Humans are known for bestowing their judgment irrationally and based on the “book cover” of a person, they may degrade their fellow human into the worst positions of the social ladder. Mary Shelley, in her novel Frankenstein, expands on this perspective by using mood and tone to parallel with the circumstances of an event occurring in her novel with shifts throughout the context of the book, symbolized by the changes in nature and seasons. This shift is made frequently between the agonized, desperate, frightful, maybe even suicidal mood and tone with the occurrence of dreadful acts of murder and execution, to the more calming, soothing, optimistic and life-full during a physical and spiritual recovery.

The word “knowledge” was recurring many times throughout Frankenstein novel and attracted or forced the reader to find out the true definition of it. Curiously, I decided to look up the definition of knowledge from the Webster 's Dictionary. It defines, “Knowledge: n. Understanding gained by actual experience; range of information; clear perception of truth; something learned and kept in the mind.” (Merriam-Webster Dictionary) I realized this word is very straightforward, but has many useful and different meanings to all of us. It is also powerful tool to determine and control the result of our judgment. “Knowledge consists in recognizing the difference between good and bad decisions”. (Knowledge Intellectual

In reading Frankenstein, by Mary Shelly, a motif of distance and separateness can be discerned from the text. In the structure of the narrative, the reader is distant from the action. The setting of the narrative is situated often in isolated and nearly inaccessible areas, creating separateness between the action of the story and the everyday world. The Frankenstein monster is remote compared to the rest of world by narrative structure, geographic area, and his namelessness.

From the moment Victor collected his specimens, time escaped him and ended up costing him two years of constant work. This was not apparent as the piece was paced normally, yet Shelley managed to alter time by summarizing Victor’s descent into madness and malnourishment. The altered chronology in the work provided an overall view on Victor’s life and development in this period of time. This contributes reason for his actions further on in the novel. It gives background to his newly developed personality without going too specific, and rather simply describing the struggle of creation and his dedication to this

Shelly achieves a feeling of horror by putting in the detail of the monster e.g. yellow skin scarcely covering the muscles. In paragraph three Shelly tells the reader that victors dreams had become a nightmare because Victor says all of his regrets and says nothing positive about the creation of the monster, this means he hated the monster and would not nurture it. In paragraphs four, five, six and seven shelly describes victor as a nervous wreck. Victor is becoming ill and he was really down. Victor says he has created a

I am currently in the mountains, on a cliff overlooking a deep valley. I am unsure of the year but the weather is chilly, so I assume it is autumn. I was once one of you but now, I am a mere outcast. The man responsible for my dreadful condition is named Dr. Victor Frankenstein. He and his dreadful creation have made my life irreversibly miserable. As justice, I have destroyed all those who have wronged me, all except that wretched Frankenstein. Allow me to relate the circumstances of my short lived life.

My feelings have changed from Very Sympathetic to Sympathetic and Antipathetic in between Chapters 5 and 6. The reason my feelings changed toward the creature is because he stated acting like a real monster in the beginning of Chapter 6. In Chapter 5, I still had sympathy for the creature, since he was helping a poor family with wood for fire since they they not have a stove for cooking or warmth and since he got beat up by some character while speaking to an old man. However, in Chapter 6, the creature starts acting more like a demon because he killed William, Victor's brother, and he burned down a house in which a family lived in. At this point, I was very antipathetic, but the creature also saved a women from drowning and got shot by a man,