Frankenstein Study Guide

This story starts out with letters from Captain Walton talking to his sister about a strange man they found on an iceberg. This strange man had a very dark and desolate story, and it was time it be told. This man was Victor Frankenstein. Frankenstein was a scientist with a dismal past, and it all started with a bolt of lighting. After seeing a bolt of lightning strike a tree by his home, Frankenstein became obsessed with electricity, and throughout the story, his obsession grew to include all kinds of social sciences and the like. This leads him to college, and eventually to the worst decision of his life.

The novel begins with an explorer, Robert Walton, writing letters to his sister about his travels to the North Pole. Connections to the novel are made within these letter through discussion of loneliness and a desire for companionship, passion for studies, etc… In the last letter, he writes to his sister about a stranger he found and helped and later on became friends with. This stranger later on is going to be known as Victor Frankenstein.

Frankenstein’s monster explores the world, realizing his loneliness and shaping the start of his rage towards Victor. Shelley

He is passionately committed to discovery and adventure. He wishes he had a friend with the same sensibilities and he says he is self-taught.

Miller's book, My Hideous Progeny, talks mostly of Shelley's relationship with her family, especially her father. Miller took a chapter to specifically discuss the parallels between Shelley's familial relationships and her novel, Frankenstein. Miller argues that Shelley combined her father, William Godwin, and her husband, Percy Shelley, into the character of Victor. She talks of how Shelley explores the concept of incest by this combination of her father and husband into one character. She also shows incest through Victor's dream of kissing Elizabeth and having her turn into his dead mother. "Frankenstein's

In Mary Shelley’s gothic novel, Frankenstein, three different positions are portrayed in the story of Victor Frankenstein’s creation. Shelley presents the story through letters that Robert Walton writes to his sister as he is hearing the retelling of the story from Frankenstein himself. While discovering Frankenstein’s and the Creature’s backstories, the reader witnesses the inevitable nature of man and the crucial effects of one’s environment; nurture is a problematic component in the Creature’s life while Victor’s inevitable nature overrides his upbringing.

“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.

1. The paradox that the creature sees in humankind is that humans can be glorified and worshipped at one point but, can later fall and have a downfall. The capricious nature of humans is what surprises the creature. This is shown when the creature is watching the De Laceys and the old man is reading a book, Ruins of An Empire about the Greeks and Romans and in both of these empires they both had a rise and then they both eventually fell. Also, he also learned how humans have many different sides to them on one hand they can be good and caring but also, learned that they can be evil and vicious towards one another.

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

Knowledge of the formerly unknown can lead to change in one’s character. This truth can be seen in both Dr. Victor Frankenstein and his monster in Mary Shelley's novel Frankenstein. This novel tells of an intelligent scientist who becomes obsessed with his work. He puts all other necessities below bringing life on seemingly unanimated life, which he later learns was more dangerous than expected. The story also features a monster, created from lifeless matter, who is abandoned by his creator. Because of this desertion, the monster comes to the unknown world with open arms, only to be tossed away by its cruelty. Because of both characters new understanding of subjects they were previously ignorant to, they exhibit drastic internal changes. These transformations are apparent

In chapter twelve of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, Frankenstein’s monster sees his reflection for the first time and is horrified by his own appearance, accepting that he is a monster. I was appalled when I read this because his demeanor in the previous chapters exemplified benevolence and curiosity, but never hostility or maliciousness. He is only deemed a monster based on his outward appearance when in reality, his knowledge is equivalent to that of a child. It is only when he accepts that he is a monster, when he is attacked in the woods, that he truly becomes a monster. Mary Shelley uses the treatment of Frankenstein’s monster to represent how society can have a big impact on how people see themselves.

The entire story is told through the letters of Robert Walton to his sister, Margaret Saville. Walton’s letters start and end the novel, which sets up the framework for Frankenstein. Walton shares a few similarities with the characters of Victor and the monster. For instance, much like Victor’s character, Walton has an inquisitive nature and he loves to explore. In his first letter he writes, “I shall satiate my ardent curiosity with the sight of a part of the world never before visited” (Shelley 16). While Victor has a deep interest in new sciences, Walton has an interest in exploring new places. This curiosity drives both men to take their interests to the limits. Walton’s character also shares some similarities with the

The outline of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein has been used in many movies, commercials, films and many more. The thrill and horror of the films are the reason why they're so popular still even today. In Mary Shelley’s 1994 horror film, Victor is in a lab with Alchemists and he soon starts to believe that he can “cheat death” by bringing the dead back to life. Victor finally tests it out when Waldman is murdered and dies a horrible death. Victor breaks into his laboratory and beings to work on his disgusting creation.

Frankenstein the Everlasting “Frankenstein the Modern Prometheus”, by Mary Shelley, is an occult science based novel that was published on January 1, 1818. “Frankenstein” was written during the romantic period and was greatly influenced by the scientific discoveries of the time, and specific experiences of Mary Shelley’s life. “Frankenstein” was written during the 18th century and could easily be considered the precursory spark that gave life to the Romanticist movement. The Romanticism movement could be described as an aesthetically exaggerated display of extreme points of view, agendas, and philosophical reasoning.

Frankenstein-Mary Shelley Discussion of my response to the central characters in this novel. Mary Shelley’s gothic novel, Frankenstein, was written during the romantic era, in 1816. It illustrates the fictional story of victor Frankenstein’s’ life while he was haunted by a similar, yet opposite, being of his own creation. The story is first set in Geneva and later England. Throughout the book Victor Frankenstein seems torn between the idea, is he at fault or is it fate?