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How Does Mary Shelley Create a Sense of Dread and Horror Up to Chapter 5 in the Novel ‘Frankenstein’?

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How does Mary Shelley create a sense of dread and horror up to chapter 5 in the novel ‘Frankenstein’?

Mary Shelley wrote the novel Frankenstein. The novel is also known as the modern Prometheus. Mary Shelley, her husband Percy and Lord Byron went to Lake Geneva. Lord Byron challenged the group to a ghost story. After that Mary Shelley had a dream which then made her start writing her ghost story. Her dream was of a boy which made a machine, a man, which showed signs of life. Mary then had the basis of her story and went on to complete the novel in 1817 and published it in 1818, in London when she was 18 years old. Another thing which influenced Mary in writing Frankenstein was Jean Jacques Rousseau, a French philosopher, writer and …show more content…

You can tell it is a body he wants because unhallowed is when it is not empty, and the graves are not empty because they have dead bodies which could be slight wet because they are in the ground. He is raising a body from a grave in a dark graveyard to create a new life. This is how Shelley creates the dread in this gothic element in chapter 4. An atmosphere of mystery and suspense, were fear is often enhanced by the unknown. The terrible, gloomy weather creates suspense and are also metaphors for sorrow and distress. Some gothic novels also contain ancient prophecies which could be obscure, profound or confusing.

It could be omens, portents, visions or disturbing dreams like when Victor had a horrifying dream foreshadowing Elizabeth’s death. He was dreaming of Elizabeth who was healthy, but it turned out to be his mum corpse who he was kissing. Shelley creates the sense of horror here when Victor tells of his dream after he created his creation.
“I slept indeed, but I was disturbed by the wildest dreams. I thought I saw Elizabeth, in the bloom of health, walking in the streets of Ingolstadt. Delighted and surprised, I embraced her, but as soon as I imprinted the first kiss on her lips, they became livid with the hue of death; her features appeared to change, and I thought I held the corpse of my dead mother in my arms, a shroud enveloped her form, and I saw the grave-worms crawling in the folds of the flannel.” This was the horrifying dream which Victor

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