Nature And Mood In Mary Shelley's Frankenstein

Shelley depicts the romantic’s love for nature and the desire to understand and acquire nature’s power. Frankenstein finds comfort when he is at his lowest, but at the same time, he is horrified by his creation and its quest for revenge.

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.

To be able to feel sympathy, humans first must be able to read into and understand another’s emotions. Mary Shelley uses this human aspect in her novel Frankenstein, as readers’ emotions are played. Set in the early 1900s, the novel is a recount of Victor Frankenstein’s life as he tells it to Robert Walter, a man leading an exploration to the North Pole. Frankenstein starts his narrative explaining how he was a very curious child, and eventually went off to college and conducted an experiment on his own. Frankenstein ended up creating a monster, which changed Frankenstein’s life for the worse. In Mary Shelley’s novel, Frankenstein’s monster earns the reader’s sympathy and pity because after being rejected by his creator he is forced to

One major theme that comes up repeatedly is the effects of nature and how it contributes to the characters. The effects of nature shapes many characters. The novel Frankenstein, the author uses nature as a way to reflect different character’s feeling and emotions throughout the book. Victor Frankenstein applies nature as his subsistence as a way to undergo his stress and

Although the Creature in Frankenstein is often referred to as Frankenstein’s Monster or simply, The Monster, he is not necessarily a truly monstrous creation. But rather the true monster is determined by the reader as Mary Shelley raises the question, “Who is the true monster?”. Although this question is never directly posed to the reader, it is something that one thinks about while reading. Upon beginning the novel, the reader believes that they already have the answer to this question as it has been popularized that the creature is the truly monstrous being due to his portrayal in popular culture. However, Mary Shelley offers many answers to this question throughout the book through many subtle statements.

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley is a profound book that showcases the human quest for knowledge, scientific curiosity, discovery and creation that can lead to consequences that have an unintended and broad impact on the individual and society at large. Throughout the book and following the main narrative's letters, Robert Walton demonstrates his desire to go beyond any other human explorer by attempting to reach the North Pole. Robert Walton is the captain of the ship heading to the North Pole who discovers Victor Frankenstein, nurtures him back to health and hears Victor’s story of his creation of "the monster”. Victor Frankenstein is a brilliant scientist who is alike Robert Walton, due to the fact that he wanted to unlock the secrets of life

Robert Walton serves a great purpose in Mary Shelley’s novel, Frankenstein. First and foremost, Walton acts as a sort of doppelganger to Frankenstein. Both men have a strong curiosity and a mind that allows them to push great limits of knowledge to follow through on this curiosity. They are both, in their own prospects, the first people to witness something newfound; Walton wanting to push the limits of travel to find the North Pole, and Frankenstein wanting to push the limits of science to create artificial life. Though both men may be very similar in the lives they lead, this is not the main purpose for the introduction of Walton into the novel. The novel both opens and ends with letters by Walton, and a writer going by the alias ‘N.G.1988’ decided to analyze the possible reasons Shelley included Walton’s letters to enclose the story of Dr. Frankenstein.

The power of Mother Nature, it is indeed a power that cannot be matched, it is truly all powerful as it is also one of the true shapers of human nature. Human nature serves as a very powerful behaviour controller as it is the cause for many human actions, however this nature is taken further by Mother Nature, both co-exist in balance, but often times such balance can be disturb and it is at such point where human nature can be taken to extremes and vice versa. Likewise such concept of nature is well documented within the extraordinary pages of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. Within Shelley’s novel one can truly see the coexistence of nature at its best, it serves as almost as a therapeutic concept since without a doubt most of the characters

“And so being young and dipped in folly I fell in love with melancholy.” This quote by Edgar Allan Poe relates to the main characters in Mary Shelley 's Frankenstein. Robert Walton and the Creature represent different stages in Victor Frankenstein’s life. Robert represents Victor’s younger self, and the Creature represents Victor’s future self. Robert represents Victor’s past self because they both want glory, they  love to learn and have a similar sister figure in their upbringing. The Creature represents Victor’s future self because they both have emotional outbursts, the more they learned the more they destroyed

Frankenstein was a gruesome creature created in a laboratory out of old, miscellaneous body parts. Victor, Frankenstein’s creator, feels that he is omniscient in the field of science and irrational attempts to “play God” in order to create his monster. Shelley uses supernatural elements in the novel by having Victor construct a monster and “raise him from the dead.” This dreadful creature provides an intense element of fright and terror to the novel which contributes to its gothic aspects.

The obsession he had with science led to the creation of his monster. Knowing that the monster is a direct result of Dr. Frankenstein’s scientific curiosity and experiments, the monster can be viewed as a symbol for the result of man trying to create life, or destruction. Shelley is criticizing science here, pointing out that the obsession of science can lead to man acting highly unethical, such as digging up dead bodies and reassembling them, ultimately man’s own destruction, which is exactly what happened to Victor Frankenstein at the end of Shelley’s novel. This fear is not only present in the Romantic era. It is also apparent in the Victorian era, and can be found in the short story “The Body Snatcher” by Robert Louis Stevenson.

One of the themes in Chapter 10 is Sublime Nature, it gives Victor a spiritual purity. Since his hatred and madness for the monster he decides to take a path of nature up through the mountains alone with no one to guide him and he wanted to be set free. Since we know the “sublime and magnificent scenes afforded [victor] the greatest consolation”, natures scenic powerful images have the influence to change Victors mood. Nature has the ability to create a happy mood for victor and Shelley reveals that he his solitary with the absence of nature. British Romanticism emphasizes having a perspective of nature of which is full with “ with a sublime ecstasy and [gives] wings to the soul”, Shelley brings romanticism back in Chapter 10 representing Victors nature as his home which comparatively connects ties with his creation, the monster, because the monsters only place of acceptance is nature itself.

Throughout the world, nature is looked at as “Beautiful!” “Unique!” but it never goes beyond this. ” In Frankenstein nature plays a big role in which Mary Shelley illustrates characters who drives the reader to think about nature in both the outside world and the human mind. This is shown first through Victor’s narration and then the creature.

Robert's desire for a friend establishes a major connection to the theme: that being alone in the world creates the desire to have a circle of family and friends. Because of this desire, he wishes for a friend and constantly writes to his sister. Frankenstein’s creation is a very complicated character that puts a large controversy in every reader’s head. His true motivations are not easily detected, and even knowing his actions, the creature cannot be overlooked as one or the other: victim or antagonist.

Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein is often regarded as the first work of science fictions and one of greatest horror novels in the entirety of history. In Mary Shelly’s perspective, she wanted to write a novel that would bring out the mysterious fears of readers and awaken a thrilling kind of horror. However, throughout the novel, readers can see the loneliness of Victor Frankenstein’s creation as his seeming monster was deemed a societal outcast due to its repulsive features. Thus, if read carefully, readers can see the story of Frankenstein as the story of a monstrous and disastrous birth.