Rhetorical Themes Used In Frankenstein By Mary Shelly

Mary Shelley’s view of human connections is portrayed through the monster’s actions. The monster is abandoned by his creator and isolated from the rest of society due to his appearance. The

Friends will determine the direction and quality of your life. Loneliness is a battle that all people will once face at a certain point in their life; it is how they handle it that determines the outcome of that battle. In Mary Shelley's Frankenstein loneliness is the most significant and prevailing theme throughout the entire novel. Shelley takes her readers on a wild journey that shows how loneliness can end in tragedy.

     There are many different themes expressed in Mary Shelly's Frankenstein. They vary with each reader but basically never change. These themes deal with the education that each character posses, the relationships formed or not formed in the novel, and the responsibility for ones own actions. This novel even with the age still has ideas that can be reasoned with even today.

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

Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein is book about the importance of human relationships and treating everyone with dignity and respect. The main character of the book is Victor Frankenstein who is a very intelligent man with a desire to create life in another being. After he completes his creation, he is horrified to find that what he has created is a monster. The monster is the ugliest, most disgusting creature that he has ever seen. Victor being sickened by his creation allows the monster to run off and become all alone in the world. Throughout Frankenstein, Mary Shelley uses the theme of human relationships to illustrate the bond that man has with other beings and the need for love and affection. The importance of human relationships

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

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.

Who is the real monster?” acts as the dominant question throughout the novel “Frankenstein” written by Mary Shelly as the reader explores the protagonist Victor Frankenstein and his nameless creation. As the novel progresses, the reader notices how the relationship between the two characters goes far beyond a neglectful creature and resentful creation, for the two influence the thoughts, actions and emotions of each other. Furthermore, the creature’s physical appearance acts as his purpose throughout the novel as well as a mirror of Victor Frankenstein’s true identity. Additionally, the creature’s lack of identity begins to initiate Frankenstein’s shame towards his own identity, revealing the flawed character of Frankenstein and determining the resolution to the question “Who is the true monster? Who is the true catalyst of destruction?” During the novel, the reader is able to identify the creature as the most effective foil for Victor Frankenstein because the creature causes: Frankenstein to view the action of the creature as his own work, the shift between pride and shame in Frankenstein, and his physical appearance demonstrates his purpose to reveal the true character of Victor Frankenstein.

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley has a simple origin, compared to other stories. While stories such as It by Stephen king started a several year process of creation, Frankenstein began simply as a campfire story Mary Shelley shared with her writer friends one evening. Although the origins of this novel are fairly simple, it provides an in depth psychological perspective on the darker side of human psyche through the shifting first person perspective. Usually these darker aspects are associated with the character’s personal struggles, but one specific theme in all the characters. The theme of obsession has been consistent and the central focus of the three main characters Victor, the creature, and Robert. With this central theme in mind the author, Mary Shelley shows that obsession leads to the characters suffering negative psychological and physical effects, as well as impair their decision making. This is depicted through the decline of physical and mental health through Victor’s struggles with his obsessions with knowledge and justice.

The novel Frankenstein, written by Mary Shelley, is a captivating story about a man, Victor Frankenstein, who becomes extremely obsessed with knowledge. Frankenstein learns all that there is to know about science, at the time that the story takes place, and then he attempts to make life. Frankenstein was successful with his first attempt at creating life, even so that his own creation scared the living daylights out of him. The novel is about the monster running around trying to fit into society, but he cannot, because he does not look like a normal person. Mary Shelley wrote Frankenstein to prove a point that, sadly, society will judge a book based on its cover, and not accept a person if that person does not look like everyone else.

In the Romance novel Frankenstein by Mary Shelley she illustrates themes of innocence and revenge. The book focuses on a wild scientist named Victor Frankenstein. The novel goes through many stories and perspectives on the life of Frankenstein's creation. Throughout the novel the monster tries to prove to the society that he is not a horrible creature and that his physical attributes do not represent him. Although he tries hard to accomplish this goal, society does not believe him so the monster decides to get revenge on Frankenstein. The society is responsible for the deaths that occurred in the novel because they assumed he was a certain way based on his looks, their violent towards him, and they mentally hurt him with their words which turn him evil and make him obsessed with revenge.

The novel Frankenstein by Mary Shelley still contains many relevant themes and warnings. A theme that relates to the research our class did is don’t create things that can destroy you as seen in Frankenstein, Ex Machina, and AI development. A theme from the novel is that poor parenting can lead to misbehaved and crazy children which is seen through Frankenstein going crazy partly because he has no one to raise him. So, the novel Frankenstein still contains many relevant themes and warnings.

Mary Shelley included multiple themes in her novel Frankenstein. All of which were relevant in the time period the novel was written. The varying themes in Shelley’s Frankenstein address the danger of knowledge, loneliness, and regret. The danger of knowledge is the most prominent theme, and effects more than just one character in the novel. Victor Frankenstein, the creator of the monster, is one of the characters that realizes too much knowledge is not a good thing.

Throughout Frankenstein, Mary Shelley creates an idea that without human connections the lives of individuals and society as a whole would suffer dramatically through her dynamic characters and their contrasts with the monster. She demonstrates that companionship is a natural necessity for all living things by describing Clerval’s effect on Victor. The idea that the roles of paternal figures influences all creatures and their interests is also portrayed in the novel. Both relationships of friendship and creator with creation not only has an effect on the individual, but also all of society, as Shelly shows that one’s decision can affect the world around them.