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Separation Between the Narration in Response to Frankenstein Essay

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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. The reader must look through several lenses throughout the novel. The letters that begin the book are addressed to Mrs. Saville from Robert Walton. So already in the beginning, the reader is asked to participate in voyeurism, looking in on a world through letters …show more content…

The light of the story is passing through the lenses of Robert Walton, Victor Frankenstein, and finally the antagonist of the story: the nameless Frankenstein monster. Shelly gradually drops these lenses once again until we are back to Walton’s letters to Mrs. Saville. The three main lenses of this narration are also separate in space from the rest of humanity for the majority of this novel. Walton first sees the Frankenstein monster and then Victor on his voyage north into the ice. It is only these two creatures, and the adventurers of Walton’s crew that would travel this far away from the comfort and companionship of humanity. The first spoken encounter between Frankenstein and his monster occurs on the icy glacier in the Swiss Alps near the source of the Arveiron. After Victor’s ascent into the mountains he is confronted by the monster and is led to an even higher peak to the hut of the monster where the he begins his tale. The monster exists outside the sphere of humanity, right on the fringe. He spends his formative months in the woods or inside his hiding place outside the cottage of the exiled French Nationals. The only people who ever hear the monster are Victor, the blind father of the cottage, and William right before he dies. The rest of humanity, even if the monster tries to speak, is unable to hear him. The monster is so far from what is right and normal that the capacity for understanding is not within the grasp of normal human experience. The

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