Essay on Structuralism as a Literary Movement

In Ellen Moers’ critical essay Female Gothic: The Monster’s Mother (1974) on Mary Shelley’s novel Frankenstein, she argues that Mary Shelley’s story is greatly influenced by her experience of motherhood. This essay uses the historical approach, biographical, and formalist approach at point. Moers references the cultural context of the novel, Mary Shelley’s experience as a woman and mother and how that influenced her writing, and focuses on the genre of the novel quite a bit.

In the article “Intertextuality and the Discourse Community” James Porter points out to the audience that there is no original piece or writing. Porter’s article addresses the concept of plagiarizing. He does not oppose that plagiarizing is wrong, rather he claims that it is inevitable. Porter argues that in all pieces of writing are intertexual. Intertexuality is the idea that all writings have traces and ideas from other past text. Intertextuality is important to completely understand a piece of writing.

Mary Shelley introduces the story of Frankenstein with an exchange of one-way letters from Walton to his sister. In these letters, Shelley introduces the main themes of the novel via the character of Walton and his letters, in that he presents many of the themes later explored in ‘Frankenstein’ such as thirst for knowledge and power, isolation and nature, in his own story. These opening letters thus have an impact on the reader as they will influence their view of the rest of the novel in ways that will bring them to ask themselves important questions valid for any are ad society, and bring them some understanding of what is to come next in the novel.

Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein has undoubtedly withstood the test of time. Frankenstein’s direct association with fundamental Gothic literature is extremely renowned. However, the novel’s originality is derived from the foundational thematic values found within the relationship (or lack there of) between Victor Frankenstein and the monster he had created, in combination with a fascinatingly captivating plot. Understandably, Frankenstein can often be associated with a multitude of concepts; however, in this particular instance, the circumstances in the book seemed remarkably coherent with Shelley’s Romantic beliefs in preserving the natural world, and one’s natural existence. These values present themselves as metaphorical symbols that

Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein has a very complex narrative structure: “the narratives seem to grow organically from one another”. Within the novel, Shelley weaves characters and their different narrative perspectives together, creating a cyclical, triplicate layout to the story. Her use of multiple narratives provides a range of perspectives on the story, allowing us insights to the

In chapter five, “When in Doubt, It’s from Shakespeare” talks about the reappearance of different well known figures in literature. Foster follows this by giving an idea that literature is made based on other literary stories. He states that one of the reasons why story borrowing occurs is because there is only one story and it’s the human experience. Book critics usually refer to the literary works and texts as ‘intertextually’. According to the author, intertextuality is sometimes used to challenge a reader. If the person reading the story can point out the similarities or repetitiveness in the text then the meaning will easily be revealed to them. In conclusion, being able to identify different meaning of literary text and analyze it gives

Acting as a cautionary tale against humanity’s materialistic desires, Frankenstein confirms that texts are shaped by their contexts as it conveys the deterioration of traditional social structure due to the 19thC Industrial Revolution. Shelley vilifies the decline of

Mary Shelly transformed the horror genre with her novel Frankenstein, a story focusing on death that was overcome by science and reanimation. Although essentially a horror novel, Shelly discusses the moral consequences of reanimating the dead and sheds light on the question of life and death itself. This focus on life and death, however, is paralleled by Shelly’s warning of how dangerous the desire of knowledge can become. The threat of science was a crucial theme for Romanticism, which did not support science’s connection to the natural world. The story Frankenstein was heavily influenced by Romantic themes, which focused on a connection to nature, an exploration of the imagination and sublime, an individual’s inner world and the exotic. Shelly’s Frankenstein, is consistent with these themes and creates a memorable story about reviving death. Before discussing how Romanticism was portrayed, it is necessary to state the ideological groundwork of this movement.

     Romantic writer Mary Shelley’s gothic novel Frankenstein does indeed do a lot more than simply tell story, and in this case, horrify and frighten the reader. Through her careful and deliberate construction of characters as representations of certain dominant beliefs, Shelley supports a value system and way of life that challenges those that prevailed in the late eighteenth century during the ‘Age of Reason’. Thus the novel can be said to be challenging prevailant ideologies, of which the dominant society was constructed, and endorsing many of the alternative views and thoughts of the society. Shelley can be said to be influenced by her mothers early feminist views, her father’s

Mary Shelley’s exemplification of various characters in Frankenstein is a reflection of social norms of the time. This is ever so evident through the character of the creature, as society’s disgust with him reflects society’s aspiration in customs. This rejection of the creature also reflects Shelley’s own society as they start rejecting the Enlightenment’s pursuit of knowledge after the age of Romanticism

In the Romantic novel Frankenstein by Mary Shelly, the selection in chapter five recounting the birth of Dr. Frankenstein’s monster plays a vital role in explaining the relationship between the doctor and his creation. Shelley’s use of literary contrast and Gothic diction eloquently set the scene of Frankenstein’s hard work and ambition coming to life, only to transform his way of thinking about the world forever with its first breath.

The novel Frankenstein, by Mary Shelley, was a piece written in 1817 during a time when women weren’t considered to be adequate authors. Shelley’s work is both intriguing as it is thought provoking. She brings to light the true nature of society and life altogether when tested. She factors in how the outside world can influence our choices in writing. George Levine from “The Ambiguous Heritage of Frankenstein” and Benjamin Truitt from “Frankenstein Critical Analysis and Literary Criticism” both share their opinions about Shelley’s piece of written work.

The horror classic novel Frankenstein has gathered a great deal of critical and commercial attention since first being introduced in 1818, and naturally there has been many academics who have analyzed many of the novel’s biggest themes, symbols, and motifs. This also includes in analyzing the author herself, Mary Shelley. Marcia Aldrich, who has her Ph.D. in English from the University of Washington, is one of the academics to underline the role of being a female writer in the 19th century and what importance this plays on the novel Frankenstein. In her article, co-written by Richard Isomaki, “The Woman Writer as Frankenstein” analyzes the significance of Mary Shelley being the daughter of a writer and how this contributed to her writing Frankenstein, which they speculate as her, Mary Shelley, envisioning herself as the Monster. Aldrich and Isomaki’s “The Woman Writer as Frankenstein” makes valid and persuasive points, which effectively argues that the novel is semi-autobiographical in the sense that Mary Shelley pictured her as the Frankenstein Monster, for many of the concerns that the authors bring up in their article highlight the insecurities, doubts, and inexorable frustrations of a young woman writing in the 19th century.

Many scholarly articles have found and appreciated that Jean Jacques Rousseau philosophies are present in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. Rousseau’s essay Discourse on Inequality and Origin of Languages can be directly correlated with the development of the creature in Frankenstein. While it is clear that Rousseau’s philosophies follow the transformation of the creature I sparked more of an interest in the philosophies of John Locke and connecting his philosophies with the transformation of the creature. John Locke’s Essay Concerning Human Understanding is also clear and is under appreciated in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein.

Romanticism, the literary movement that began in the late eighteenth century and gained strength during the Industrial revolution, emphasizes emotion, sublimity, and the significance of nature among other things. Writers during this time period wrote literature that was a clear reflection of Romanticism, and one of those authors was Mary Wollstonecraft Shelly. Her novel Frankenstein, which was published in 1818, incorporates different characteristics of Romanticism in many aspects but more directly through the characters. With an analysis of Victor Frankenstein, the monster, and Henry Clerval, it is clear that the characters of Frankenstein epitomize ideologies that were embodied during the Romantic Era including the Byronic hero, and emphasis on nature’s significance.