Sublime In Frankenstein Essay

The Castle of Otranto was written in 1764, by Horace Walpole. This novel is a Gothic novel, and I will be writing an essay about this novel to show, and explain how Gothic it is. I will be picking a specific character to explain and compare to another book to show how both are Gothic, but in their own way. This essay will seek and unfold the differences of Manfred in Otranto, and General Tilney in Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen. When Northanger Abbey was written is

The characterization of Victor’s creature, the monster, in the movie although somewhat dramatically different from Mary Shelley’s portrayal in the novel Frankenstein also had its similarities. Shelley’s views of the monster were to make him seem like a human being, while the movie made the monster out to be a hideous creation. The creature’s appearance and personality are two aspects that differ between the novel and movie while his intellectual and tender sides were portrayed the same.

Gothic literature, which is sometimes referred to as Gothic horror, is a genre that links horror and romance into one tale of ‘transgressing the boundaries’. Gothicism was unheard of until the late 1700’s, this movement into a new genre of literature. This was pioneered by the English author Horace Walpole, in his famous fictional book ‘The Castle of Otranto’, or as Walpole alternatively titled it ‘a Gothic story’. Horace Walpole himself had transgressed the boundaries slightly; by introducing this new style of writing he had added a whole new genre into literature. Walpole’s style of writing was unique and captivated the readers mind and

Gothic Literature includes a gloomy mood and a dramatic description throughout the story. Edgar Allen Poe’s “The Fall of the House of Usher” is a good example of Gothic Literature because it has a gloomy mood which helps the story feel more eerie and also contains a dramatic description which makes the reader feel as if they are in the moment and living the event. For example, in Poe’s story,”...but the first glimpse of the building a sense of insufferable gloom prevademy spirit.”(13). He sets a gloomy and dark mood which is one of the requirements for Gothic Literature and describes it in a way that makes everything sound like a crucial event. He explains the building using words such as “spirit”

In the novella Frankenstein, Mary Shelley uses geography to further the plot, reveal the true intentions of characters and convey the novella’s theme of sublime nature. The theme of sublime nature is the idea that nature is comprised of a mixture of terror and beauty. One example of sublime nature supported by geography is the monster, which is truly a terror in appearance and spirit being born in Ingolstadt. Shelly contrasts this “terror” of Ingolstadt to the beauty of Geneva, Frankenstein’s birthplace. Once the fruit of Frankenstein’s labor comes to fruition and the horrific monster is born, even Frankenstein himself is “unable to endure the aspect of the being” and attempts to cast it away and forget it (Shelley 101). The apparent

Romanticism began to make a great influence on art and literature during the eighteenth to the nineteenth century. Frankenstein was first published in 1818 during that period and the novel is flooded with Mary Shelley’s feelings of extreme good and bad emotions. English literature during the romanticism period is believed to be the most expressive in style, subject, and content. The discrepancy and chaos concerning the essential principles and competing philosophies were believed to be fascinating for several famous novelists along with poets that cited the Romantics as being their most eminent motivational voices. Romanticism in literary context means a movement in art and literature that depicts an emotional matter within an imaginative

[It] is sublime too.” Indeed, pure and utter terror is sublime for the vastness and power of its effect. According to Burke, the feeling of power, too, is sublime; even the actual feeling of being overpowered. This he compares to the concept of God: the fact that we love God despite being afraid of God and bowing down to the power He has over us, meek and humble servants in His presence. Our feelings of worship and loyalty are linked to fear.

The presence of the supernatural is employed to shape interpretation of the text and juxtapose it to dreaming to critic the abuse of absolute power. It allows repressed actions, thoughts and emotions to be communicated through the phenomenon of subconscious fantasy. It occurs in our minds whether or not we want it to and is not able to cross the boundaries into reality. Walpole ties this into his socially constructed idea of the gothic genre, the first recognized gothic, and uses it to exaggerate the story to the point of fictitious. We see how desires and fears are brought to life through supernatural elements of giants and prophecies.

Horace Walpole’s The Castle of Otranto, is acknowledged by many as the first gothic novel. It was the first of it’s kind and many of the conventions used by Walpole, which put it in a literary genre of it’s own, were continued by authors such as Ann Radcliffe and Matthew Lewis. Many of these defining characteristics can be seen within the very first few pages of the text and for the purposes of this essay, to identify some of these conventions used and the relevance of this text to modernity I shall focus this analysis on the passage between pages twenty-four and twenty-six from the Oxford World’s Classics edition.

Evaluation and Application: The Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole is one important gothic novel in which power has been presented as a cause of the sublime. In this novel sublime’s effects has been shown as both natural and institutional power in Manfred’s character. Manfred is naturally strength and violence. Strengthens and violence are the source of sublime since as Burke states; they come to mind with pain and terror (II, v).

As a conclusion, it has several features which belongs to gothic literature. In doing so, The Castle of Otranto is a perfect example of gothic

In his work A Philosophical Inquiry into the Origins of Our Feelings of the Sublime and Beautiful, philosopher Edmund Burke “whatever is fitted in any sort to excite the ideas of pain and danger, that is to say, whatever is in any sort terrible, or is conversant about terrible objects, or operates in a manner analogous to terror, is a source of the sublime" (Burke, 86).

The Castle of Otranto is a 1764 novel written by Horace Walpole. It is regarded as the first Gothic novel, initiating a new literary genre which became extremely popular in the late 18th and early 19th centuries.

Horace Walpole (1717-1797) invented the Gothic novel in his attempt to blend wildness and imagination of the old romance, in his own words "an attempt to blend the two kinds of romance, the ancient and the modern'' in one step altogether, the Castle of Otranto. A novel he claimed to have written immediately after being inspired by a dream, "I waked one morning...from a dream, of which all I could recover was, that I had thought myself in an ancient castle...I saw a gigantic hand in armour. In the evening I sat down and began to write" (Letter, 9th march 1765). On the other hand many would more quickly agree that the writing of this novel was a mere `specialized development of his taste as a virtuoso and collector' (Holt et al. 230). All

Gothic literature originated and was very strong at the time of the Romantic Writers Movement. They were very popular and had authors such as Horace Walpole who wrote “The Castle of Oranto”, and novels such as “Frankenstein” and “Dracula“. Gothic novels all had a similarity between each other. They always had typical Gothic features which alleviated the novel in one way or another. For example, most Gothic novels involved settings which generally added fear and suspense. They were always quite dark, scary and isolated. Also the characters of the Gothic novels never seemed to fit in the community and the society. They usually were handicapped, disabled or deformed