Weather And Mood In Mary Shelley's Frankenstein

Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein was published in 1818, and is now famous as one of the pioneering science fiction novels. Mary Shelley herself is sometimes even referred to as the mother of science fiction. While her work has been scrutinized numerous times by feminists and moral critics, in recent times ecologists have also been examining her novel. Ecocriticism, while still a relatively new field of criticism, is highly interested in how weather and natural events effected both the writing and plot of the novel. Ecocriticism of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein focuses on the weather in the novel itself, the eruption of the Tambora Volcano in 1815, and the monster as symbolism for weather in the early 1800s.

It is common throughout the novel that the existing weather reflects, and sharply influences, Victor’s mood(s). For example, the atmosphere surrounding the hut is cold and harsh when the creature concludes his tale and asks Victor to construct his companion. This creates meaning in the text because much like these inhospitable conditions, Victor’s heart is cold-blooded and calloused when it comes to the creature. Shelley’s reason behind the freezing cold temperature is not only to foreshadow Victor’s response, but to demonstrate the absence of color (warmth) and human sentimentality. In similar fashion, the pleasant weather in the valley of Chamounix is able to alleviate some of the guilt-ridden weight placed upon Victor’s shoulders from the outcome of Justine’s trial. With clear skies as their background, the pinnacles of the mountains and graceful flow of the waterfalls are effective in establishing a sense of fearlessness within Victor; the power of the topography

The monster, for example, is devastated after he loses his only connection to humanity: Felix and Agatha. After observing them for months, learning how to speak, being their secret helper by stocking their shed with food or shoveling snow, and after dreaming of how he would introduce himself to them someday, his connection with them was lost after Felix found him speaking to his blind grandfather in the cottage. When they all leave, the monster burns down the cottage and sets out to find Victor, in hopes of asking him to create another specimen; one that the monster can spend his life with in perfect harmony. When he finds Victor and tells him about his life and journey, he tells him, when the earth finally started to warm up, “I even raised my humid eyes with thankfulness towards the blessed sun which bestowed such joy upon me” (Shelly 125). Although the monster was terribly depressed, the sun (which is associated with spring and summer; it is meant to bring happiness and tranquility) lit up the Earth, bringing back its beauty after winter, which had caused the monster to feel “gall and bitterness…rage and misery’ (Shelly 124). The beauty that the sun bestows on the Earth offers as a distraction for the monster—rather than dwelling upon his gruesome appearance, he admires the world around him. As Foster explained, winter in literature brings with it misery, and summer brings happiness,

The creature was more human because it craved love and support from civilians. The creature says, “The more I saw them, the greater became my desire to claim their protection and kindness; my heart yearned to be known and loved by these amiable creatures,” which shows that he developed feelings and emotions towards people (Chapter 15, page 5). In the story, the creature finds a family of cottagers, which he watches from a distance. As he watches the family, he develops and understands the emotions of happiness, sadness, caring, and love. The creature’s development of emotions makes him more human because Dr. Frankenstein never seemed to care about anyone other than himself. Today, the creature would have the same emotions and feelings as other

"A Hermit is simply a person to whom society has failed to adjust itself." (Will Cuppy). In the gothic novel Frankenstein by Mary Shelley we follow the life of Victor Frankenstein in 18th century Germany. Shelley displays a recurring theme of isolation and how it drives once good people to do terrible things. If civilization does not adjust itself to a creature of any kind they will be forced into isolation and ultimately self destruction.

Every work is a product of its time. Indeed, we see that in Frankenstein, like in the world which produced its author, race, or the outward appearances on which that construct is based, determines much of the treatment received by those at all levels of its hierarchy. Within the work, Mary Shelley, its author, not only presents a racialized view of its characters, but further establishes and enforces the racial hierarchy present and known to her in her own world. For the few non-European characters, their appearance, and thus their standing in its related hierarchy, defines their entrances into the narrative. For the Creature, this occurs on the ices of the Artic, when, “atop a low carriage, fixed on a sledge and drawn by dogs, pass on towards the north, at the distance of half a mile;” Walton and his men perceived, “a being which had the shape of a man, but apparently of gigantic stature.” (Shelley 13) Shelley clarifies, even this early in her novel, the race of its principal Other as soon after the intrepid adventurers rescue its namesake, Victor Frankenstein, who, Shelley clarifies, “was not, as the other traveller seemed to be, a savage inhabitant of some undiscovered island, but an European.” (Shelley 14) Later, closer examination of the Creature reveals a visage and figure of near unimaginable disfigurement, with a “shrivelled complexion,” and yellow skin which “scarcely covered the work of muscles and arteries beneath.” (Shelley 35) This could be contrasted directly

Shelley addresses romantic conventions in Victor to convey his loss of identity. Victor is impatient and restless when constructing the creation, so much, that he does not think about it’s future repercussions. One of the great paradoxes that Shelley’s novel depicts is giving the monster more human attributes than to it’s creator [p. 6 - Interpretations]. This is true as the monster seeks an emotional bond, but Victor is terrified of it’s existence. The monster later reveals, “I, the miserable and the abandoned, am an abortion, to be spurred at and kicked and trampled on [Shelley, p. 224].” Victor’s lack of compassion is rooted from the inability to cope with his reality. He distances himself from others and is induced with fainting spells [Shelley, p. 59]. From this, the nameless creature exemplifies Victor’s attempt to abandon his creation to escape his responsibilities. His creation is described as, ‘wretched devil’ and ‘abhorred monster,’ eliciting that the unobtainable, pitied identity [Shelley, p. 102]. The act of not naming the creature reveals Victor as hateful, and unnaturally disconnected to his own created victim.

The novel begins and ends in the Arctic. This cold and desolate setting is used to correlate with the feelings that the Creature is experiencing and the emptiness in Victor’s heart. Geneva, in this novel, represents love because all of Victor’s loved ones live here. The Creature obviously has no regard for this love as he murders Victor’s family. Ingolstadt is where Victor attends college and the city of the Creature’s creation. It seems as though the Creature’s “birth” here foreshadows how intellectual the Creature will become. As Victor chases the Creature through Europe, Russia, and the Arctic, it shows that Victor is persistent and will stop at nothing to get

In Frankenstein, written by Mary Shelley, the creation, made from scraps of corpses, was built by Victor Frankenstein, a man fascinated and obsessed with the knowledge of life. Following the creation’s rouse, Victor immediately abandons him with no desire on keeping or teaching his new being. Because of his lack of nourishment and direction “growing up”, the creation goes through a process of self-deception. He endures a period of deceit by believing that he is a normal human being like everyone around him. But as time progresses, he learns to accept how he is alone in this world and disconnected with everyone. Because of the creation’s lack of guidance and isolation, he grows up feeling unwanted.

John Locke is one of the most influential Enlightenment thinkers and is famously known for asserting that all humans have natural rights. He also believed that humans are born with clean slates, and that the environment humans grow in, especially at a young age, has massive influences on aspects of their personalities, ideals, and motivations. Shelley was most definitely influenced by this claim when writing Frankenstein. As the reader, we can see the monster that Victor Frankenstein creates grow up alone, without guidance, and be formed by the experiences it is put through while trying to survive. Its emotions and beliefs throughout the book were merely a result of its experiences as it encounters the harsh reality of the world. Mary

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

Mary Shelley, with her brilliant tale of mankind's obsession with two opposing forces: creation and science, continues to draw readers with Frankenstein's many meanings and effect on society. Frankenstein has had a major influence across literature and pop culture and was one of the major contributors to a completely new genre of horror. Frankenstein is most famous for being arguably considered the first fully-realized science fiction novel. In Frankenstein, some of the main concepts behind the literary movement of Romanticism can be found. Mary Shelley was a colleague of many Romantic poets such as her husband Percy Shelley, and their friends William Wordsworth and Samuel Coleridge, even though the themes within Frankenstein are darker

Sometimes considered one of the first science fiction novels of supernatural terror, Frankenstein proved itself an instant success when released anonymously in 1818. The mad scientist Victor Frankenstein and his creation provoke readers with the fear of the unknown and the power of natures forces. A deeper look into the character of Victor Frankenstein, the role of scientific experimentation and the intricate settings of nature in which the story evolves, prove Mary Shelley's novel, Frankenstein , a worthy example of both Romantic and Gothic representation in nineteenth century British Literature.

The world around us holds so many different things. There is the natural beauty of nature, found in waterfalls, and forests, deserts and beaches, that help us to appreciate where we come from. There is the supernatural, almost the exact opposite, being something that we either envy and want or despise and fear, such as witches and vampires, superheroes and magic. Everything we feel as people, as individuals plays into what we want and how we act. All of these things are aspects of Romanticism, which we can see in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein.

Romanticism was a movement that swept over all of Europe; it affected all areas of life and society, not only just literatruture. At its base was a belief in the rights of man and this impetus led to two enormously important resolutions: the American Revolution and the French Resolution. Romanticism does not only mean romantic love, it is a literary term characterized by elements. Some elements of romanticism are growth of industrialization, mingling of races, frontier, experimentation, and optimism. One of the writers that include romanticism in their writings is Mary Wollstonecraft Shelly.