Looking Closely at Chapter 5, how successfully Does Mary Shelley Use the Gothic Genre in her novel Frankenstein,
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Looking Closely at Chapter 5, how successfully Does Mary Shelley Use the Gothic Genre in her novel Frankenstein, "A Modern Prometheus", By David Blick
In the novel of Frankenstein - The Modern Prometheus, Mary Shelley chooses to use the gothic genre as it reflects many of her past experiences, and in some cases, flaws in her upbringing. The plot of Frankenstein reflects Mary Shelley's past experiences as many essential elements can be extracted from the storyline such as ; Mary Shelley herself was a motherless child, as her mother, feminist writer Mary Wollstonecraft died 9 days after Mary's Birth from Puerperal fever. Written and Internet souces show that Mary's beloved father William Godwin became absent, as he was unable to cope with raising children, little Mary as well as Mary Wollstonecraft's other daughter, Fanny Emlay. Mary then fell in love with Percy Bysshe Shelley who was a university student who, at the time was conducting wild experiments and Mary Shelly once told of how she dreamed of the replenishment of a dead child, this child was Mary's own child, a daughter, who was born prematurely, who subsequently died shortly after birth in 1815.
The Story of Frankenstein was created on a summer holiday as a sophisticated group of friends gathered in Geneva. This group of intellects included Mary and her husband Percy Shelley, a close friend of the Shelley's - Lord Byron, his friend, Joseph Pollidori, and Mary's stepsister Claire Clairmont. On one cold and wet day, Lord Byron proposed that each member of the group should attempt to write a ghost story. So each member of the group started work on their novels, most of which tired of this very easily and gave up. Mary is the only person who managed to complete her novel, and Lord Byron was not very pleased with Joseph Pollidori who envisaged a vampire story. After Mary Shelly spoke of her concept, she reportedly later dreamt about it, and awoke later to tell her fellow intellects that - "I saw, with shut eyes but acute mental vision - I saw the pale student of unhallowed arts kneeling beside the thing he had put together....the horrid thing stands at his bedside, opening his curtains and looking on him with yellow, watery, but speculative eyes. I opened mine in terror"
Tyrannical Father Figure
Mary Shelly's novel introduces us to Dr. Victor Frankenstein, who attends a medical university and whilst there becomes obsessed with the creation of life. He creates a man out of the "Raw Materials" of dead men and animates the Creature. Horrified at the sight, Victor rejects the Creature when it awakens. Victor Frankenstein then leaves the creature to fend for itself. After Frankenstein abandoned his creation, it started to come to terms with and accepted that he would be rejected by those he had just met. The Monster then learns to read and to speak, and after reading his creators journal, he also learns that he is different from other men. The Monster then meets a family of peasants, whom he then tries to become involved with, but when he tries to help the family of peasants they (like everyone else) reject him because of his hideous face.
After being rejected by the DeLacy family, who he cared for the creature is then filled with frustration, rage, and hatred towards his creator. Out of these emotions he committed murder, a crime considered by society to be of highest magnitude. Soon after this occurred he came in contact with his creator. The monster did not tear Victor's limbs off piece by piece like he swore to do; instead he took his creator to an area where they could talk. Here he related to him his life story filled with rejection and loneliness by all he met. He ...
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After being rejected by the DeLacy family, who he cared for the creature is then filled with frustration, rage, and hatred towards his creator. Out of these emotions he committed murder, a crime considered by society to be of highest magnitude. Soon after this occurred he came in contact with his creator. The monster did not tear Victor's limbs off piece by piece like he swore to do; instead he took his creator to an area where they could talk. Here he related to him his life story filled with rejection and loneliness by all he met. He told him of his crimes and how he wanted to live a different and better life. The monster did not ask for immediate bloodshed; he only asked for a companion.
This point of "Frankenstein" is the moral turning point, for both characters have committed wrong doings, as the monster, (who was created from evil) and committed crimes such as murder and Victor who stole body parts from the dead, and slipped into madness whilst trying to achieve his goal of giving life back to an inanimate body, but only one of them has asked to the other to help him live a better life. At this point of the story why didn't Victor accept his creation, his only son, and help him find happiness? Why didn't he accept the responsibility he took upon himself the second he gave life to this being? The answer is simple and clear. Victor Frankenstein is the character of least moral responsibility.
If Victor would've acknowledged his role as the creature's guardian and taught him to love and be loved instead of rejecting him from the second he came to life this whole ordeal could've been avoided.
Can you really blame a simple being that knew and firmly believed that his own father "turned from (him) in disgust" and would "tear (him) to pieces and triumph" for feeling frustrated, utterly confused and carrying rage? No! The blame should be placed on the father who abandons his son during his most feeble and vulnerable time. This father should be blamed for allowing his son to be shunned by the world. This man, Dr. Victor Frankenstein is a man of little value; he is a man of little moral responsibility....Shame on him!
Absent Mother
Mary Shelly's childhood was very traumatic from the very beginning, envisage this...her mother dying 10 days after she was born, her father rejecting her as he could not cope, so she was left nearly enough alone in the world. These events reflect clearly in Mary Shelly's novel of Frankenstein - A Modern Prometheus as soon after Dr. Victor Frankenstein animates the image of ultimate evil, he rejects it, and the monster has to fend for itself. The creature has no genetic mother or father, and naturally Dr. Frankenstein should take on these roles unconditionally, but after seeing the monsters hideous face he is disgusted with himself and realises the madness that he has allowed himself to become involved with...by no fault but his own. In contrast to this we can somehow sympathise with Frankenstein as he himself has lost his mother, as she was in labour giving birth to his younger brother William, here after this Victor changes and swears that he will learn how to give life back to human, thus signalling his eventual downfall due to his massing obsession with creating life out of death.
Taboo Subject
The Story of Prometheus tells us that Prometheus was the son of Iapetus (Iapetus is the son Uranus and Gaia. Iapetus' wife is Clymene, with whom he has four children - Atlas, Menoetius, Prometheus and Epimetheus. He is occasionally called the husband of Asia or Asopis) who was one of the Titans (In Greek mythology, the Titans are a race of godlike giants who were considered to be the personifications of the forces of nature. They are the twelve children (six sons and six daughters) of Gaia and Uranus.). He tricked the gods into eating bare bones instead of good meat. He stole the sacred fire from Zeus and the gods and gave it to the humans. Prometheus did not tell Zeus the prophecy that one of Zeus's sons will overthrow him. In punishment, Zeus commanded that Prometheus be chained for eternity in the Caucasus. There, an eagle (or, according to other sources, a vulture) would eat his liver, and each day the liver would be renewed. So the punishment was endless, until Heracles finally killed the bird...this part of Greek Mythology can be related to the story of Frankenstein, and it's subtitle "A Modern Prometheus". Comparisons between the two stories are that Frankenstein is himself like Prometheus, who stole fire form the gods to animate his clay men; Frankenstein replicates this in trying to bring life to the "raw materials" that he now calls a body. Frankenstein attempts to play god in bringing his creature to life and he succeeds, this is blasphemous as Dr. Frankenstein is showing severe contempt and disrespect for god in trying to take the power of giving life from god, and giving life to his creature, therefore trying to play god. One Of Mary Shelly's friends - Lord Byron relates to Prometheus in the self-titled poem "Prometheus" and also in another of his poems entitled an "Ode to Napoleon Bonaparte"
"Titan! To whose immortal eyes
the sufferings of mortality,
Seen in their sad reality,
Were not as things that gods despise;
what was thy pity's recompense?
A silent suffering, and intense;
the rock, the vulture, and the chain;
All that the proud can feel of pain;
the agony they do not show;
the suffocating sense of woe".
"Thy godlike crime was to be kind;
to render with thy precepts less
the sum of human wretchedness,
and strengthen man with his own mind.
And, baffled as thou wert from high,
still, in thy patient energy
in the endurance and repulse
of thine impenetrable spirit,
which earth and heaven could not convulse,
a mighty lesson we inherit."
-Prometheus, Lord Byron -
"Or, like the thief of fire from heaven,
Wilt thou withstand the shock?
And share with him - the unforgiven-
His vulture and his rock?"
"Ode to Napoleon Bonaparte" - Lord Byron
In These Two exerts from Poems Lord Byron talks about the wrong that is committed in trying to give life, in relation to Frankenstein himself the is becoming the Modern Prometheus, hence the subtitle "A Modern Prometheus"
The dictionary tells us that a taboo subject is a topic that is disapproved of or forbidden, this soon applies to Victor and his adopted sister Elizabeth, as even though they share no blood-line, this would have been frowned upon at the time that this novel was published, and Victor and Elizabeth's seemingly harmless relationship would have been seen as incest. When Frankenstein's Mother Dies in Childbirth, this gives him the urge to go to medical university and embarking on a new life as a student then becoming a doctor, but maybe his inspiration for giving life back to an inanimate body, was from his mother, as just minutes after she died he embraced her and swore to find a way that we could all live forever. These images of death and rekindlement of life almost mirror the life events of Mary Shelly's life, as in her lifetime she had four children, one of whom only survived to adulthood, and at least one was lost during a miscarriage which deemed almost fatal for Mary Shelly, and she reportedly dreamed of rejuvenating the life of her daughter, who was born prematurely in 1815. Mary Shelly's blame rested again on her husband Percy after the death of their son William, after this events lead to the death of Percy Bysshe Shelley by Drowning in 1822. Similarities can be drawn from the use of the name William in the novel of Frankenstein, as Mary Shelly's young son was called William, and died during his childhood, and Victor Frankenstein's younger brother William (which his mother died in childbirth for...) was murdered by the Monster.
The Setting
The Setting of Mary Shelly's Frankenstein takes us too many locations. Frankenstein" was written between the summer of 1816 and April 1817, when Mary Shelley was only eighteen years of age. At the time of writing, she was engaged to the poet, Percy Bysshe Shelley. We imagine that the novel was set around this time as well. The setting throughout Frankenstein is dismal and continuously mirrors the atmosphere inside. Melancholy is a widespread theme throughout and the use of pathetic fallacy is incredible as we rarely see a cloud that is not raining, or lightening that is not striking...the weather is very dismal and this often reflects the moods of the characters. This depressing weather and the mood surrounding the characters, sets up the tone for the rest of the play.
The Other
In all gothic genre novels, amongst other conventions used there is always in one way shape or form a character or being that represents the other, something that is seen as dark and unreal, maybe even somewhat other worldly. The other in the story of Frankenstein - "A Modern Prometheus", is obviously Frankenstein's Creature, and it is hard to imagine that something so evil could ever be created, and it would be impossible for the monster to be a "normal" human being otherwise it would not be other worldly. Mary Shelly makes good use of the female Gothic in her novel as she rarely gives a definitive description of the monster, thus allowing the reader to make their own interpretation of the monster. The metaphorical significance of Mary Shelly's Frankenstein is also important as it was written at the time of the beginning of the industrial revolution and its destructive effects are seen throughout the novel in the form of the Monster, as it is, in my opinion a personification of the Industrial Revolution, as something seen as so evil and so unstoppable can prevail. The industrial revolution destroyed the countryside, wildlife, traditions, jobs, families, communities, whole towns where lost to the massing number of factories and workshops popping up all over Britain, many saw this as a money making opportunity, but for those whom did not benefit for the Industrial Revolution it is hard to imagine how one can see any good coming out of it. Once started the Industrial Revolution could not be stopped, and in Dr. Victor Frankenstein assembling his body bits and giving it unstoppable and immortal life, he mirrors what many people thought of the Industrial Revolution at the time of publication.
