The novel Frankenstein is a gloomy novel filled with powerful emotive language that portrays Victor and the creature in two completely different ways to the reader.
Chapter 5 starts by saying “it was on a dreary night of November” this use of pathetic fallacy influences the readers feelings towards what Victor is attempting to do, it sets a depressing and sinister outlook to what is going to happen. Victor is obviously in a confused mind at the start of Chapter 5. “How can I describe this catastrophe?” This emotive language shows us just how mentally insecure he is. We also see that victor is working alone “I beheld the accomplishment of my toils” the word “toils” means work and effort and the word “my” shows us that he has taken on recreating life on his own. This may be because most people in them times wouldn’t believe in what Victor is attempting to do.
The language that Shelley uses to describe what Victor thinks the creature is very descriptive and creates powerful imagery. “Hair was of a lustrous black and flowing; his teeth of pearly whiteness.” This shows the reader that victor feels he has created the perfect creature whereas we know that it is the complete opposite, and this shows us of Victor’s insecurity and his obsession to scientific discoveries. At this point we feel a little sorry for him seeing a delusion of what he thought was a perfect creature.
We see him as not being a particularly good scientist in the respect that he didn’t listen and went and did his own thing, we see him as an obsessive scientist “I had worked hard for nearly two years for the sole purpose of infusing life into an inanimate body. For this I had deprived myself of rest and health.” This quotation really illustrates to the reader just how obsessive he really is that he would go to the extreme of not being hygienic or have any rest.
We see that victor has a fun free side to him once his work is finished but also he has a hard working side. Throughout the novel we mainly see his hard working side. Victors mothers death had a great influence on the creation and we see that this drives him on to make this human being he doesn’t want anyone to die and Shelly shows this to us when victor says “ no one should have to die, we must stop this.”
At the start of chapter eleven the creature describes his first experiences as being “confusing and indistinct.” The creature uses lots of emotive language that makes the reader feel great pity for him especially when he describes himself as being “tormented by hunger and thirst.”
The creature first discovers nature when he opens his eyes and “light poured in” this obviously meaning the sunlight, it shows us his basic understanding to life. We also see the creature discover nature by using it for his food and drink “I ate some berries which I found hanging on the trees or lying on the ground. I slaked my thirst at the brook.” This shows us his understanding to what is around him. He also goes onto explain about a bird “I was delighted when I first discovered that a pleasant sound, which often saluted my ears, proceeded from the throats of the little winged animals who had often intercepted the light from my eyes.
The creature doesn’t realise that he is seen as a monster as we see him burst into a hut “Finding the door open, I entered. An old man sat in it, near a fire
After reading the two chapters I think Shelly wants us to sympathise with the creature as he has no basic understanding of the world and the way to live. The creature learns on his own and this portrays to the reader that he actually may look scary but underneath he is innocent and wants to be involved with a family like wee see in chapter eleven where he looks through the “almost imperceptible chink” to see how people live their life. I feel she is criticising Victor for taking one look at the creature and being a coward and running away and abandoning it.
I don’t think victor was right creating the creature, I believe people should be left alone to die peacefully but Victor had a lot of trauma in his life for example his mum dying and this would have spurred him on to make the creature. The novel “Frankenstein” tells us that Shelly has a confident view in the way that science will advance by writing about recreating human life. It is portrayed very well in this novel that people have many different views on the subject of creating life it is just some of these people try to back up there opinions.
By Jack Mullen 10C
