Each novel is narrated in a different way. Frankenstein is narrated from a first person perspective, but the narrator changes occasionally. Firstly the narrator is the Captain of the ship that Frankenstein rides on. Secondly, Frankenstein narrates, and then the monster narrates, giving his own personal views. Next Frankenstein narrates and finally the Captain finishes off. Whenever Frankenstein and the monster narrate, a lot more personal emotions are exposed from the character. In The Outsiders, the book is constantly written in a first person perspective, where Ponyboy Curtis is telling the story. Unlike in Frankenstein, it is written in a far more informal manner and uses a lot of modern American slang. This because this book was written in the late 1960s whereas Frankenstein was written in the early 1800s. An example of the different styles of language from Frankenstein is, “I resolved to quit the place that I had hitherto inhabited”. A typical line from The Outsiders is, “Man, I though New York was the only place I could get mixed up in a murder rap”. This language is far more informal and ‘chatty’ compared to Frankenstein.
Ponyboy Curtis reports first-hand experiences, and some times reports on events that occurred without him being there.
In both books, the reader feels many emotions that the character is feeling. It is usually the outsider who is the victim of such bad emotions. In Frankenstein, I felt emotions for Frankenstein when he about to be married to his fiancée but the monster waits until Frankenstein is gone, and then the monster murders Frankenstein’s wife. At this moment, a lot of tension builds up as the wife begins to shriek and wail as she is being murdered. The monster runs away from the dead bride and Frankenstein returns to the room, finding her dead. Frankenstein immediately knew the monster has killed her.
Another incident where the reader is meant to feel pity for Frankenstein is when he creates the monster and gives it life. When he created the monster he realised what a vile mutant he had created. When the monster was given life, he was treated very poorly by Frankenstein, which reflected on his future crimes. Frankenstein stated in the book how he felt about his creation by saying, “How can I describe my emotions at this catastrophe, or how delineate the wretch to whom with such infinitive pains and care I had endeavoured o form?” At this point, Frankenstein is almost feeling sorry for himself as he is so depressed about putting time and effort into a creation which took him two years to create, and it ended up as a catastrophe.
There us also a scene of emotion aroused in The Outsiders. This emotion is aroused when Darry, the brother of Ponyboy and Soda Pop was shot after robbing a grocery store. Dally was so upset and depressed about the death of Johnny (a very good friend of Ponyboy) who had died from being burned and drastically injured from saving a group of small children who were on a filed trip to a church, which set alight because Ponyboy and Johnny didn’t put out one of their cigarettes properly. Dally was so depressed he went and robbed a grocery store, and shortly after the police were in point blank range with him and demanded for him to hand himself in to the police. He decided not to hand himself in and pulled out a gun that was not loaded, but the police did not realise this, and shot him, thinking he had a loaded gun. At this point, the reader’s emotions are aroused because a key character that the majority of the reader had probably started to ‘bond’ a relationship with had been shot and died shortly after.
The main characters in both books are usually the victims of an unfortunate event. The main characters in Frankenstein were Frankenstein and the monster. These two characters played the largest role in the book as it mainly revolved around them. There were other sub-characters such as the captain and the wife of Frankenstein whose role became quite important in areas of the book.
In The Outsiders there are quite a lot of characters in the book who all play quite a large role. The main character is Ponyboy, however the sub-characters are Soda Pop, Dally, Darry, Johnny and Cherry – these roles are not as important as Ponyboy however they do build a ground for the story line to run along. Also, most of these characters, except for Cherry are outsiders and are part of the greaser gang.
Both books have a purpose for the reader to think about. In Frankenstein, Mary Shelley had written the novel to warn scientists about going too far with their projects and should never take their work as far as “playing God” as it most probably end up as a catastrophe.
The key plot that links to two novels together is the fact that you should never judge people by appearance. Both plots focus on this social matter but have expanded on it and created a story that has a subtle background revolving around this matter. In Frankenstein the monster is rejected from society because of his appearance, he doesn’t look appealing so people immediately conclude that he is evil or means harm to them. This prejudice matter also is linked to The Outsiders. The greasers are a gang who are from the very poor side of town. Because they dress cheaply, most people immediately assume that they are hooligans and are going to harm them. This was not true as they were humans, like everyone else and never really intentionally meant harm, but the only reason they fought was because the Socials (the richer gang) started to intimidate them first.
The obvious difference is that the language used in Frankenstein is far more complex because it was written so long ago. Frankenstein is aimed at an audience of greater intelligence, whereas The Outsiders uses a very laid-back language. The common usage of slang makes the book more authentic to the 1950s America, but is aimed at an audience of a lesser extent of knowledge.
Personally, I found Frankenstein more interesting as it has a far more exciting story line than The Outsiders as it’s story line is far more ‘moving’ and the emotions expressed by the author affect the reader well, whereas in The Outsiders, I didn’t really find the story line all that compelling and thought that the American slang made it authentic but ran very thin and lost it’s originality after a short period. I felt that both books had a fair amount of originality, but Frankenstein’s originality was far greater than The Outsiders. I would only criticize Frankenstein because some of the language used was a little too complex for me.
The Outsiders provided simple, ‘easy-to-understand’ language, which allowed the reader to comprehend the story. I thought that, despite the slightly difficult language used in Frankenstein, I believe that Frankenstein had a far greater ethical background which allowed the story to have several ethical meanings, as well as the good story line surrounding the messages.
