Frankenstein Coursework- Differentiated.

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Frankenstein Coursework- Differentiated

Mary Shelley is the author of the novel Frankenstein. She is the daughter of the anarchist philosopher and writer William Godwin and the feminist Mary Wollstonecraft, which is probably what influenced her to become a writer in the future. She spent most of her time in Scotland where she experienced a lot of freedom personally as well as politically. She got married at the age of 19. When she started to write the novel Frankenstein she had moved to Switzerland in 1816, where the suicide of many of her family members had occurred and she had completed the novel in 1817 when she had moved to Marlow, England. During her lifetime she had experienced a number of deaths from her mother’s death to her own unborn child, which probably also influenced her to write about this kind of topic, only to go beyond imagination. She was a very creative and ambitious person, which is very similar to Doctor Frankenstein’s character, trying to create something for positive achievement. Like Frankenstein’s own achievement, Shelley was able to put together a variety of influences. All these characters about herself led her to write Frankenstein. Her mother was a powerful influence including in the novel where Dr Frankenstein’s mother’s death influenced him to re-create life. Frankenstein also relied on all sorts of influences and materials in making his creature however he started this for a positive outcome but according to many people including my self was doing something immoral. This novel is a modern horror fiction, whether on film or in writing it falls within the genre of the gothic. She has used gothic language, which is imaginative and often a sensationalist. The creature was never given a name in this novel and usually known as a monster. But was he a monster? A monster has many definitions; a large ugly or frightening creature, an animal or plant that is very abnormal informed, anything of huge size or an extremely cruel or wicked person. Even after reading this novel I still have not made my mind up completely on whether he was a monster or not? He was just different, like the rest of us! 

In this essay the three main aspects of this novel that I will be talking about are:

  • The creation of the monster and when he first comes to life
  • As the monster begins to speak, educate himself and seek out friends and then is rejected
  • How the monster feels towards the end of the novel, who he kills and why

Chapter 5 of the novel is when the creature comes to life. When Dr Frankenstein describes the creature when coming to life his description is very unbalanced. He uses a lot of negative language to describe him “the wretch,” “demonical corpse,” “the beauty of the dream had vanished” and “breathless horror and disgust had filled my heart.” However positive images like “Beautiful! -Great God!” “Lustrous black,” “his teeth of a pearly whiteness” are also used which in someway is telling us that Frankenstein is contradicting himself, therefore it is unbalanced. However   the author has used this kind of language to express the ugliness of the creature, for example where he used the exclamation mark, it suggests sarcasm. When the creature is called beautiful, the author means the opposite, she is being sarcastic because ugly is to weak of a word to describe the creature. “These luxuriances only formed a more horrid contrast when…” by saying this it transcends the above language. “Unable to endure the aspect of the being” he had created he “rushed out of the room” and tried to run away from his problems, “seek a few moments of forgetfulness.” He was so terrified by the appearance of his own invention that he had a breakdown, many sleepless nights. The language Mary Shelley had used to describe Frankenstein’s state of mind, his thoughts and reaction to the monster was “grave-worms crawling,” “yellow light, ”hell,” “sleep with horror.” All these words make the reader feel disgusted toward the creature and also horrified with these images of death. However Frankenstein tried to run away from the problem that he had created “ I escaped and rushed downstairs. I took refuge…” not a very brave and clever thing to do: leave a creature like that on its own and on the loose. Plus the creature had not done anything unpleasant “a grin wrinkled on his cheeks” for the Doctor to run away from him.

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The monster is chased out of the city by the citizens who want to kill him this is because they think that he is the cause of the plague due to his appearance. When he runs off he finds a family of small French cottagers in the country and stays in their barn. There he learns to speak, and educate himself and this is the part where the reader starts to feel and sympathize with the creature and understand maybe he is not a monster. This is because he does many kind things for the De Lacey family “collecting ...

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