Frankenstein is full of ideas and warnings, which are relevant to a modern day audience; in what ways does Shelley explore

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Manvir Sangha

Frankenstein Coursework

Q. Frankenstein is full of ideas and warnings, which are relevant to a modern day audience; in what ways does Shelley explore these ideas?

The novel Frankenstein is set in the pre 1914’s, when there were theories on certain things that they did not understand. It is full of darkness and tragedy in some places. In the book, Mary Shelley the writer, talks about many ideas and warnings, which are relevant to modern day audiences, this essay will explain these.

Mary Shelley was only 19 years old when she wrote the book on summer 1816. She was married to Percy Shelley, who was divorced and the father of two children. She visualized the thought of the genre when she was staying at Lake Geneva in Switzerland and was being overwhelmed by the catastrophes in her life.

She brings up many themes, throughout the book, to characterize different scenes. One of these is the concept of ‘Playing god’, because no one except god has the right to create and control other people. Frankenstein in the book is determined to create/clone life of his own. A quote to support this idea is ‘With the anxiety what almost amounted agony, I collected the instruments of life around me that I might infuse a spark of being into the lifeless thing that lay at my feet’. People in the time of when the book was written, were really interested in the idea, because nothing like it had ever existed. It still is today, because it puzzles people if we can actually clone other of the same personality and features.

Another area she goes into is the thought of ‘abandonment’, because Frankenstein creates his own life, and leaves it, because of how horrified he is by it. He says ‘no mortal could support the horror of that countenance. A mummy again endured animation could not be so hideous as that wretch. He uses the term ‘Monster’ to describe his creation thereafter. God/Parents as our designer should teach us everything not just dispose of us. This is relevant to a modern day audience, because children are being abandoned at birth, and are growing up as Orphans.  

Shelley creates suspense in the book by using techniques, throughout the book to catch the reader’s attention. She uses very dramatic words, for the reader to sympathize more against the monster. A technique she used all the way through the book is ‘Pathetic Fallacy’. This is when the writer uses the weather to describe the mood of the current scene. An example of this is in chapter 5 when Frankenstein is gathering the parts for his monster and he quotes

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‘It was one in the morning, the rain pattering dismally against the panes, and my candle was nearly burnt out’.

This sets the scene very well. Mary Shelly didn’t decide to use any type of weather for this scene, because it wouldn’t look dark and build tension enough. For example a sunny weather would probably be used to show a happy mood of a scene.

An important theme she uses is ‘Nature & Nurture’. The word Nurture means not looked after. So this brings us to the point if the monster acts the way he does, because he ...

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