‘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 hasn’t been looked after. We could compare this to a baby; a baby doesn’t know what it should and should not do, until it is one yrs old. If we put a baby at the edge of a table when it is only 1 month old, it wouldn’t know what to do and fall off the edge. The monster was neglected, so the consequences for this showed that he had not been looked after enough, to learn anything. An extract to show the consequences of Frankenstein is
‘ I wish to prepare you for the woeful news, but I know it is impossible, even now your eye skims over the page, to seek the words which are to convey to you the horrible tiding. WILLIAM IS DEAD’.
Readers also consider if the monster did the crime from the heart or by purpose.
The use of the theme ‘prejudice’ is used a lot through out the book when the family meet the monster and see how horrendous his face is. It says that Felix ‘dashed me to the ground, and struck me violently with a stick’. This shows people use looks and personality to reflect how they are. This technique she uses is called Stereotyping.
It’s like if a dark skinned person walks past you with a bandana on and big muscles and a druggy look we consider this person to be a gangster. A theme to show this is ‘Appearance and Reality’. Here she is exploring ideas to a modern day audience to what it would be like.
In the novel we have many narrators from the start to the end of the book. First it is Robert Walton; he is determined to reach the North Pole. Then on his journey he meets Victor Frankenstein, who starts the story, of the formation of his monster. He later comes into contact with it, and The Monster takes over by talking about what he did and felt about Victor leaving him. It is then passed back to Victor and then Walton. This shows that we could use different narratives, to show different people who are talking in a book.
I think Frankenstein decided to mess with how nature works, because he wanted to experiment the implications of ‘Creation’. It was really difficult for him, but after a long period of studying came to his conclusion that it could be done. He shows us that he was interested in the study of creation when he says ‘More, far more, will I achieve: treading in the steps already marked, I will pioneer a new way, explore unknown powers and unfold to the world the deepest mysteries of creation’. He wanted to justify to himself if it was possible, because there were many Theories going around. One of the theories around had actually said that you could retrieve an older brain and use it in the head of another. People were amazed by the thought of this, because it could be used to bring back the dead.
Frankenstein later in the narrative discovered the implications of Playing God, because Nature should run naturally not by the hands of experimentation. It killed his brother, wife and friend of the family. Frankenstein should have thought over his institution before deciding to create the monster, because he didn’t know how it was going to react, for all he knew it could’ve been a monster wanting to kill everyone around it. This brings back the point of ‘Consequences’, because Frankenstein didn’t think before he acted, and the result is what happened to his family.
I think readers can tell that this book was written long ago in the 1818’s, because it used very complicated words, that we don’t use anymore. The words are very descriptive; they give us a better visualisation of how things were. When the monster describes his surroundings he says ‘Before, dark and opaque bodies had surrounded me, impervious to my touch or sight.’ He also says ‘It was dark when I awoke, I felt cold also, and half frightened.’ We here see that Shelley has written the monster to say his surroundings so we get a better picture. An example of how we can tell that it is a gothic novel is, that when Victor arrives in Geneva and observes the lighting flash as it starts to rain, and he sees The Monster taking the life away from his brother. This is very gothic.
Victor Frankenstein throughout the book appears as a quiet brainy person. He is the person who likes to mess with things. He shows this when he messes with nature. This shows that people’s appearances can be false. The monster For Example, appeared to be a horrific and monstrous, but instead he is more understanding then he looks, although he killed two members of Frankenstein’s family. Words to describe the monster are; innocent, childlike and confused. She makes out in the start of the book that ‘The Monster is very dangerous, and that is the reason why Frankenstein left him.
The relationship between The Monster and Frankenstein I would say was not very strong, because they did not communicate enough. Frankenstein for one did not do what the monster told him. In about the middle of the book when Victor and the Monster meet, the monster grants Victor to make the monster another being of the monsters form, so they could live together happily; and no one would not see them again. Victor refused to do that because he was worried that it would cause the same problems as what he did. I think Victor should have done what the monster told him to, because then his wife wouldn’t have been killed as well. This is again referred to a modern day audience, because we experience break-ups now between people everyday.
We experience in parts of the novel ‘love’ and hatred’ at the same time. We see two sides of the monster; he sometimes has a soft spot and sometimes is of hatred. Places where we see him nice is when we see him spending his time observing upon the family. He talks about how happy the family are yet how they are in poverty. Frankenstein on the other hand was mostly of the badness, because it was his fault that everything went wrong, if it wasn’t for him the monster wouldn’t have been created and his family not destroyed.
When the monster slaughtered Victor’s youngest brother and wife, this must have put impact on his life. He must have been thinking that it was his entire fault, just because he muddled with the way nature works. When he arrived in Geneva and thought who killed his youngest brother William, and concluded that it was the monster, he also must’ve felt very angry, at the same time, because he thought that no one had the right to take the life of others, even though it was his fault that it happened. Later on when he found out that Justine Maritz, had been accused of murder of William, he must have really felt ashamed of himself, because it was his fault here, and because she was a close friend of the family. This shows Guilt, because many people today do bad things that affect others.
From what we have said now we have gone over, why the monster shouldn’t have been created and why it was. Frankenstein shouldn’t have messed with how Nature works, because it just messes everything up. From the start of the essay I mentioned many key themes, which apply to today’s audience. One of these was creation. Creation is an important theme, because that is the most important theme, which is in the book. This is because the book is about the creation of The Monster. Frankenstein causes all kinds of problems, as a consequence over Frankenstein not nurturing him enough. Frankenstein did not look after the monster enough for him to learn anything. It’s like our parents leaving us, and us not learning anything. As a result this ended up the monster killing Victor’s brother, wife and friend. If Frankenstein had listened to what the monster had told him to do, everything would have been all right. I think the monster felt lonely and wanted someone to live with, because of what he looked like. Everyone was prejudice over what he looked like, so he knew that if Frankenstein had created another person of the opposite sex, everything would be all right.
Frankenstein in the book appeared as a very brainy person, as he created his own life. He didn’t get on very well with his creation, so he should have thought over first about messing with life, because he didn’t know what kind of trouble it could cause. Frankenstein was abandoned; this made him feel as if he was the only person with out no one. His creator, Frankenstein should have looked after him more. The novel Frankenstein is a very gothic story that deals with the concept of many themes around us. At the time of when it was written people were astonished by if people could actually clone others of the same personality and features. There were many theories on it, which didn’t make sense until Frankenstein discovered it. If we reflect this to today people still don’t know if it can be done or not!!!
Bibliography:
- Internet – www.sparknotes.com