So if you lust for too much you may end up with nothing there is no need for greed if you have enough already.
Gothic Conventions
The writer uses the gothic convention impulsive male is used in chapter 5 to convey a range of selfish emotions, as though everything is about victor and only him.
“I passed the night wretchedly. Sometimes my pulse beat so quickly and hardly that I felt the palpitation of every artery”.
The quotation infers to the gothic convention “impulsive male” by the way Victor exaggerates his emotions, how everything is about him for example the many times in the quotation that he says “me” and “I”, this shows everything in the quotation is about him therefore showing the over-expression of his emotions. Mary Shelly has created this selfish atmosphere when Victor is not happy with his creation. The writer has tried to make it so then everyone feels sorry for Victor using this atmosphere
Omens and portents are present in the text in chapter 5 when Victor is describing his Creation’s various features and comparing them with omens and portents for example:
“When by the dim and yellow light of the moon, as it forced its way through the window shutters”. This creates the omen of the moon being yellow light shows that victor considers his creation to not be human, he shows this de-humanising factor when he calls his monster an “it” shows that he views his creation as some kind of animal that has many de-human features.
The strange mixed with real plays a large part of the gothic conventions in chapter 5 in the novel Frankenstein because the creation of a living thing is strange mixed with real so in this chapter victor describes his creation as having human features but then describes these human features as in-human for example “his yellow skin scarcely covered the work of the muscles and arteries” this gives the reader the impression that the creation is human but then they also get the impression that the creation is some kind of monster which is not a human. This keeps the reader thinking about if Frankenstein’s creation is human or not.
High emotions are present in the text throughout chapter 5 when Victor becomes afraid of the creation, Victor then starts displaying a vast array of emotions like fright, hate, disappointment; these emotions display that not only is victor scared of his creation he is also disappointed in what he has created, for example “I had worked hard for nearly two years, for the sole purpose of infusing life into an inanimate body” this gives the reader the impression that Victor is also ashamed of what he has made that he wants to even get rid of it. High emotions are used in this way to keep the reader’s attention and to help the reader understand what is happening. The high emotions display just exactly how they are feeling at that exact time to keep tension and suspense at it’s peak for the reader to be interested in.
The setting is very important in the letter two of the novel Frankenstein, setting in this section plays a large role because as we know from reading on in the book the letters at the start of the book are actually describing the end of the story there is an example of this “how slowly the time passes “here, encompassed as I am by frost and snow! Yet a second step is taken towards my enterprise.” This convention is very secretive because in this part of the novel you have to be careful not to give too much away and if you do give too much away then the reader will not find the story as interesting as they may of done.
Mary Shelly decided to make the novel Frankenstein in the gothic genre because at that time the gothic genre was deemed not to be as scary and as weird as it is deemed now but more interesting as such. At that time there was obviously the industrial revolution so that meant no-one knew what could happen next so I think that Mary Shelly could capture the imaginations of her readers but at the same time didn’t need to be truthful about it.
Setting
The setting makes the reader feel tense because the bad weather in chapter 5 gives the reader the idea that there is a sense that the atmosphere is very ominous and this gives the impression that something bad is going to happen, this type of omen gives the reader a tense feeling because it gives the reader an opportunity to pre-empt the fact that soon the tension will break and it will break into some kind of bad happening.
An example of this is when in chapter 5 where there is a slight description of what is happening around the room, and outside the room “the rain pattered dismally against the panes, and my candle was nearly burnt out” this gives the impression to the reader that something big is soon to happen, because when your candle burnt out, you can’t see anything.
Pathetic Fallacy is when someone gives inanimate features to an inanimate object, for example if you were to talk to a cushion as though it was a real person. Pathetic Fallacy gives the reader thee impression that Victor within chapter 5 feels very isolated and cannot talk to anyone, this is because he doesn’t want to tell anyone about his creation.
Language
The monster is described as having “yellow skin” and having a “shrivelled complexion and straight black lips” this explains that Victor’s creation has human features but they are presented in an inhuman way. The way that this creation is described is in the way that it isn’t human but it is a monster. This connotes that the monster is rather frightening to think about with his yellow skin and to think it is human is very scary.
Victor thinks of his monster as scary and intimidating, although in chapter 5 Victor’s creation doesn’t actually do anything to Victor, he does actually run away from him when faced with him. “One hand was stretched out, seemingly to detain me, but I escaped and rushed downstairs.” This at this point of the story shows us that the monster is a bad thing to behold, that it was intending to seek revenge on Victor, but as the reader we don’t know really what is happening. Also we don’t actually know if Victor’s creation is actually as it says in the quote “trying to detain me” because he may be twisting the readers point of view, because of Victor being the narrator for most of the novel
The reader associates monsters and devils with Victor’s monster because within chapter 5 when the monster is created. In the quote below gives a clear example of the creation being linked with omens and portents, “when, by the dim and yellow light of the moon, as it forced its way through the window shutters, I beheld the wretch”. This gives the impression that the creation is a sign of evil that is associated by the moon omen, because as well earlier in the chapter Victor claimed that the monster’s eyes appeared to be yellow like the moon. The full moon omen is an association with evil because it is supposed that when the full moon comes out all you can hear is the howling of a werewolf and that is a sign of evil
The effect of oxymorons helps the reader with the description of Victor’s monster in chapter 5 “for example “but these luxuries only formed a more horrific contrast with his watery eyes” this quote is saying that victor made tried making his monster with “beautiful” characteristics but then says that these beautiful characteristics came out wrong “with his watery eyes”. This explains why Victor escapes from his creation later on in the chapter; he looks at the monsters hideous features and doesn’t take into account his interior.
Victor within chapter 5 uses the fact that he is the narrator to his advantage, because of this Victor can say anything about the monster he wants and because he is the narrator the reader will believe this “one hand stretched out, seemingly to detain me” this is a prime example of manipulating the reader at this point, because the narrator says “seemingly to detain me” everyone believes it. This has an intriguing effect on the audience because the first thing you do as a reader is believe everything that the narrator says , however in this sense the narrator is can be very manipulative and can take advantage of what the reader may know or may not know.
This is different to what victor originally thought of his monster, originally Victor thought that his monster would be a good idea because it is an original idea and everyone would praise him for the thing he had created, then if it turned out well then even more praise would come his way. “Although I possessed the capacity of bestowing animation, yet to prepare a frame for the reception of it” this is showing that victor thought of creating animation as a good idea and that he couldn’t wait to put it into practice. Originally Victor thought of his creation as a excellent idea and he wanted to be the inventor of a revolutionary idea, Victor wanted to be like god in a way, however as we find out through chapter 5 he doesn’t even want the credit for his invention
There is an ammount of symbolism within chapter 5, for instance the idea that Victor created life from nothing is symbolic to religion and how god “apparently” created everything from nothing from his own power. “I collected the instruments of life around me” this gi––––ves the impression that victor thinks of himself as a god-like person, that maybe he thought after creating this he would be known in history.
Conclusion
I think that Mary Shelly did meet her aim to “curdle the blood and quicken the beatings of the heart” because the novel always keeps the reader on edge all of the time, the reader never knows what is coming next.
For its time I think that the novel was rather frightening for its time because at that time no-one knew anything that we know in modern day science, so this novel would be what is called sci-fi in the modern day.
Today of all the people that still read this novel they still find it a fascinating read because it is quite sci-fi like even to us now, we may now know that you won’t make life out of dead bodies using galvanism but it is still interesting.
