English Essay – Frankenstein
Frankenstein was written in the 18th century by the romantic writer called Mary Shelley. The key events in this novel symbolize Mary Shelley’s problems in real life, in one way or another.
The novel starts with a man called Walton, who is venturing to the North Pole. On his way, he is shipwrecked and he comes across Victor Frankenstein, who is the protagonist in the book. Victor relives his story to Walton about what he did, which emphasizes the “story within a story” narrative.
Frankenstein tells us about the tragic loss of his mother, which was the main issue that motivated him to give life. We also learn about the love of his life, whom is Elizabeth which he later finds out to be his half-sister.
We pick up from the novel that he is inspired to create the monster although he did not have his fathers support or approval. This, in a way, motivated Frankenstein even more to create the monster, as well as trying to figure out how to bring his mother back. The monster is created but to Frankenstein’s shock, he turned out to be his worst nightmare and the monster was inevitably rejected.
We learn also of the monster’s history and story on how he had survived the years and years of torment since his rejection by Frankenstein. The monster, after learning to speak English, decides to return to Frankenstein and demand from him a female version of him so that he can live in peace. Frankenstein begins the creation of this female, but soon comes to his senses and destroys it. The monster vowed to be with him on his wedding night, and Frankenstein misinterpreted him and thought that he would kill him but did not realise that he would kill Elizabeth. Elizabeth dies and Frankenstein vows revenge. Walton finishes the story with Frankenstein and the monster dying side by side.
The key events in chapter five are the rejection and the sudden shock of the monster by Frankenstein, the breakdown and recovery of Frankenstein and the realisation of the letters that were sent by Elizabeth to Frankenstein and never replied to. Mary Shelley shows this very explicitly by the way she uses her choice of words. Her language in this particular chapter is showing the emotion and the suffering that Frankenstein is going through, which includes the pain that he felt when viewing the creature for what he really was. Along with her language, she also uses imagery. An example of imagery, is when stated on page 56 “sometimes my pulse beat so quickly and hardly that I felt the palpitation artery; at others, I nearly sank to the ground through languor and extreme weakness.” This shows that his pulse was beating so fast that he was getting weak. Another quote would be “The porter opened the gates of the court which at had night been my asylum and I issued into the streets pacing them with quick steps as if I sought to avoid the wretch whom I feared every turning of the street would present to my view.” This shows us that he feared of what his creature had become, vile and ugly and also to his eyes very evil. Her imagery is also used to reveal Frankenstein opening sentence in the introduction of chapter five. The opening sentence which was “It was on a dreary night of November that I beheld the accomplishments of my toils.” This represents the whole gothic feel to the chapter. It symbolises darkness and fear and horror and other adjectives related to the Gothic genre.
