The Greek myth of Prometheus is said to be linked in to Frankenstein because Shelley wrote a second title to the novel, ‘the Modern Prometheus’. This is because in the story of Prometheus in order to help people Prometheus stole Zeus’s fire from the sun so people would have an advantage over animals since they were given the ability to make weapons and tools. As punishment, Zeus chained Prometheus to a rock where eagles ate his liver when night fell. But when day broke the next day his liver grew back for the eagle to eat again. This torture was to last for an eternity. Eventually, Hercules slew the eagles and released Prometheus. This was to counterbalance the gift of fire the Zeus sent Pandora to earth with her box of evils. Dr Frankenstein wanted to help people by giving them an advantage over animals by resurrecting the dead and stealing people’s peaceful resting. As a punishment, his creation destroyed: his mental well being by obsession to make it; his family by killing them and his life. Overall the myth of Prometheus and the modern Prometheus are about good intentions leading to negative things and life changing experience.
In 1817, Percy Shelley (Mary Shelley’s husband) and Byron discussed galvanism which is the idea of reanimating things using electricity. An Italian physicist, Lugi Galvani demonstrated what we now know to be the electrical basis of nerve impulses. Mary Shelley included these ideas in the novel and took scientific experiments to the extreme.
Mary Shelley uses different narrators’ point of view in a ‘Russian doll’ narrative structure which changes the narrators as another character tells a different side of the story. She uses different people to help the reader feel like they are going deeper into the story. The different characters have their own different opinions of Frankenstein’s creature just like the reader so our opinions change as we read/hear the story through a different pair of eyes. The three different narrators are: Walton, a sea captain who writes to his sister who tells her about Victor. Victor is the second narrator who tells Walton about his life which comes to the meeting of his creature who then becomes the third narrator. The different perspectives and angles are each biased and as a result the reader sympathises with Victor when he’s telling the story and the ‘monster’ when he narrates.
Mary Shelley originally wrote ‘Frankenstein’ beginning from the resurrecting the creature but later added Walton’s narrative. Captain Walton, a sea captain, venturing out to the Artic gives a similar plot to Victor Frankenstein’s. This added section seemed to be slightly random but links as the story unfolds when Victor is found.
Walton gives the reader a first impression on Victor, whom he rescues from the harsh bitterly cold of the Artic. Walton description of Victor makes the reader sympathise with his appearance. Walton describes him as ‘his limbs were nearly frozen, and his body dreadfully emaciated by fatigue and suffering’ Mary Shelley includes this because it provides a comparison when Walton describes his admiration to Victor. We know he admires Victor because he writes to his sister ‘he is so gentle, yet so wise; his mind is so cultivated, and when he speaks although his words are culled with choicest art, yet they flow with rapidity and unparallel eloquence.’ Walton’s admiration to Victor makes the reader also admire him so therefore is more likely to believe the positive recollection of Victor’s story because two opinions support it.
Lost, Victor confides in his saviour as he tells Walton the story of how obsession led to death and this also is a warning to Walton’s obsession for fame and glory. Frankenstein begins with his childhood where Mary Shelley describes this as perfect we know this when she writes; ‘My mother’s tender caresses and my father’s smile of benevolent pleasure while regarding me are my first recollections’. This shows Shelley has made a contrast with Victor’s childhood and later on in his life. This also emphasises his parent’s love, his perfect life and his fond memories of his childhood. This also provides dissimilarity with that of the creature. Frankenstein’s creature never has a perfect life, fatherly love and fond memories. At the beginning the reader does not sympathise with Victor’s privileged background until his mother dies of Scarlet fever: Shelley included this effect to get Victor thinking about life and death and gives an emotionally felt reason to unearth and discover the secret of immorality.
In Chapter 4, Frankenstein becomes fixated about discovering the ‘principle of life’, ‘No one can conceive the variety of feelings which bore me onwards, like a hurricane in the first enthusiasm of successes’. Shelley describes his determination ‘like a hurricane’ which implies and hints that the hurricane and the obsession will ‘spin out of control’ destroying everything. Mary Shelley also describes his arrogance; ‘A new species would bless me as its creator and source’. Victor implies that his creation would treat him like god. Mary Shelley includes this because it gives another, more evil, motive to create the creature. Sympathy of his mother’s death, from the reader, has now turned in to disgust as he creates the monster, this might be why she includes negative language. This might suggest that she thinks the ideas behind galvanism are immoral and against god.
Gothic features and an ominous setting are some of the things that make Chapter five famous as Victor’s obsession is coming to an end and the creature is coming to life. Originally, the novel started with this chapter but the first four chapters were later added to add more depth. Shelley describes the setting before the monster awakes as ‘dreary’ and using negative language to suggest Victor’s actions are frightening and is not good. ‘The rain pattered dismally against the panes and my candle was nearly burnt out’ this creates a ‘dismal’ atmosphere using gothic language and pathetic fallacy this effect gives a negative vibe about the resurrection of the creature and to create negative ominous imagery.
Shelley uses a contrast of positive and negative adjectives to maybe hint that the creature is not all bad and suggests that he does some good actions. She describes him as ‘His yellow skin scarcely covered the work of muscles and arteries beneath; his hair was of a lustrous black, and flowing; his teeth of a pearly whiteness;’ this quote shows that Victor had good intentions when planning the creature but his appearance looks dead. Even though she does use positive describing words the quantity is a great deal less to show that Shelley wants the event of the creature coming to life as negative and this is the general impression to the reader.
As the creature awakes, Victor ‘saw the dull yellow eye of the creature open; it breathed hard, and a convulsive motion agitated his limbs.’ The words ‘dull’ and ‘yellow’ suggest something not humane about the creature and ‘agitated’ almost suggests that straight away the creature is not happy about being alive or brought back to life. Victor’s reaction to the creature is not one that is positive when he says ‘How can I describe my emotions at this catastrophe, or how delineate the wretch whom with such infinite pains and care I had endeavoured to form?’ this rhetorical question expresses his disbelief and disappointment with his experiment. Mary Shelley used the word ‘catastrophe’ to make Victor over react with the turning event and ‘how delineate the wretches whom with such infinite pains and care I had endeavoured to form?’ shows he regrets creating this thing and he’s speechless at the results.
Frankenstein becomes desperate to forget and get out of the frightening situation. We know this because of the language used by Mary Shelley; “endeavouring to seek a few moments of forgetfulness” this shows that Victor wants escape this shows which portrays fear. Victor also feels subconsciously guilty as he sleeps, dreams; he dreams about Elizabeth and his mother: ‘I thought I saw Elizabeth, in the bloom of health, walking in the streets of Ingolstadt. Delighted and surprised, I embraced her; but as I imprinted the first kiss on her lips, they became livid with the hue of death;’ this premonition shows that he is does not want his family dragged in to his problem. It has also been added to suggest the future events. Mary Shelley uses pathetic fallacy when it says ‘by the dim and yellow light of the moon’ Shelley has used the words ‘yellow’ and ‘dim’ to associate negative language to the monster as he appears. She also uses the negative language to sympathise with Victor at this point.
As the ‘dreary night’ passes Cleveral looks after Victor after falling ill, where he receives a letter from Elizabeth. Worried; she tells him that she wants to come to visit him and his father is asking about him. ‘I figure to myself that the task of attending on your sick bed has devolved on some mercenary old nurse,’ and ‘Your father's health is vigorous, and he asks but to see you -- but to be assured that you are well’ these quotes give the impression of a caring family which makes the creature more monstrous for destroying it with the acts he is about to commit.
In Chapter 7, Victor receives a letter from his father to hear that William had gone missing, then found dead; ‘”Poor William! Dear lovely child, he now sleeps with his angel mother!”’ this makes the reader sympathise with Victor and makes us perceive the creature as villainous. It also describes William as innocent and victimized when Shelley uses positive adjectives. When Mary Shelley writes “To die so miserably; to feel the murderer's grasp. How much more a murderer, that could destroy such radiant innocence!” She includes this to show Victor is morning and the words ‘grasp’ suggests that he might have been strangled and that Victor is guilty about the upcoming events.
On the arrival at the family house, Victor hears that Justine has been arrested and accused of William’s murder. After making a confession, she’s found guilty therefore has the penalty of death. ‘"Justine Moritz! Poor, poor girl, is she the accused? But it is wrongfully; every one knows that; no one believes it, surely”’ Victor’s reaction is disbelief this shows he fear and that he knows that the creature is responsible for William’s and now Justine’s death.
Frankenstein meets with his creation where he tells him about his life after he left on the ‘dreary night’. As he meets and sees his creation, Dr Frankenstein describes him as ‘combined with disdain and malignity’ and ‘too horrible for human eyes’ this provides the evil image of the creature that has been continued throughout until the creature speaks. The contradicting imagery that Mary Shelley creates when the creation speaks is that of a pleasant image; ‘All men hate the wretched; how, then, must I be hated, who am miserable beyond all living things! Yet you, my creator, detest and spurn me, thy creature, to whom thou art bound by ties only dissoluble by the annihilation of one of us.’ This makes the reader sympathise with the creature because he says that he’s unhappy and hated. It also contradict the image of the creature that the reader has because it give humane qualities to him and show he has emotions and not just a pure hot-blooded murderer.
As Frankenstein’s creature tells his story: the readers first impression is almost child like and discovering the world; ‘A strange multiplicity of sensations seized me, and I saw, felt, heard, and smelt, at the same time; and it was, indeed, a long time before I learned to distinguish between the operations of my various senses.’ This makes the reader sympathise with him.
Overall Frankenstein’s creature is portrayed as someone murdering and acting monstrous because of how he was treated, victimized. My personal opinion this gives an emotionally complicated character and although his actions shouldn’t be dismissed the overall impression of this is don’t tamper with the forces of god.
