Great Expectations and Frankenstein

Authors Avatar

 “Both Great Expectation and Frankenstein suggest that the individual development is crucially determined by his social environment. While this is an important theme for the realist novel, both novels are unusual in deploying gothic and surreal modes of writing to express the realist point.” Discuss this statement with reference to the novels.  

I agree to a large extend that the individual development is dependent by his social environment. However to express the genre of Frankenstein and Great Expectation, there is a need for the gothic and surreal modes to be applied to give greater realism to the story. In this paper, I will show that it is the environment that turned Frankenstein creation into a monster due to his master’s treatment and societal rejection. I will also show how Pip in his effort to be part of Estella’s life resulted in his rejection of his current lifestyle, in his search for a better one. It is by obtaining sponsorship that he became a London gentleman and led a lifestyle he had always desired. However, it led to his moral digression until his environment changes, which compels him to help his sponsor. This ultimately led to his moral awakening that led him to morally develop into a hardworking individual.  

In Frankenstein, we find that Shelley has giving a family history of Victor Frankenstein to help us believe in his ability in reanimation. This started with his social environment, where Victor was born to a well-to-do family, whose father takes effort to guide his education by having the end in mind. From young, Victor is guided to take interest in reading and dabbling with the occult such as raising ghost and the devil.  (Shelley pp 18-22) By chance, he had an opportunity to study electricity when lightning struck a tree and when he was sent to England to further his studies, he took up the study of chemistry rather than Philosophy as he arrived to late to enrole for Philosophy. Finally it is his meeting at Ingolstadt with Professor M. Krempe, that set down the foundation in reanimation of dead human. (Shelley,pp.33) With his father’s guidance against fearing supernatural horrors and his selfish ambitious nature to be even greater than what nature allows, he was determined to create a man so as to be worshiped. (Shelley,pp.34-36) When he destroyed that mate of the creature before its reanimation, it gave a feeling as if killing a human being. (Allen, pp.67)  

Join now!

When Victor dabbled in the monster’s creation, he has violated the nature and nurture role of parents and child. Firstly, it is not of natural birth. Secondly, the creature is not related to him in blood. (Shelley,pp. 36,40) Thirdly, he did not nurture or casre for it as a father to a child, instead he sees it as a spectre and treated it badly, as he never expected his creature to be so hideous, eg. “his yellow skin”. (Shelley,pp.39,42) Fourthly, he abandons the creature rather than take social responsibility in its upbringing. Fifthly, the creature is not created to ...

This is a preview of the whole essay