The theme of Victor leaving the monster to fend for itself could be related to abortion today. It wasn’t the monster’s fault that it looked as hideous as it did, and perhaps if Victor has showed it compassion instead of fear, and welcomed it into the world, teaching it morals and the difference between right and wrong, it wouldn’t have become such a monster. Unfortunately, as Victor fled from it’s sight, and showed it nothing but hate and disgust, that is all it knew. It didn’t know the difference between right and wrong and didn’t know how to act in society. This could be linked to the use of abortion for today for children with disabilities. It is not the children’s fault that they have a disability, or look the way they do, but as creators, parents, you must claim responsibility and love them regardless. Victor does not claim any responsibility for his actions, and chooses to run away from his problems, leaving the monster isolated and having to fend for itself. "I had desired it with an ardour that far exceeded moderation; but now that I had finished, the beauty of the dream vanished, and breathless horror and disgust filled my heart." This concept is also relevant to today as it could be conceived as a lack of parenting. The idea of disowning a child today is unsettling and seen as cruel, and the link between this and the rejection of the monster by Victor, unsettles the reader further. If you don’t teach a child how to acceptably behave, it will not know when it is doing wrong. If you do not show a child compassion or respect, it will in turn not show compassion or respect for anyone or anything around it as it does not know that it should. Victor as the creature’s father in a sense, displayed an acute lack of parenting skills, and yet wondered why the creature became a monster. At the beginning of its life, it wasn’t a monster but it became one, in response to other’s reactions and feeling towards it. This means in a sense, the other characters created the monster, not the creature creating a monster. This is an example of self fulfilling prophecy. The creature was told it was a monster, so it became a monster and behaved like a monster. The novel may have had a different ending if Victor had extended his hand to the monster and welcomed it into the world, instead of deserting it. Shelley’s father, William Godwin, believed that man is born good and is made bad by man. This directly backs up my point as does this quote from the novel itself, ‘Misery made me a fiend’.
‘Frankenstein’ is known as a novel from the Gothic genre. A genre that depended on its effect on the pleasing terror it induced in the reader, a new extension of literary pleasures that was essentially Romantic. It is the predecessor of modern horror fiction and is the source of the connection between “gothic” and the dark and the horrific. Frankenstein fulfils certain prominent features of a Gothic novel; madness, Gothic architecture and monsters. Shelley frequently refers to the Gothic architecture throughout the novel as well as the foreshadowing nature of the weather. During the book, whenever something bad is about to happen, a storm will begin. This is particularly evident in Chapter 5, when Victor gives life to his creation. It begins with the phrase, ‘It was on a dreary night in November that I beheld the accomplishment of my toils’. From this beginning sentence, we can predict that something bad is going to happen due to the use of the word ‘dreary’. It also says, ‘…the rain pattered dismally against the panes …’ This is not only an example of weather foreshadowing, but also of pathetic fallacy. ‘Frankenstein’ is not just a Gothic novel however; it is also a Romantic novel, one of the first books to be written at the beginning of the Romanticism movement. Romanticism was an artistic and intellectual movement that began in the late 18th century, which particularly focuses on adding emphasis to emotions such as trepidation and horror. Important features of a Romantic novel include a devotion to beauty and the preference of a solitary life as apposed to a life in society. It is called romanticism as it comes from the term ‘romance’ which is a poetic heroic narrative originating in the medieval time. ‘Frankenstein’ is both a Gothic and a Romantic novel as it contains points for each genre.
An alternative title to Shelley’s ‘Frankenstein’ is ‘The Modern Prometheus’. Prometheus was a Titan from Greek mythology who is said to have created mankind by fashioning figures out of clay in the shape of man, and allowing the goddess Athena to breathe life into them. Zeus, the Lord of all Gods, was angered by this and forbade Prometheus from teaching mankind the ways of civilisation. Prometheus disobeyed Zeus and stole fire from the heavens and gave it to mankind. As a punishment, Zeus chaining him to a mountain and sending an eagle down every day to pick out his liver. Over night, his liver would grow back only to be eaten out again the next day. This would continue for 30,000 years. Prometheus was also a myth told in Latin but was a very different story. In this version Prometheus makes man from clay and water, again a very relevant theme to Frankenstein as Victor rebels against the laws of nature and as a result is punished by his creation. Prometheus’ relates to the novel in two ways, the first on a personal level to Shelley herself. Shelley was a vegetarian and saw Prometheus not as a hero but as a villain whom she blamed for bringing fire to mankind. By bringing fire, he seduced the human race into eating meat, which brought on hunting and killing. Interestingly, the monster in ‘Frankenstein’ is a vegetarian, this is a link back to Shelley’s own personal beliefs and values. Prometheus also relates to the novel as for Romantic era artists in general Prometheus’ gift to mankind compared with the two great utopian promises of the 18th century: the Industrial Revolution and the French Revolution, containing both great promise and potentially unknown horrors.
Much of Shelley’s own life has a direct connection with her novel. There were many deaths in her early life, the first being the death of her mother 10 days after Shelley’s own birth. This directly links to the amount of deaths in the novel itself. Shelley’s son was called William, he died age 3 of malaria. In ‘Frankenstein’ Victor’s younger brother is called William, and he is the first victim of the monster’s murderous rampage. Trips to the Alps are important features in both. Shelley travelled to the Alps to write the book and therefore create the monster, and Victor chases the monster to the Alps to destroy the monster. Shelley’s story of ‘Frankenstein’ was the end result of a competition to write the best ghost story between Shelley, her husband Percy Shelley and Lord Byron at Byron’s villa at Lake Geneva in the summer of 1816.
Themes are an important part of Shelley’s novel, they include man’s quest for knowledge, playing God, obsessions, greed and romance. The quest for knowledge refers not just to Victor’s quest for the knowledge to creating life but also to the explorer Robert Walton’s quest for knowledge. These two quests do differ though as Victor never gives up on his, which eventually leads to his death, Walton after hearing Victor’s story, abandons his quest to save his crew. This shows Walton as a much better man although he does not discover what he set out to, he put his crew first. One important theme is neglect and abandonment, Victor’s original reasons for creating life from dead parts are noble. He wants to help mankind conquer death and diseases. But when he reaches the goal of his efforts and sees his creature and its ugliness, he turns away from it and flees the monstrosity he has created. Mary Shelley seems not to condemn the act of creation but rather Victor's lack of willingness to accept the responsibility for his deeds. His creation only becomes a monster at the moment his creator deserts it. The passing of time from when Victor first began his creation and finished it is also significant. ‘Winter, spring, and summer passed away during my labours’ The length of the three seasons is nine months, representing the time a natural human baby takes to be formed in its mother's womb. This once again suggests that Victor has found a way to take over the role of women, and they become powerless, weak and flimsy. They no longer have a purpose in life, as Victor can now create new life forms which had previously been a process which women needed to be involved in previously. An example of women's powerlessness in the novel is the condemnation of Justine for a crime she did not commit. Had she been a man, she would probably have been set free. Frankenstein succeeds in removing the only powers that women had, as well as stripping God from his role.
Walton is also important in the structure; Shelley has used an epistolary structure, which is one of the techniques she uses, this makes ‘Frankenstein’ unique. It is also written in a non chronological order which helps to create a fast pace and create excitement. This helps to keep the audience interested and holds their attention, making you want to keep reading more. It also gives the story an eerie feel and creates suspense, keeping the reader on the edge of their seat. There are multiple narrators, which makes you feel sympathy for all the characters and allows all angles to be covered. The book begins and ends with Robert Walton, who you believe as he is depicted as a nice man who cares for his family, as he writes in his letters ‘dear sister’ and ‘farewell my dear, excellent Margaret’. This lulls you into a false sense of security about the novel. Victor Frankenstein then takes over narration as he relays his story to Walton. You feel sympathy at first for him because he is a scientist and his quest for life is at first a noble one. Yet we lose sympathy for him at the end as he refuses to accept that he’s done wrong and take responsibility for his actions. An example of this is when Justine is falsely accused of William’s murder. Victor knows that Justine was innocent but admitting that he knows this, would mean confessing to the creation of his monster. The monster is the third narrator in the novel, and you feel sympathy for him when you hear his side of the story.
In Chapter 11, the monster is telling his story to Victor, and it is here that the reader may take the monster’s side. Victor insults the monster, ‘Devil … Begone vile insect! Or rather, stay that I may trample you to dust!’ Victor simply sets up to undermine himself however, as he is insulting the monster like a monster while the creature replies ‘I expected this reception’. This is not what Victor was expecting, there is no growling and roaring, nor stamping of feet or screams of “I’m going to eat you.” This sets up the monster as the more civilised one in this argument, in complete control of his language. He shows intelligence and reason that is obviously greater than Victor’s. The audience is not expecting this, and begin to see the monster in a different light, not as a murderous monster which he is, ‘I will glut the maw of death, until it be satiated with the blood of your remaining friends’, but more as misunderstood creature, that simply wants to be loved. This sympathy for the monster is both challenging and unsettling, as we know it is a murderous killing machine, but you feel empathy for it due to the civilised language it is using. It uses complex language and well thought out arguments, and eventually wins Victor round due to calm reasoning as apposed to Victor’s angry and coarse outbursts. The monster shows a play of words in regards to the word wretch, which means bad and miserable. Throughout the novel Victor calls the monster ‘wretch’ and it is here that the monster twists this insult back on its creator. It is ironic that Victor wants to kill the monster because the monster has killed others. This is unsettling as it makes the reader question which one of them is the real monster. Victor’s language at the creation of the monster only aids to cause the reader to feel sympathy for the monster. He refers to it as ‘thing’, ‘creature’ and wretch’. The monster is innocent now, it has only just been given life and is already being neglected due to it’s appearance.
There is a lot of religious symbolism in ‘Frankenstein’ such as the monster saying ‘Remember that I am thy creature; I ought to be thy Adam, but I am rather the fallen angel’. This relates to the story of creation, of Adam and Eve, the perfect man and woman until they gave into temptation. The monster is saying that he should have been the perfect man, the adored creation, but that he is the fallen angel. The original fallen angel was Satan, who was cast down from the heavens to hell. This point relates back to my previous point that man is made good, and made evil by others actions. Satan began life as an angel and became the Devil, just as the monster did. Victor then refers to him as ‘wretched devil’. It is unsettling that a creature so evil can be related back to angels and religion.
I was dubious beginning to read ‘Frankenstein’ as what I had previously heard about Shelley’s novel, portrayed it as classic horror story about a murderous monster. Once I had finished though, I discovered that it was in fact much more than a horror story. I found myself enjoying the novel, and the analysis of it made me realise things I had not realised in reading it. The popularity of the novel has increased in recent times, due to the popularity of film adaptations such as the 1994 film directed by Kenneth Branagh. Its popularity is due to its continuing relevance to today’s world, a concept that Shelley captured perfectly. I find it unsettling that such a young girl could write such a radical and horrific book at the young age of 19. Shelley herself said, ‘How I, then a young girl, came to think of and to dilate upon so very hideous an idea?’ I find it interesting that in a world dominated by men, Shelley wrote a book that is dominated by men considering her mother was a fierce feminist. Overall I enjoyed this book more that I thought I would, and found it is all about neglect, horror, romance, knowledge and man trying to play God. I would recommend this book, though I feel you need to analyse it in order to get as much as you can from Shelley’s novel.
