At the time of Mary Shelly writing Frankenstein many issues that were going on in society may have influenced her. Religion in the 19th century was very strict and the scientific technology was not very developed so people were very set in their ways and not open to new ideas or anything thing that would in the slightest go against their religious believes. So, when Shelly wrote the novel she probably had in mind the type of response she would get from the audience. Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein was one of the first science fiction books this is one aspect that makes it so famous. It was also so different to anything else written at the time that readers may have been sceptical yet at the same time a little intrigued. Grave robbing was also happening when she wrote the book. This is shown through her idea for Victor Frankenstein to steal the body parts, for his creation, from graves. It is more affective to have lots of chopped up parts of different people rather than one whole dead body. The grave robbing and sewing body parts together adds to the dreadfulness of the occasion. In the summer of 1815 Shelly read and studied various books but two in particular affect her writing they were Metamorphoses by Ovid and Paradise Lost by Milton.
“Whether with particles of heav'nly fire, The God of Nature did his soul inspire; Or earth, but new divided from the sky, And, pliant, still retain'd th'ethereal energy; Which wise Prometheus temper'd into paste, And, mix't with living streams, the godlike image cast... From such rude principles our form began; And earth was metamorphos'd into man.”
Ideas from this passage from Ovid have leaked into chapter 5 where Frankenstein says, “I collected the instruments of life around me, that I might infuse a spark of being into the lifeless thing that lay at my feet.”
Mary Shelly creates a vivid and realistic world through her inspired use of language. The opening phrase of chapter 5, “It was on a dreary night of November”, is a classic example of some of the features needed in a gothic novel. The reader is told it is night time, by setting the scene at night Mary Shelly forms an impression of mystery and secrecy. The events that occur are under the cover of darkness and readers are engaged by secrets or the unknown as well as scared. Shelly then describes the night as dreary; this word on its own is usually used in negative light and links to words like desolate, lifeless and depressing. It can be used to illustrate the weather or even feelings, giving layers of meaning for the reader to uncover. On the surface Shelly is simply describing the November weather but beneath she is perfecting her gothic scene with well selected adjectives. Dreary can be perceived as a description of rain and rain, in gothic novels, is a symbol of sadness, death or a bad event. In this case it’s not a death but it could be seen as a bad and dangerous because Frankenstein giving life to the dead is very out of the ordinary therefore viewed as dangerous.
Each word adds the equivalent of a hundred words full of description, so from just these words, we can instantly interpret Shelly’s words to build a scene for her story. The fact that Shelly has located the scene in November improves the gothic setting because November has really wet and wintry weather which are common characteristics of the gothic style. November is also close to Halloween, the pagan celebration of witches and ghouls, which is coincidental that nowadays Frankenstein’s creation is used as monster to dress up as on Halloween.
Shelly then goes on to describe the creation through Frankenstein’s eyes. The creature’s “yellow skin scarcely covered the work of muscles and arteries beneath; his hair was of a lustrous black, and flowing; his teeth of pearly whiteness”. This sentence is packed with artistic depiction where Shelly has tried to capture the creation’s hideous appearance; she also uses it to make us believe that Frankenstein is pleased with the result at this moment. She lists detailed phrases of description using semi colons between each one, by putting the description into a list form gives the impression that she has a lot to say about the unfortunate looking creature. The words she chooses can be used positively like, “lustrous” but Shelly then backs it up with a negative word like,” black” to add layers to the text. This gives both Shelly’s and Frankenstein’s opinion on the creation appearance.
The character of Frankenstein is a very confused and troubled person. His past has affected him hugely and now he is abandoning his child. At a certain point in chapter 5 Shelly portrays Frankenstein in a bad light as though to shape our views of him. She uses emotive language to capture the sympathy of the reader towards the creation. The creature’s “jaws opened, and he muttered some inarticulate sounds, while a grin wrinkled his cheeks. He might have spoken, but I did not hear; one hand was stretched out seemingly to detain me, but I escaped”. Here the creature is only acting like any new born would and is trying to interact with its parent but instead of having maternal instincts Frankenstein sees it as an attack and consequently abandons the creature. The way Shelly wrote this extract is explaining to the reader the harmless actions of the creature and then she goes on to describe how Frankenstein views it. Some may see the creation as Frankenstein does, a cold monster, but others will look at the deeper layers and discover that the creation was only turning to its parent for support and reaching out to embrace Frankenstein not to detain him. Frankenstein very immature and should have thought his idea through in more detail, he only thinks of himself and not all the innocent people that her hurt as a result of his actions.
To conclude I feel the central point of the novel is chapter 5. It is the main ingredient and without it the book would not come together. The chapters before it are leading up to that point and then the chapters after it are results chapter 5. This chapter is the seed to the novel and the roots are the first few chapters giving anchorage and background knowledge to the novel, then the story starts to grow and progress, last chapters form the bud until the novel ends with a blooming flower.
By Antoinette Holmes
