“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 quote shows how disappointed Frankenstein is in his creation. It tells us that he had spent two years of his life creating this creature, and fell ill expecting a good outcome from it all. When he ‘succeeds’ instead of feeling pleased he feels guilty and disappointed for creating this creature. Victor feels as if he has created a monster, not brought a person back to life. We also notice that Victor is afraid of this monster he has created, but not only that; he is afraid that people will find out his secret which he had kept hidden for two years. When Clerval says he wants to speak to Victor about something, this is Victor’s response:
“I trembled .One subject! What could it be?”
We see that Victor is paranoid because he starts to “tremble”. To Victor; there is only one subject that is on his mind. His conscience will not let him forget the creature, even though he tries. Victor is also scared that Clerval has found out about his secret and that’s why he acts in this way. Another one of Victor’s reactions is fear. We see this when the creature begins to come to life and victor rushes out of the room:
“I rushed out the room and continued a long time traversing my bed chamber, unable to compose my mind to sleep.”
This shows that Victor cannot bear to look at the creature because it’s so hideous. Another reason for the way he reacts is that he is afraid of the thing he has created and wants to escape from it. We as readers may feel that he is being selfish here because the creature turned out the way it was created, and Victor is to be blamed for that not the creature. At this point of the chapter Victor’s isolation starts from his family and friends. These things illustrate that once Victor puts his mind to one thing he forgets about all the other things around him. For instance when he was making the creature, he forgot about his family and now he’s with his friend Clerval, he forgets about the creature, which adds to Victors lack of consideration for others, and lessens our sympathy for him further.
Victor Frankenstein’s character is also revealed through the description of the nightmare he has:
“I thought that I held the corpse of my dead mother in my arms; a shroud enveloped her form, and I saw the grave-worms crawling in the folds of the flannel.”
This lets us know that Victor feels guilty that he didn’t stop making the creature earlier. It also tells us that he is confused about the creature and about the reason why he carried on making this thing. We get the idea from his nightmare that he regrets that he has turned away from his family and he is scared that he may lose them the way he lost his mother. Victor is scared that his loved ones may turn out to be like the creature, hideous and monstrous.
When Victor meets his friend Clerval, we as readers get a view of Victor’s character, before he started making the creature. When we are reminded of Victor’s character we realise how cheerful and caring he was, and how he has changed from then on. We get to know this when Victor says:
“Dearest Clerval,” exclaimed I, “how kind, how very good you are to me.”
This is demonstrating Victor’s change of attitude towards his loved ones, because, when he was obsessed with his project, he didn’t even remember any of them and here he is saying “Dearest Clerval”. Showing how important Clerval is to him.
After speaking to Clerval he thinks that everything will go back to normal, his life, his family and Elizabeth. Unfortunately that’s not how it happens because Victor is still guilty for creating this monster. Furthermore his conscience won’t let him forget. We see this when Victor states:
“No mortal could support the horror of that countenance.”
We see that Frankenstein is trying to justify what he has done. This proves that his sense of right and wrong is blameworthy for what he has done. Then he describes the creature, as if it’s something from hell. This illustrates the state of mind Victor’s in, and how ashamed he is, for going against his faith and religion.
As the novel progresses, Victor’s character changes and with that so does the reader’s feeling towards the character Frankenstein. Throughout this whole novel, Frankenstein’s project and the creature create a rift between him and his family and friends, making him an outcast like the creature. This is the irony of this novel; he becomes the outsider himself.
Mary Shelley uses language to develop the novel’s atmosphere in chapter 5. She does this by entertaining the reader, mainly to create fear in the reader. ‘Frankenstein’ is one of the earliest examples of horror fiction. The reason Mary Shelley creates fear in the reader is to entertain them; the reason for this is that she expects them to read on since they feel scared. This makes the reader want to know what happens further on in the novel, plus it makes them carry on reading.
Another way she makes the readers engaged in reading ‘Frankenstein’ is by using special techniques to describe the atmosphere in chapter 5, which makes the readers want to carry on reading. We see the use of this when Mary Shelley portrays the setting for chapter 5 when the creature comes to life. To achieve her aim in giving the chapter atmosphere, she begins with the sentence:
“It was on a dreary night of November”
She does this to establish the atmosphere of darkness, secrecy and isolation. To put forward this idea Mary Shelley talks about the weather, the time and the place, where it’s all taking place. This all discloses Victor’s isolation and the mysteriousness behind the form of work he’s doing. One way she conveys the atmosphere is by referring to the weather and its condition throughout the beginning paragraph.
“It was already one in the morning; the rain pattered dismally against the panes, and my candle was nearly burnt out,”
This quote shows the comparison between light and darkness, which adds to the mysteriousness of what is going on inside the laboratory. The writer is trying to emphasize that the creature is unknown to the outside world, so therefore this creates a sense of remoteness. Through the use of a complex sentence the writer wants to get across the feeling of restlessness and fear in the readers and to do this she has to create an atmosphere where it’s all dark and Victor is all alone just with the creature. These couple of scenes which describe the setting, set the scene for the rest of the novel where the bad atmosphere of impending catastrophe for Victor carries on building.
Then when the creature comes to life there’s a change in the atmosphere. To emphasise this Mary Shelley uses language to express the emotions of the character Victor Frankenstein. She makes sure that we understand the feeling of mysteriousness, darkness and danger, just by looking at the language. Mary Shelley doesn’t directly tell us what the character is feeling but by reading the words you can imagine what kind of atmosphere had been created.
“…His hair was a lustrous black, and flowing; his teeth of a pearly whiteness; but these luxuriances only formed a more horrid contrast with his watery eyes,”
At this point of the novel Mary Shelley, uses the description of the creature to create an unfriendly atmosphere. One way she does this is by describing the creature in a positive way then contrasting it to the negative images of the creature. This creates an image in our head, of this beautiful thing, but when we add all the other images together we get a picture of this hideous monster. The way the writer describes the features of this creature, creates this effective atmosphere of horror and disgust rather than the feeling of an accomplishment that has been achieved.
Another way the writer emphasises the mood of scene is by using long complex sentences. This attempts to show the sense of time that has gone past and the use of semicolons shows that there isn’t just one thing happening but a series of things. The use of first person in this chapter helps Mary Shelley to tap into the feelings of the readers, this way the fear of the creature, and empathy for both the creature and Frankenstein is created. Then the writer uses two short sentences with an exclamation mark to give the evidence of shock the character has in the novel:
“Beautiful! Great God!”
Victor’s reaction is shared by the readers here, when he is shocked by what he has created. The profanity here demonstrates the extreme of what Victor is feeling. The writer is trying to share this with the readers that Frankenstein isn’t as powerful as he thought he was, otherwise he wouldn’t have made such a hideous monster instead of just bringing the dead back to life. This quote is also ironic because Frankenstein has just tried to take the role of God and he failed. The use of irony makes the readers realise that Victor is being punished for what he has done and it creates the atmosphere of horror, disgust and sorrow. The reason for sorrow is because he has spent nearly two years on this experiment and no good came out of it. He did succeed in creating life but his ethics let him down because he knows he is wrong. So overall the atmosphere that is created in Chapter 5 is mostly shock, horror and a response to the neglecting of the creature.
Looking at chapter 5 we notice that chapter 5 links to many, key themes in the novel. Some of these relate to science, religion, life and death, and finally conflict and contrast. The main contrasts in this novel are life and death, science and religion and solitude and companionship. Mary Shelley explains how Victor changes the norm of the sanctity of life. Mary Shelley does this to emphasise that there is both success and failure in this novel. The success is that Frankenstein has succeeded in his project but failed in carrying out his responsibility of looking after the creature. Also he has failed in his religion because he has committed a sin by going against God. This is a contrast between science and religion; it is also a conflict between them.
This novel was written in the 19th century and gives us an idea of what life was like during that time. This novel shows what people believed during the 19th century, they believed that scientists can do anything, even bring the dead back to life. People were mostly interested in science and the power of life. During that time there was a lot of conflict between people’s views. Some people believed that it is wrong to bring the dead back to life because bringing the dead back to life is in God’s hand and trying to be God is a sin. There were also people who believed that doing these experiments wasn’t wrong because in one way they can stop people from dying. Chapter 5 is rather ironic because Mary Shelley is writing this novel as a scientist, but the views she’s putting across are that these experiments lead to nothing but sorrow. So in other words she’s trying to prove that these experiments that are happening are wrong, and they will be punished for it in the end. When you look at this point again we can realise that she’s not criticising the science but she is against the morality and ethics of it.
Another thing that was quite interesting to know was that people believed in nature itself, and here we are looking at the nature of writing in ‘Frankenstein’. Writing as entertainment was very popular in the 19th century so Mary Shelley might have used this idea to create fear in whoever read this book, so in future no one ever thought of trying to be God. This novel is also about nature and how it is changed by man made things. This is shown in the novel over and over again. The creature that Victor makes is man made but nature restores him back to his usual health. So here’s a conflict between nature (god) and things that are man made (humans). Overall this novel is about a lot of things but mainly it’s about technology and how it can take over people’s lives.
Reading Mary Shelley’s “Frankenstein” and especially looking at Chapter 5 has made clear the literary context of the whole novel. We notice the literary context straight from the beginning when she introduces the setting of Chapter 5. Firstly one of the main contexts she uses throughout the novel is that she writes as part of the Gothic tradition. This is shown in the setting, where she describes the rain and darkness. One thing which Mary Shelley shows a lot is, Victor’s isolation and this is typical of Gothic fiction. The Gothic tradition is also shown in the plot where people deal with the unknown; they deal with things, which are out of their imagination and to do with supernatural. We see this with Victor because he is creating something that no one can imagine. Even though Gothic fiction is so old, it is still popular because it’s a fashion, which will always remain with us.
Another literary context, which Mary Shelley was influenced by, was Romanticism. The Romantics believed that the individual was more important than society. They also believed that the emotions of people were important too. Another thing that they believed was that nature has great powers. In chapter 5 we see the influence of romanticism when Victor falls ill, because of technology and science. However he is then helped to recover by nature.
“It was the divine spring, and the season contributed greatly to my convalescence.”
Victor says that nature restores him back to health and back to his normal self too. Overall Mary Shelley is trying to say that nature is the greatest medicine and one should not try to change the fact by using technology. In the whole novel Mary Shelley argues against technology by talking about nature and emotions. We can clearly see that she is influenced by Romanticism in the writing of the novel. Another example that she uses is when the creature says to Frankenstein: ‘you have given me emotions but didn’t tell me how to use them’. This is typical of a Romantic’s thought. Some of the things, which inspired Mary Shelley to write about Romanticism, were that her husband Percy Bysse Shelley was a romantic poet and so was their friend Byron. It was a particularly strong influence on artists and writer, at that time. So finally looking at the overall literary context used in chapter 5, it has given us as readers a better understanding of 19th century prose.
