Frankenstein was written in 1816 to 1818 and was later published in 1818, when its author, Mary Shelley, was only 21 years old. The unique novel is a gothic horror and Mary shelly in chapter five creates a perfect contrast of setting the scene using a ‘dreary night’ and ‘the rain pattered dismally’ using these words sets a perfect atmosphere for something appalling to happen. The words ‘dreary’ and ‘dismally’ give the reader the sense of a depressing atmosphere unlike other gothic horrors, Mary Shelly uses more powerful words to make it more subtle.
Describing the monster as a ‘wretch’ and describing its complexion as ‘shrivelled’ and it having ‘straight black lips’, Shelly is describing its futures s ugly. When talking about the monster victor refers to it as a ‘hideous guest’ and calling it an ‘object’, this makes us able to imagine to some extent how ugly the monster is. Mary Shelley also describes the monster as ‘indescribable’ and even going to on to say ‘Even Dante could not have conceived’ by saying this Shelley is indicating the appearance of the monster is so gruesome even someone who wrote something as shocking as Danto’s inferno could not endure.
Victor Frankenstein was introduced as a caring, kind, intelligent family man in the previous chapters; he gradually becomes more and more preoccupied with science and his own ambition. However, in Chapter five, once he has brought his creature to life he becomes a self absorbed, selfish man, who does not consider the feelings and emotions of the monster he is responsible for. “Unable to endure the aspect of the being I had created, I rushed out of the room and continued a long time traversing my bedchamber” by running out like he did he shows he has become selfish as he has just abandoned it without a second thought for it.
In chapter five Frankenstein becomes thoughtless, putting the creating of the monster before his family life, after he had finished it, he becomes a cowered “he might of spoken but I did not hear” this shows that he ignored what he created and didn’t show any moral support or love towards it and this has denied the monster of acceptance, the monster is like a newborn baby it doesn’t know what to do and victor immediately makes a decision that it’s not worth any attention and abandons his own responsibility.
Shelley’s use of language in chapter five is important because she creates a comparison between the beautiful features of Frankenstein’s monster, “lustrous black, and flowing”, and the uglier features, “straight black lips,” with this comparison it makes the uglier features seem more ghastly. This helps to understand all the feelings as how we can see Frankenstein as someone we can admire to someone we wouldn’t like so much because he says he ‘deprived himself of rest and heath for more than two years’ for something that when it comes to life he runs away from it and abandon’s straight away.
Chapter five is the most crucial chapter in Frankenstein. As when the monster is brought to life this is where Mary shelly can express’s her feeling through her characters.
Shelly refers to Danto’s inferno as she can describe the monster by relating to Danto because he wrote about the most ghastly, gruesome thing and she refers to the monster that even he couldn’t handle to look at it. In Frankenstein shelly explores many themes she explores science versus religion and nature versus nurture, she explores science versus religion as when Frankenstein creates the monster he is messing with science and religious people didn’t like the fact he was trying to play god. She also explores nature versus nurture because when he abandons the monster the it doesn’t get nurture from Frankenstein and feels abandoned by society just because of the way he looks, so it gets revenge and this is the nature.
