Wasted lives is a key theme in both "Frankenstein" and "In cold blood" and both of my articles show this in comparable ways- firstly is the wasted life of Victor Frankenstein from many Shellys Frankenstein and the wasted life of Mrs Clutter in cold blo

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The first thing I will be comparing in my two extracts is how well both novels fit into the theme of a ‘gothic genera’  as both novels are based on these theme’s but seem to portray different aspects of the same genera – Frankenstein uses vivid descriptions of desolate landscape which fits perfectly into this genera and sets  a negative atmosphere –  the atmosphere in my Frankenstein extract is filled with ‘ice crevices’ and ‘dreary glaciers’, my Frankenstein extract also uses another key feature of gothic genera, here the inclusion of a disfigured being that is not truly human is symbolic of the theme of the book; all of this has the effect to scare a Victorian audience who were so afraid of the unknown and the gory Mithraism that surrounds it. A Victorian audience would relate to the practice of galvanism – a real controversial issue of this time, perhaps this is why Shelly  chose to portray the gothic genera in this way – this also explains the use of the genera in my in cold blood extract, here there is no disfigurement nor desolate landscapes, instead Capote has chosen to use something that would relate to a 1959 audience, being people’s lives being completely ruined by a horrible string of murders, something an audience of the time would be partially aware of as for the first time small televisions and widespread radio coverage allowed news of this sort of crime to travel further around the country and the first roots of paranoia started to set in, suddenly people were scared that such a unlikely thing could happen to them, the reason I believe Capote chose to use such negative diction and gruesome imagery in such a normal environment such as ‘she had been shot in the back of the head with a shotgun held maybe two inches away” and “her eyes were open. Wide open – as though she was still looking at the killer” is to fear the reader using this very gothic tactic of playing on peoples underlying fears – to sum it up both extracts have a deep underlying gothic genera, it’s just the authors have used different techniques to portray it in ways relevant to their separate audiences.

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Wasted lives is a key theme in both Frankenstein and In cold blood and both of my articles show this in comparable ways- firstly is the wasted life of victor Frankenstein from many Shelly’s Frankenstein and the wasted life of Mrs Clutter in cold blood, both of my extracts highlight the fact that both of these characters are often ill and end up spending most of their time in bed – in in cold blood we know from my extract that Mrs clutters health is ‘not to good’ and that she promised that she would ‘never be sick again’ – ...

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