Throughout all four letters we notice Walton’s spirits getting worse as he goes from being eager to go on his adventure to longing to get home. This is typical of the gothic genre, a light beginning gradually leading to a dark ending.
It is not until the fourth letter we meet Victor Frankenstein. Walton and his crew find him nearly dead. They found only one dog of the several that Frankenstein had pulling his sleigh. This shows just how cold it must have been for the specially bread dogs to be unable to survive it and yet, Frankenstein is still hanging on, showing his determination to destroy the monster. Frankenstein refers to the monster as “the daemon”; this shows just what an evil creature Frankenstein considers the monster to be. The word “daemon” is a very strong one, used to describe creatures from hell. Using this kind of adjective Shelley is representing the gothic genre very effectively.
We see Walton’s growing obsession with Frankenstein as he says “he excites both at once my admiration and pity to an astonishing degree”. He tells his sister that Frankenstein is “much recovered from his illness and is constantly on the deck, apparently watching for the sledge that preceded his own.” He describes how Frankenstein is constantly in search of the monster and how determined he is to find the monster at all costs, probably because he has nothing left to give and all he has to gain is revenge against the monster for taking from his all he had once loved.
The last part of the letter is Frankenstein’s warning to Walton, and his promise to tell him his story, which brings us into the chapters.
The horror of the story is gradually built up throughout the letters and leads into the chapters quite well. This structure of the book is very typical of the gothic genre.
The beginning of Chapter One is about Frankenstein’s father before he had children and when he met Caroline, Frankenstein’s mother.
Frankenstein was born in Naples and spent the first years of his life travelling in Europe. His parents saw him as a gift, and treated him as such. In this chapter we meet Elizabeth, Frankenstein’s adored stepsister. Frankenstein’s mother said “I have a pretty present for my Victor, and tomorrow he shall have it”, the night before they adopted Elizabeth. Frankenstein took his mother’s words literally, and cared for Elizabeth as if she were his own. “We called each other familiarly by the name of cousin. No word, no expression could body forth the kind of relation in which she stood to me”, we see just how much Frankenstein cared for Elizabeth, but also we know that she is dead from the use of the past tense in the language. Already we observe an idea of purity, and innocence and it is almost hard to believe that all this has been taken from his by such evil. This kind of break with convention is very gothic. It leaves the reader wondering just what had happened for Frankenstein to be in such a state.
“No human being could have passed a happier childhood than myself”, Frankenstein appreciates the life he was given, and makes it clear that he was brought up well, making it even harder to believe that he is in this position.
We observe a great contrast between Elizabeth and Frankenstein. Elizabeth focussed on the arts, poetry and the beauty of Switzerland, while Frankenstein looked at the world as if it were a big puzzle that he wanted to unravel.
This chapter holds the main catalyst, which drove Frankenstein to study Natural Philosophy. The family had taken a holiday, but rainy weather caused them to stay indoors one day. This is when Frankenstein picks up a book by Cornelius Agrippa. He asked his father about it but his father told Victor not to trouble himself with such sad trash. This only inspired Frankenstein’s hunger for knowledge further, so he read the book.
At this point we see a major comparison between Frankenstein and Walton, both of their father’s told them not to pursue the dreams any further, but they both disobeyed their fathers.
We can see Frankenstein’s warning becoming clearer because he made the same mistake as Walton did. Using the comparison between Frankenstein and his father his father, Shelley makes the story very appropriate to the traditions of the time, sons taking after fathers. Also, the simple catalyst for the breakdown of a character is very common in gothic horror.
Towards the end of chapter 2 Frankenstein describes a violent thunderstorm, and he specifically describes a beautiful oak tree which was struck by lightning and suddenly destroyed, “...on a sudden I beheld a stream of fire issue from an old and beautiful oak which stood about twenty yards from our house; and no soon as the dazzling light vanished, the oak had disappeared”. This is like an instantaneous representation of Frankenstein’s life, a beautiful beginning and then a sudden turning point leading to a horrible end. It also represents the gothic genre with the idea of a wonderful life being taking by an evil force, using the thunderstorm as a metaphor for the destructive force that takes such light and innocence from the world.
Many elements of the gothic genre are apparent in the letters and first two chapters and even though the reader knows what happens to Frankenstein in the end, they are compelled to read about his life and what drove him to become what he is when Walton finds him.