critical analysis essay on frankenstein

The Novel “Frankenstein” by Mary Shelley: Critical Analysis Essay

Introduction, walter scotts critique, naomi hetherington’s critique, works cited.

Frankenstein’s work has been criticized by many scholars who have tried to come up with other ideas concerning the Novel. Her book contains critical information which cannot be underestimated in the current contemporary society. Her use of hypothetical questions and fiction in the setup of her ideas can be utilized in recent literary works. This essay discusses two critiques by Professor Naomi Hetherington’s and Walter Scott’s analysis of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein.

Walter Scott, who was a British national, wrote the Romantic Circle Critiques. He was born in Edinburg and attended Edinburgh High School. He further went to Edinburgh University to study arts and law (Romantic Circles). He was involved in the Romantic Movement and participated in various occupational Walter was conducted, including poetry, historical novelist, clerk session, and advocate. His first poem was entitled Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border. Additionally, he published novels like Waverley, Guy Mannering, and Tales of My Land.

Mary’s novel is featured in the romantic fiction of nature which depicts family values and fundamental laws of nature. The author aims to explain the romantic nature by explaining unusual settings and nature components (Romantic Circles). The perceptions which drove Frankenstein, such as the change of species Belle Assemblee are explained. Furthermore, the difficulties and challenges Frankenstein and encounters with demons are illustrated. The changes that occur from life to death and death to stamina are explained. Themes of creation and revenge run across the novel in the urge of Frankenstein to avenge his originator for all the miseries.

Scoots’ analysis goes in hand with the settings and perceptions of Mary’s fiction. The element of imaginary setting and magical narration is the primary focus of the author’s critique. They bring about a better understanding of this novel in a relevant manner. The author supports Mary’s work and critically analysis the novel with matching arguments in a necessary way. He uses romance fiction and the element of vengeance and anger due to demons’ control which generally gives a good narration based on historical events. I agree with the critique since it uses Frankenstein’s ideas and themes which support his arguments. The similarity in the content and the settings are valid and authentic.

Another critique is from Professor Naomi Hetherington, who has a Ph.D. from Southampton University. She has been a teacher in Birkbeck for almost five years at the University of London, where she earned a teaching and scholarship award for her incredible contribution to literature. Naomi’s thesis illustrates that Mary wanted to use myths through fiction, the meaning of being a human being in a universe full of troubles (Hetherington 42). Additionally, she suggests that Mary revised her work to deviate from Lawrence and compare it with Christian Orthodox etiology.

Naomi’s thesis statement is relevant since it illustrates a step-by-step analysis of the novel. The first section of her research relates Frankenstein to Milton’s Paradise Lost and Prometheus legend. On the other hand, the last section describes the book to the religious nature of Mary after her husband dies (Ozherelyev 63). The Miltonic illustrations seen throughout the novel are used to emphasize the origin of evil in the world. The presence of a deity who creates human beings is seen. I agree with Naomi’s Critique since it relates outside resources such as Frankenstein to Milton Paradise Lost and Prometheus legend to support her arguments. She further identifies other themes related to the main content making these resources valid.

In summary, the two critiques by Naomi and Scoot give a better review of the novel provide literature and comprehension of the past event. Factors that contribute to environmental changes are discussed. The themes of creation and vengeance are illustrated to give a clear perspective of Mary’s main aim in writing her book. After the death of her husband, Mary becomes religious and seeks Christian Orthodox etiology ideas. The existence of a deity who creates human beings indicates the origin of life, and its end is seen by death.

Hetherington, Naomi. “Creator And Created in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein .”Taylor & Francis , vol, 12, no. 5, 2022, pp. 32-85

Ozherelyev, Konstantin A. “Philosophical Contexts in Mary Shelley’S Novel «Frankenstein.» Herald Of Omsk University , vol 25, no. 3, 2020, pp. 61-66. Dostoevsky Omsk State University ,

Romantic Circles. “Belle Assemblee Review of Frankenstein. March 1818, Romantic Circles”. Romantic-Circles.Org , 2022, Web.

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Bibliography

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• Frankenstein: Critical Reflections by Ginn & Hetherington
• Mary Shelley's Frankenstein Critical Analysis
• Frankenstein by Mary Shelley: Divine and Satanic
• Scotts Miracle-Gro: The Spreader Sourcing Decision
• The Critical Journal: Scotts's “The Onondaga Madonna” and Veracini's “Settler Colonialism and Decolonization”
• Edinburgh Tram System Project
• Prometheus: The Protector and Benefactor of Mankind
• Zeus the Terrible in Aeschylus’ “Prometheus Bound”
• Theme of Knowledge in Frankenstein: The Modern Prometheus by Mary Shelley
• Britons and Their National and Factual Identity
• Frankenstein's Search of Companionship in Shelley's Novel
• The Novel "Charlotte Temple" by Susannah Rowson
• Satire in “A Modest Proposal” by Jonathan Swift
• "The Monkey's Paw" Short Story by Jacobs
• Connections Between Religion and Literature: Magna Carta

Frankenstein

Mary shelley, ask litcharts ai: the answer to your questions.

Welcome to the LitCharts study guide on Mary Shelley's Frankenstein . Created by the original team behind SparkNotes, LitCharts are the world's best literature guides.

Frankenstein: Introduction

Frankenstein: plot summary, frankenstein: detailed summary & analysis, frankenstein: themes, frankenstein: quotes, frankenstein: characters, frankenstein: symbols, frankenstein: literary devices, frankenstein: quizzes, frankenstein: theme wheel, brief biography of mary shelley.

Historical Context of Frankenstein

Other books related to frankenstein.

• Full Title: Frankenstein, or, The Modern Prometheus
• When Published: 1818
• Literary Period: Switzerland and London, England: 1816–1817
• Genre: Gothic novel
• Setting: Switzerland, France, England, Scotland, and the North Pole in the 18th century
• Climax: The Monster's murder of Elizabeth Lavenza on her wedding night to Victor
• Antagonist: The Monster
• Point of View: Frankenstein is told through a few layers of first person narratives. Walton is the primary narrator, who then recounts Victor's first-person narrative. In addition, Victor's narrative contains the monster's first person story as well as letters from other characters.

Extra Credit for Frankenstein

A ghost story. On a stormy night in June of 1816, Mary Shelley, her husband, and a few other companions, including the Romantic poet Lord Byron, decided to try to write their own ghost stories, but Shelley couldn't come up with any ideas. A few nights later, she had a dream in which she envisioned "the pale student of unhallowed arts" kneeling beside his creation—the monster. She began writing the story that became Frankenstein the next morning.

The Tale of Two Frankensteins. Shelley published the first edition of Frankenstein anonymously, perhaps due to her concern that such a grim and violent tale would not be well received by her audience if they knew her gender. She revised the novel and published it under her real name in 1831. Some key differences exist between the editions, namely that in the first edition, Elizabeth is Alphonse's niece and, therefore, Victor's cousin. (In the 1831 edition, the more popular version and the one used in this Outline, the Frankensteins adopt Elizabeth from another family).

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The Analysis of Frankenstein

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Frankenstein

Introduction of frankenstein.

The novel , Frankenstein , previously titled The Modern Prometheus, was written by Mary Shelley . It was first published in 1818. It is known as the epitome of the science fiction of the early 19 th century, and also it set the stage for scientific passion among the scientists with caution to shun the seamy side of experiments. The novel revolves around the story of a young scientist, Victor Frankenstein, who becomes the victim of his own creation, a monster. The monster later attempts to take his own life, before wreaking havoc in the life of the scientist, and his family. The unique feature of this story is that Miss Shelley started it when she turned 18 and finished at the age of 20.

Summary of Frankenstein

The story of the novel begins with a seafarer, Robert Walton, writing letters to his sister about his adventures to the North Pole. During these letters, he recounts his confrontation with Victor Frankenstein traveling on the sled. When Walton comes across him, he is on the verge of death on those icy plains, but Walton hauls him on board and nurses him to recovery after which he recounts his fantasizing tale of creating the monster. Starting his fascinating story, Victor mentions his early life in Geneva, his idyllic childhood with his cousin Elizabeth Lavenza, his study at Ingolstadt University, his passion for natural sciences, and chemistry. Victor also talks about his desire the creating life during his research.

Recounting further, Victor tells him that he has spent hours daily for months on the creation of life, by combining different organs into one body which he had brought from a graveyard. One night he succeeds in infusing the spark of life in it. He, however, feels horrified to see the monster he has brought to life. Obsessed with the ugliness of this monster, he runs for his life, afraid of this looming shadow pursuing him everywhere. He visits his friend Henry to trick the monster but a fatal illness grips him for long. Soon he plans to visit Geneva to see his family and recover his health. Before leaving the university, he gets his father’s letter about the sad demise of his younger brother, William. Brokenhearted, he hurries back home and sees his brother’s dead body. Later, he learns that the monster had killed his brother by suffocating him.

To his horror , he comes to know that the innocent adopted girl, Justine Mortiz, is arrested and under trial for her alleged role in the murder of William. Despite her innocence, she faces execution, making Victor even more depressed. At heart, he terms himself responsible for these two deaths because of his creation of the monster. The more he thinks about this, the more he becomes disappointed. Finally, not finding solace at home, he turns to the mountains to pass his vacation to recover from this depression, when he comes across the monster while walking on a glacier. The monster confesses his crime, making pleas to Victor to understand his dilemma of living in isolation, hatred, and permanent loneliness. He argues that William has become the victim of his animosity toward Victor, as the monster does not want to live alone , and begs Victor to create a partner for him.

Victor refuses the monster’s request, he is even more terrified at the prospect of the second monster wreaking havoc on the earth. However, Victor does observe that the monster talks like any human with eloquence in his speech. He succeeds in bringing home the point to Victor that he needs a colleague to pass his life. However, not knowing what to do, Victor takes his leave, turns to his friend Henry, and visits England to collect information about the creation of life. Although he tries his best when staying at Orkneys, he again faces the ethical dilemma of creating another monster. When he peeps out of the window of his lab during these thoughts, he glances out of the window and sees the monster grinning at him. Here the monster believes that he is hopefully going to have a friend to talk to. But, Victor immediately destroys what he has created so far. This action throws the monster into a fit of rage, swearing to harm him during his wedding.

The revenge of the monster comes sooner rather than later when Victor loses his way and is washed ashore in the proximity of some unknown town. He immediately becomes a criminal after he finds himself arrested for the murder of his friend, Henry. In spite of Victor’s denial, he faces trial for Henry Clerval’s murder. It is apparent that Frankenstein’s monster had killed Henry out of revenge. Eventually, he is cleared and returns to Geneva. Victor continues to live in fear, though, his father arranges his marriage. Due to the constant fear in his mind about the monster appearing somewhere at night, and killing him, Victor becomes distant from almost everyone. Despite his cautious approach of making Elizabeth move away, he hears her screams when the monster finds her alone and kills her. Victor seeks his father’s help, but he too breathes his last in this grief. After a while, Victor vows to kill him to exact revenge for the death of his near and dear ones.

Soon Victor finds him in the north and almost reaches very close to him but the snow beneath them gives way, and a gap appears. Walton, then, appears to save Victor who narrates his story of the monster. The same story is recounted by Walton to his sister in all his letters. He also tells about Victor’s death and the mourning of the monster with his own story of suffering, loneliness, and repentance over his acts. Walton then leaves this world heading to the north, as he ends the story. In this amazing story, most people sympathize with Victor because he loses his family and friends when the Monster kills them. However, it must be observed that Victor created the monster and left him on his own. Hence, here, Victor can be blamed as the cause for everyone’s demise, which he also agrees with. The Monster however is desperate for companionship and felt rejected, which led him to commit the crimes. It is also debatable to know if the monster was indeed good as he claimed to be when kills a child out of revenge. The novel is a great way to understand why a few people commit crimes and what made them push themselves into the darkness .

Major Themes in Frankenstein

• Creation: The novel revolves around the theme of creation as the central point of focus for human beings. Despite his good education and reasonable scientific knowledge, Victor is after the creation of life after he is free from Ingolstadt. He creates his laboratory and tries to build a creature that becomes independent after he infuses the spark of life in it. This backfiring of his efforts take a heavy toll on him, killing his siblings, his wife, friends, and even costs the life of his distraught father. Although he tries to pacify the monster by creating his partner or mate, he leaves this project and runs after the monster to exact revenge for ruining his entire life.
• Theme of Alienation: The novel covers the theme of alienation through the situation of Victor as well as the monster. Victor goes for the creation of the monster through his creative power to end his isolation. The monster is alienated because of his grotesque looks and as a failed experiment. Hence, the monster goes after him and his family to end that feeling. Although at one point, he has coerced him into working for him to create a mate for him, Victor leaves it in the middle and runs after the monster. The narrator , Robert Walton also faces alienation, the reason that he writes long letters to his sister as reconciliation.
• Isolation: The theme of isolation is another major point of the novel that characters like Robert Walton, Victor, and especially the monster. Walton writes constant letters to his sister to end it, while Victor longs for his family reunion. The chase of the monster is in the rage for his being an obstacle to his reunion. The monster feels loneliness as he tries to become friendly toward the family where he has sought refugee from the world.
• Crossing Boundaries: The punishment of crossing the boundaries and limits is another central idea of the novel demonstrated through the obsessive zeal of Victor for his passion for the creation of life. This is an intervention in the divine. When he creates the monster, he becomes rather God-like and abandons his responsibility. Hence, the monster teaches him a lesson that he should not meddle with the realms that do not belong to him. He has to pay a heavy price for his folly of crossing the limits.
• Ambition: Victor is an ambitious person who proves that he can go to any limit to satisfy his negative passion. However, when he oversteps the boundaries, it shows that even an ambitious person commits a negative act, which can backfire in the shape of the monster, who kills his siblings and ruins his life.
• Injustice: Mary Shelley has demonstrated that when things go wrong, justice becomes injustice, and fair becomes foul. When Victor takes the first misstep, he has to see Justin going to gallows on the charges of murdering William, and despite knowing everything, he is unable to stop this. This injustice leads to another injustice that he creates the monster and then does not create a mate for him.
• Responsibility: The theme of individual and social responsibility has been highlighted through the unbridled character and invention of Victor that despite having the best of the education, he could not stop doing an unethical thing. It has been his responsibility to help others instead of creating monsters for them. That is why the thematic strand of responsibility lies at the heart of the novel.
• Natural Laws: The implicit thematic depiction of the laws of nature has been shown through the crossing of boundaries that Victor does by creating a monster instead of utilizing his knowledge for human welfare. That is why the misuse of natural laws ruins his family and his life.
• Parental Responsibility: Although Alphonse Frankenstein has fulfilled his responsibility of imparting the best education to his son, Victor, he forgets to instill ethical responsibility in him toward human beings. Hence, Victor creates the monster without thinking about social and moral consequences.
• Revenge: The theme of revenge has been demonstrated in two ways; the monster’s revenge from Victor in killing his siblings, and ruining his life, and Victor’s revenge from the monster by not creating a clone, and by chasing him to his death, which doesn’t occur.

Major Characters in Frankenstein

• Victor Frankenstein: Although Walton peeps through the character of Victor whenever he has a chance, this is Victor, who is the protagonist and main character. The son of Alphonse Frankenstein, he gets the best from Ingolstadt, the best university in Geneva. His passion for chemistry leads him to create the spark of life and infuse it in his monster created awkwardly in his lab. The rest of the story comprises of the price that he has to pay in the shape of the murder of his brother, hanging of their adopted child, Justine, the murder of his wife, the death of his father, and ultimately his own death by the end.
• The Monster: The creation of Victor Frankenstein, the monster takes the life of his own after Victor infuses in him that spark. However, what Victor fails to understand is that this life needs a social circle, a mate, and a society like human beings, feeling the lack of which the monster becomes revengeful and pleads his case to Victor for the creation of a mate. Although at one point, Frankenstein momentarily agrees to his pleas. Later, feeling disgusted, he rejects and faces retribution in the shape of the murder of his family members and the ruin of his family. The love-hate relationship of Victor and the monster continues until the monster comes to know the death of Victor and leaves for the northward to disappear forever, promising Robert that he will set himself on fire.
• Robert Walton: Robert Walton is the narrator and also the sympathizer of Victor Frankenstein. It is Walton who makes a moral judgment on whatever Victor has done. It could be that these are his personal feelings that he narrates to his sisters in his letters through the narrative of the monster and the great scientist.
• Alphonse Frankenstein: Father of Victor, Alphonse proves that he is a responsible father who has taken great care of not only his blood children but also that of the adopted one, for he fights for justice for the adopted girl, Justine Moritz. He has to face the tragic loss of his son, the loss of the adopted girl, and then the loss of his daughter-in-law on account of his son’s passion for the creation of life, yet he does not complain.
• Elizabeth Lavenza: Although she appears in the novel after a long pause, she proves a lifeline for Victor after the death of his mother and plans to marry to bring joy to old Alphonse. However, the monster does not let Victor fulfill his wish of marrying her and kills her in the bedroom on her wedding night.
• Henry Clerval: As Victor’s friend, Henry Clerval, a polyglot, stands with Victor throughout his university career and in the post-university period. His proximity to Victor makes the monster kill him which proves rather painful for Victor.
• William Frankenstein: He is the younger brother of Victor and becomes the victim of his brother’s creation of the monster. The most tragic thing also happens after his murder that Justine is framed for his murder and hanged thereof.
• Justine Moritz: An adopted girl, Justine Moritz is the servant of the Frankenstein family but is considered their pet. She also becomes the victim of Victor’s creation, the monster, and is framed for murdering William.
• Caroline Beaufort : Caroline is the wife of Alphonse and mother of both Frankenstein boys. She adopts Elizabeth and takes care of Justine but does not live long to see the animosity that the monster harbors toward the Frankenstein family.
• De Lacey, Felix, and Agatha: These minor characters do not play a significant role but assists the monster and appear to be critical in making him feel how family life is beneficial.

Writing Style of Frankenstein

Living during the Romantic Period, it was but natural for Mary Shelley to write in the same strain and vein. Therefore, Frankenstein demonstrates the romantic traits in its writing style and narrative voices . Walton, the monster, and his creator, Victor, all share almost the same intensely emotional poetic, and romantic view of life and adopt almost the same style in their expressions. Therefore, diction becomes poetic when all three of them speak or narrate the events. However, some descriptive passages and narratives show the usual style of a simple narration.

Analysis of Literary Devices in Frankenstein

• Action: The main action of the novel comprises the creation of the monster by Victor Frankenstein. The rising action occurs when Victor succeeds in infusing a spark of life in the monster. However, the falling action occurs when his experience backfires, and the monster starts killing his loved ones out of spite.
• Allegory : Frankenstein shows the use of allegory in the story as it seems the story of the Christian belief about the beginning of life on the earth. However, the rest of the story shows that the intentions of Victor are not good, therefore, they backfire. He thinks of himself as God which is not right.
• Antagonist : Although initially, it seems that Victor is the main antagonist of Frankenstein as he is engaged in the creation of life. However, later it turns out that his experiment has succeeded but his creation has not come up to his expectations and has turned against him. Therefore, the monster proves to be the real antagonist of the novel. This, however, is debatable.
• Allusion : There are various examples of allusions given in the novel. The first allusion is the title of the novel that alludes to Prometheus, a Greek god. Zeus condemns him for betraying him, which becomes the reason of his suffering. It seems that Victor has also invited the same condemnation. The second is the illusion of P. B. Shelly’s poem titled “ Mutability .” There is another reference to “The Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner” by S. T. Coleridge, which is also a good allusion. The mention of Pandemonium is an allusion from Paradise Lost by John Milton .
• Conflict : The are two types of conflicts in the novel . The first one is the external conflict that starts between the creator, Victor Frankenstein, and the creation, the monster. This conflict takes the life of both of them. The other conflict is the mental and internal conflict that goes on in the mind of Victor about the issues that his siblings and relations have had to face the consequences of his recklessness.
• Characters: Frankenstein presents both static as well as dynamic characters . The young man, Victor Frankenstein, and the narrator, Robert Walton are two dynamic characters. However, the rest of the characters do not see any change in their behaviors such as Justin Mortiz, William Frankenstein, Henry as well as Caroline.
• Climax : The climax takes place when Victor comes to learn about the murdering spree of his creation. When he kills Elizabeth, it proves the end after which he starts chasing the monster.
• Foreshadowing : There are many foreshadows in the novel that suggests the creation of the monster and the impacts of this creation on the life of Victor in general and his relatives in specific. For example, i. Curiosity, earnest research to learn the hidden laws of nature, gladness akin to rapture, as they were unfolded to me, are among the earliest sensations I can remember . (Chapter-2) ii. It was a strong effort of the spirit of good, but it was ineffectual. Destiny was too potent, and her immutable laws had decreed my utter and terrible destruction. (Chapter-2) iii. Thus strangely are our souls constructed, and by such slight ligaments are we bound to prosperity or ruin. (Chapter-2) All of these sentences point to something ominous going to happen.
• Hyperbole : The novel shows the use of hyperboles at several places. For example, i. These visions faded when I perused, for the first time, those poets whose effusions entranced my soul and lifted it to heaven. (Chapter-1) ii. But it was augmented and rendered sublime by the mighty Alps, whose white and shining pyramids and domes towered above all, as belonging to another earth, the habitations of another race of beings. (Chapter-9) iii. The abrupt sides of vast mountains were before me; the icy wall of the glacier overhung me; a few shattered pines were scattered around; and the solemn silence of this glorious presence-chamber of imperial nature was broken only by the brawling waves or the fall of some vast fragment. (Chapter-10)
• Imagery : Imagery means to use of five senses such as in the below examples. i. It was on a dreary night of November that I beheld the accomplishment of my toils. With an anxiety that almost amounted to agony, I collected the instruments of life around me, that I might infuse a spark of being into the the lifeless thing that lay at my feet. (Chapter-5) ii. As the night advanced, a fierce wind arose from the woods and quickly dispersed the clouds that had loitered in the heavens; the blast tore along like a mighty avalanche and produced a kind of insanity in my spirits that burst all bounds of reason and reflection. (Chapter-16) iii. As I looked on him, his countenance expressed the utmost extent of malice and treachery. I thought with a sensation of madness on my promise of creating another like to him, and trembling with passion, tore to pieces the thing on which I was engaged. (Chapter-20) iv. I felt the cheering warmth of summer and heard the rustling of the leaves and the warbling of the birds, and these were all to me, I should have wept to die; now it is my only consolation (Chapter-24). The first example shows images of sound, the second one of nature and the third one shows the images of a person. Mark the use of the sense of touch, sound, and sight.
• Metaphor : Frankenstein shows good use of various metaphors . Below are the examples: i. Wealth was an inferior object . (Chapter-2) ii. I threw myself into the chaise that was to convey me away. (Chapter-3) iii. These feelings dictated my answer to my father. (Chapter-18) iv. I was cut off from my chief article of maintenance. (Chapter-24)
• Mood : The novel shows an inquisitive mood in the beginning but soon turns into a lovely and charming conversation. This gives way to a somber and serious mood when Victor starts his narrative and becomes tragic as well as lugubrious when his siblings become victims of the monster’s wrath one by one.
• Motif : The most important motifs of the novel are familial love, wrong choices , interference in nature, revenge, and kindness .
• Narrator : The novel is narrated by Robert Walton, a seafarer who relates this tale to his sister through his letters.
• Personification : Personification means attributing human acts and emotions to non-living objects. For example, i. Thus far I have gone, tracing a secure way over the pathless seas, the very stars themselves being witnesses and testimonies of my triumph. (Chapter-1) ii. My swelling heart involuntarily pours itself out thus. (Chapter-1) iii. Harmony was the soul of our companionship, and the diversity and contrast that subsisted in our characters drew us nearer together. (Chapter-2) iv. …my heart swelled with exultation and hellish triumph…(Chapter-17) v. A fiendish rage animated him as he said this. (Chapter-18) All of these examples show different emotions, passions, and things personified as if they have a life of their own.
• Protagonist : Victor Frankenstein is the kind of protagonist of the novel. He comes into the novel from the very start when Robert Walton mentions him in the letters and captures the interest of the readers until the last page. However, it is also important to note that he is also an antagonist for breaking the rule of nature and setting the monster in the path of revenge.
• Rhetorical Questions : The novel shows good use of rhetorical questions at several places. For example: i. Could I enter into a festival with this deadly weight yet hanging round my neck and bowing me to the ground?  (Chapter-18) ii. And if these were my sensations, who can describe those of Henry? (Chapter-18) iii. They might even hate each other; the creature who already lived loathed his own deformity, and might he not conceive a greater abhorrence for it when it came before his eyes in the female form? (Chapter-20) This example shows the use of rhetorical questions posed by different characters and narrators such as Robert Walton and Victor Frankenstein to themselves.
• Theme : A theme is a central idea that the novelist or the writer wants to stress upon. The novel shows the titular thematic strands the creation, hatred, family love, conjugal bliss, revenge, hatred, loneliness, and need for a partner.
• Setting : The setting of the novel shows different areas of Switzerland, Europe, the Arctic Ocean, and the United Kingdom.
• Simile : The novel shows good use of various similes. The below are the examples: i. It was, in fact, a sledge, like that we had seen before. ( Introduction ) ii. He came like a protecting spirit to the poor girl. (Chapter-2) iii. The saintly soul of Elizabeth shone like a shrine-dedicated lamp in our peaceful home. (Chapter-2) iv. No one can conceive the variety of feelings which bore me onwards, like a hurricane, in the first enthusiasm of success. (Chapter-4) The first simile compares the sledge/sled to something they knew, the arriving person to the spirit, the soul of the girl to a lamp, and the feelings to a hurricane.

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Frankenstein Essays

Dr. jekyll and mr. frankenstein theoderek wayne, frankenstein.

Both Robert Louis Stevenson's Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and Mary Shelley's Frankenstein tell cautionary tales of scientists abusing their creative powers to exist in another sphere where they cannot be directly blamed for their actions. Though...

Egotism, Personal Glory, and the Pursuit for Immortality Tiffany Guinan

The desire to make history to discover what remains undiscovered, or to know what remains unknown is a timeless human goal. Although many have failed to realize this dream, a very few have been wildly successful in its pursuit. The immortality...

Frankenstein and the Essence Of the Romantic Quest Tadd Hiatt

Victor Frankenstein, like many Romantics, relies upon his unusual capacity for sensitivity and creativity to aid him in his ambitions. In contrast to Robert Walton, who ventures to the North Pole to find "beauty and delight" (Shelley 15) amidst...

Like Father Like Son: Imitation and Creation Alison Anne Kuhns

Genesis states, "God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him". Humans, therefore, were created as a likeness to God. <I>Frankenstein</i> describes a similar act of creation in that in the novel, too, the...

Frankenstein's Discovery Theoderek Wayne

In Mary Shelley's <I>Frankenstein</I>, the paradoxical quality of the concept of "discovery" echoes that found in Milton's <I>Paradise Lost</I>: initial discovery is joyful and innocent, but ends in misery and corruption....

Nature As Victor Frankenstein's Physician Debbie Daniel

Setting plays a pivotal role throughout Mary Shelley's Frankenstein . Nature is presented as possessing an immense curative power: the beauty of the natural world heals Victor when he is too miserable to find solace anywhere else. The Arve Ravine...

The Tree of Knowledge Sara Granovetter

In Frankenstein, Mary Shelley warns that with the advent of science, natural philosophical questioning is not only futile, but dangerous. In attempting to discover the mysteries of life, Frankenstein assumes that he can act as God. He disrupts the...

Prometheus and Frankenstein: Use of the Myth Steve Kendon

In what ways and for what ends does Mary Shelley utilise the myth of Prometheus in her novel, Frankenstein?

Mary Shelley wrote Frankenstein as a modern day version of the legend of Prometheus. Prometheus created men out of clay and taught...

Parallels With the Ancient Myths Sunny Hwang

Frankenstein might have been written as a horror story, but the ideas and themes prevalent in the novel are ones men have grappled with for ages. From ancient Greek myths to the Bible, the tale Shelley tells is an old one - one rife with the...

Sour Dreams: Dueling Nightmares in Frankenstein Jeremy Zorn

The question of how to interpret dreams within a novel is one of the most contentious in all of literary criticism. The natural tendency may be to analyze them as though they were real dreams, which includes the implicit assumption that authors...

The Gothic as Portrayed Through Taboo Material in Frankenstein Eleanor Bance

The distinctive features of the Gothic may be defined as a series of strategies, partly evasive, partly revelatory for dealing with tabooed material. Discuss with reference to Frankenstein.

Frankenstein, although not placed within the 'gothic'...

Mary Shelley's Confrontation of Life A. Livezey

Mary Shelley's novel Frankenstein curdles readers' blood not merely with dreary nights and gruesome murders, but through a tale of man's most morbid undertakings. While the monster itself constitutes the most concretely catastrophic effect of...

The Middle Road to Happiness Carla Rowland

Too much exercise destroys strength as much as too little, and in the same way too much or too little food or drink destroys the health, while the proportionate amount increases and preserves it. The same is true of temperance and courage and the...

The Prometheus Myth and Science in Frankenstein Raylee Bonnell

How does the subtitle "The Modern Prometheus" assist Shelley in pointing out the underlying significance of her story?

Mary Shelley's work Frankenstein is a symbolic representation of the doubts and fears she, and her contemporaries, shared...

Influences on Life and Literature John Aitchison

Frankenstein, recognized as one of the most famous literary works of horror ever written, was the direct result of three brilliant authors challenging themselves to create a story that would incite fear and horror in the reader. Mary Shelley and...

The Resposibilities of Creation Anonymous

The idea of voluntary creation, of giving birth to something utterly original from some established foundation, instantly attracts unanswerable inquiries of morality and the nature of novelty and life. However, when invention is attempted on a...

Break On Through To the Other Side Anonymous

After ten weeks of intently studying a wide range of some of literature's greatest authors and their representative works, one is hard pressed to single out only four of these transcendiary pieces from such a distinguished list. However, four of...

Frankenstein's Paradise Gregory Conley

"Paradise has been lost." Frank Henenlotter's 1990 film, a campy retooling of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein by the name of Frankenhooker (Wolf 344), tells the tale of a mad scientist who, in order to bring his wife back to life, decapitates,...

Mary's Miswriting: A Misreading of Frankenstein Sujoy Ghosh

The issue of the gender of the writer playing a crucial part in her or his writing has been much discussed in contemporary critical debate. Feminist critics argue that the patriarchal ideology of society makes it imperative for male writers to...

Exploring the Sublime: Burke and Frankenstein's Monster Nathan Ragolia

Nate Ragolia

Professor Jones

English 4564

7 December 2003

Exploring the Sublime: Burke and Frankenstein's Monster

Wholly defining the sublime seems to lead to a near endless compilation of puzzle pieces, all of which fill in only a small portion of...

Mirrors between Victor and the Creature Anonymous

Frankenstein revolves around the conflict between two characters, Victor Frankenstein and the creature. At first glance, the discordant enemies appear to be nothing alike since they are adversaries from the first time they see each other. Many...

The Modern Prometheus: Reworked Myth in Mary Shelley's Frankenstein Michael Wainwright

The Modern Prometheus: Reworked Myth in Mary Shelley's Frankenstein

As the subtitle of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein implies, the tragic tale of Victor Frankenstein and his creation takes elements of classical myth and reinterprets them through the...

Desolate Lives Chase Carhartt

"I shunned the face of man; all sound of joy or complacency was torture to me; solitude was my only consolation- deep, dark, deathlike solitude" (74). Mary Shelly's Frankenstein was written during a period known as the Romantic Era. The recognized...

Frankenstein Just Won't Go Away Yiran Guo

Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein is a literary masterpiece that for the past two centuries has fascinated the imagination and interest of diverse readers. The word “Frankenstein” refers to the monster because it is universally accepted that the creator...

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Frankenstein : A virtual issue from Literature and Theology

Guest edited by jo carruthers and alana m.vincent.

Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley’s Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus was first published on 1 January 1818. It ought to be difficult to overstate its cultural influence over the past two hundred years as, arguably, the first novel which contains all the traits of modern science fiction, as an extended meditation on the nature of the human, of creation, and of creative responsibility – but there have been surprisingly few articles about Frankenstein published in Literature and Theology ’s 31 years, an oversight which we hope to see corrected in the near future. Instead, this virtual issue collects articles which the editors read as embodying the spirit or elaborating on the themes found within  Frankenstein .

Shelley’s novel is a deeply ethical, speculative and sensational novel, and has allured and fascinated readers for centuries. It addresses her generation’s adaptation to technological advances but also faces head on issues of spiritual, ethical and religious import. Into the novel is woven strands of the concerns of Shelley’s day, from the everyday politics of gender, difference, and scientific aspiration to issues of social justice that crowded political discussion at the time. The novel interrogates the boundaries, substances, and exceptionalism of humanity as monstrosity is identified in the created and creator, and as much in individual choices as in society’s conventions. Frankenstein takes on the mantle of Faust as he reaches to the heavens and confronts the consequences of defying divine sanction. The division between life and death, and all that matters about it to us, is pulled apart in the novel. It tells of the impulsivity of desperation in the face of grief as well as the despair of mortality in the creature’s separation from humanity. The novel looks at what human beings do when confronted with difference in ways that exposes the difficulty of intimacy for the outsider and the stranger. Each of the articles in this special edition draws on the threads of Frankenstein’s narrative in order to explore issues of: biotechnological progress and the human and what has become known as the post-human and transhuman; historical notions of the monstrous as conceptualized before Shelley’s time; the monstrous as a theme in post-colonial critique; and explorations of response to despair and violence. Whilst not explicitly inspired or drawing on Shelley’s Frankenstein , these articles are nonetheless indebted to its technological, monstrous, ethical, spiritual and political legacy.

Tiffany Tsao’s ‘The Tyranny of Purpose: Religion and Biotechnology in Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go’ ( Literature & Theology  26.2 (2012), 214-232) picks up on critical comparisons between Frankenstein and Ishiguro’s novel, demonstrating close parallels between the way that each novel treats the fraught relationship between creator and created creature. Tsao then traces the influence of Milton’s Paradise Lost , which is overt in Shelley and more subtle but, she argues, still present in Ishiguro, in order to argue that ‘the seemingly unrelated theological issues raised by Paradise Lost concerning the ethics governing creator–creation relations may provide surprising insight into what Ishiguro’s novel has to say about the problematic assumptions that underlie conceptualizations of religion and biotechnology in our own world’ (215). By showing the way that both Frankenstein and Never Let Me Go point back to Milton’s epic treatise on free will, Tsao is able to use the creature-narratives from Shelley and Ishiguro to interrogate Paradise Lost , showing the subtle ways in which Milton undermines his case for free will by presenting a cosmology structured by divine purpose. Reading Ishiguro against Milton, Tsao concludes that “Any succour that religion may be capable of providing will lie not in its ability to provide a sense of purpose, but rather, its ability to provide freedom from purpose, and the limitations that purpose can set on how we value and cherish life” (226).

Milton is also a key text in Michael Noschka’s article ‘Extended Cognition, Heidegger, and Pauline Post/Humanism’ ( Literature and Theology 28.3 (2014) 334-347). Noschka presents Satan as a cognitive materialist, citing his speech in Paradise Lost 1.254-44 [The mind is its own place, and in itself  Can make a Heav’n of Hell, a Hell of Heav’n], but arguing that ‘By placing this Satanic rationalization within the larger scope of Paradise Lost as a whole, particularly insofar as the poem might function metonymically for literature itself, we are able to recognize the value of literature as a medium which challenges us to see beyond literal fact, beyond ourselves as the creators of such facts, and thereby acknowledge the value of metaphor and exegesis in our hyper-factual age’ (335). Noschka’s article makes a case for the continued value of literature and theology to direct thinkers of post-humanism towards the 'proper intersection between man [sic] and technology', a ‘humble humanism built on an ethics of responsibility’ (336).

It is precisely the absence of an ethics of responsibility from the philosophies that comprise transhumanism which is the major concern of Elaine Graham’s article, ‘“Nietzsche Gets a Modem”: Transhumanism and the Technological Sublime’ ( Literature & Thelogy 16.1 (2002) 65-80). Graham is deeply sceptical of the liberative promises of transhumanism, which she sees as conflating transcendence with disembodiment (72), and therefore failing to adequately engage with ethical questions concerning access to the resources which necessarily enable the technological revolution. Rather than a Heideggerian turn which stresses the revelatory potential of technology, Graham argues for a reconfiguration of ‘the religious symbolic in order to dismantle the equation of religion and “transcendence”’, while also attending to ‘the co-existence of the urged-for transcendence–a surrender of materialism the better to attain quasi-divinity–with the constant stimulation of consumer desires’ (77). It is in the lived, the material, and above all the economic realms that Graham sees both the promise and perils of the biotechnological revolution heralded by Frankenstein .

Andrea Schutz, Daniel Juan Gil and Michael Edward Moore all explore premodern theologies of human identity in order to interrogate meanings of the monstrous or the ‘Other’. Schutz’s article, ‘The Monster at the Centre of the Universe: Christ as Spectacle in Mass and English Civic Drama’ ( Literature & Theology  31.3 (2017), 269-284) argues for a distinction between the distance of audience and monster in modernity and the proximity encouraged in the medieval passion drama in which the world is understood to be ‘held together by paradox and monstrosity’ (272). The medieval world understood sensuous receptivity as a reciprocal process so that what was seen was also experienced and touched (273), softening boundaries between self and other. Christological theologies also work to blur and complicate human identity with a Christ-body that is redemptive, substitutionary and incarnational, and Schutz presents the eucharist and crucifixion as dramatized moments that draw self into other, human into the monstrous, and the monstrous as divinely epiphanic. Schutz returns to theological etymological tracings of ‘monster’ to monstrar , ‘to show’, to argue ‘the function of the monster is to be in the world and disclose truths larger than itself’ (271) so that Christ is a ‘sacred “category crisis”’ (272).

In ‘‘What does Milton’s God Want?–Human Nature, Radical Conscience, and the Sovereign Power of the Nation-State’ ( Literature & Theology , 28.4 (2014), 389-410), Gil reveals in Milton’s reworking of the creation narrative precisely the freedom from purpose or teleology that Tsao had hoped to find. Gil argues for a reading of Milton’s construction of humanity as one of potentiality. Drawing on theories of sovereignty from Carl Schmitt and Giorgio Agamben, Gil considers Milton to be presenting human life as dependent upon a sovereign definition of human nature but one that is necessarily historical and contingent. God or the transcendent may be invoked to secure a specific version of human identity, but because of its standpoint outside of that history, God or the transcendent is also a site of potential disruption. The ‘transcendent warrant’ becomes an ethical principle against which human activity can be measured. As such, Gil can come to the conclusion that for Milton, ‘being free means having the resources to transcend the particular definition of human nature enshrined in a particular political order’ (402).

The relation between human identity, creation and the creator is the focus of Moore’s article, ‘Meditations on the Face in the Middle Ages (with Levinas and Picard)’ ( Literature & Theology , 24.1 (2010), 19-37). Moore turns to fundamental questions provoked by the assertion that human identity has its theological anchor in God as creator. He attends to ancient and medieval conceptions of identity and the face in an imagined ‘dialogue in heaven’ (22) between Levinas and medieval theologians in order to consider Levinas’s placing of the other at the very core of identity: ‘According to Levinas, appreciation of “the holiness in the other than myself” at the same time requires an acceptance of godlike responsibility for all of creation and other people.’ (21) In Levinasian terms, the face provokes responsibility. To be found in the image of God is for Levinas ‘to find oneself in his trace’ (25, fn. 54); to be identified in and through a trace is to be the ‘vestige of something absent’ (26). For Levinas, all are strangers so that ‘the only possible humanism is “of the other”’ (26). Moore’s article offers a wealth of theological understandings of humanity conceived as ‘the image of God’, a set of theological debates that – for our purposes in this virtual issue of Literature and Theology – creates a further ‘heavenly dialogue’ between a Levinasian insistence on responsibility to the other and Shelley’s depiction of an irresponsible creator and a neglected creature.

Articles by Sarah Juliet Lauro and James H. Thrall both address the imaginative legacy of Frankenstein –the development of science fiction as a distinctive genre–but also position the tropes of science fiction as uniquely suited for addressing issues of subalternity and post-coloniality. In ‘The Zombie Saints: The Contagious Spirit of Christian Conversion Narratives: A Zombie Martyr’ ( Literature & Theology 26.2 (2012) 160-178), Lauro, inspired by Léon Bonnat's painting ‘Martyr de Saint-Denis’, reads the saint’s legend in parallel to zombie fiction of the sort which has dominated popular television and cinema in recent years. She argues that ‘the tendency of both zombie and martyr narratives to involve seemingly contradictory characterisations of a figure as simultaneously master and slave, or contaminated and cured, illustrates the ambulant dialectic of the living-dead and the saint’ (163). Lauro is attentive to the origin point of zombie tales, in ‘the Jesuit-dominated colonial Caribbean’ (173), and to the role the zombie plays as a figure of colonial resistance.

The potentials of science fiction as a literature of resistance is the main focus of Thrall’s article, ‘Postcolonial Science Fiction? Science, Religion and the Transformation of Genre in Amitav Ghosh’s The Calcutta Chromosome’ (Literature & Theology , 23.3 (2009), 289-302). Thrall makes explicit the ways in which ‘science fiction's re-enactments of imperial encounters permitted at least some authors to contemplate their own colonial complicity’ (291), focussing on a novel by Amitav Gosh set in a future in which many of the promises of a techno-future explored by Noschka and Graham have come to pass. Gosh’s techno-future is, however, a de-colonised future, in which ‘Eastern’ and ‘Western’ cosmology have equal weight, where the master’s tools have been consciously put to work to not dismantle, but extensively renovate, the master’s house, so that ‘the religious trope of reincarnation meets the science fiction trope of uploaded consciousness’ and ‘[g]host stories, religious narratives of reincarnation, scientific imaginings of DNA-borne identities, and cyber-constellations of uploaded personalities all draw on overlapping conceptions of the self as transferrable entity’ (300).

Where Frankenstein’s grief leads him to an irresponsible creation of life, and the creature’s wounds lead him to a more obvious violence, articles by Brandi Estey-Burtt and Joel Westerholm offer more positive reactions to precarity. Instead of producing a spiral of violence that wreaks such devastating effects, wounding becomes for these two authors a promissory expansion of humanity, first in Coetzee’s Disgrace and then in the ‘wounded speech’ of Rossetti’s poetry.

Estey-Burtt’s ‘Bidding the Animal Adieu: Grace in J. M. Coetzee’s The Lives of Animals and Disgrace’ (Literature & Theology , 31.2 (2017), 231-245) identifies imagination as a vital component of redemption and the working of grace. Grace here is for Estey-Burtt, through reference to theologian Serene Jones’s definition, ‘the incredible insistence on love amid fragmented, unravelled human lives’ (234) and enables a limited and tentative response to both specific traumatic events and the ongoing trauma of South African apartheid. What is significant about the animals in Coetzee’s essay and novel is their ability to express vulnerability. What religious language offers Coetzee’s understanding of human empathy with animals is a recognition of the limitation of the self that ‘acknowledges an unmanageable strangeness in ‘‘the self’’, ‘‘the soul’’’ (238). Drawing on Levinas and Derrida’s concept of the ‘ adieu ’ as the giving to God of the dying and dead, Estey-Burtt recognises in Lurie’s care for dying animals evidence that he is undone and wounded, but also compassionate.

Westerholm, in ‘Christina Rossetti’s “Wounded Speech”’ ( Literature & Theology 24.4 (2010), 345-359) invokes Jean-Louis Chrétien’s theology of prayer as ‘wounded speech’ so that ‘whoever addresses God always does so de profundis , from the depths of his distress whether manifest or hidden, from the depths of his sin’ (351) and that such wounds are not mitigated by prayer but the speaker remains ‘still wounded, even more so’ (345). As with Coetzee’s character, Lurie, so with the speaker of Rossetti’s poem-prayers (as Westerholm names them), we find that wounds produce and articulate a human vulnerability that leads not to the escalation of pain or violence but instead to what Westerholm and Estey-Burtt call ‘grace’. For Westerholm this grace is found in recognition of the creator’s responsibility, a theme repeatedly returned to in this special edition’s selection of articles. This invocation of God’s necessary responsibility is exemplified for Westerholm in Rossetti’s poem ‘Good Friday’, in which the speaker demands of God: ‘seek thy sheep’.

Section 1: Cyborgs and the Post-Human

‘The Tyranny of Purpose: Religion and Biotechnology in Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go’ by Tiffany Tsao Literature & Theology 26.2 (2012), 214-232.

‘Extended Cognition, Heidegger, and Pauline Post/Humanism’ by Michael Noschka Literature & Theology  28.3 (2014) 334-347.

“Nietzsche Gets a Modem”: Transhumanism and the Technological Sublime’ by Elaine Graham Literature & Theology 16.1 (2002) 65-80.

Section 2: Pre-modern Post-humanism

‘The Monster at the Centre of the Universe Christ as Spectacle in Mass and English Civic Drama’ by  Andrea Schutz Literature & Theology 31.3 (2017), 269-284.

‘What does Milton’s God Want? -- Human Nature, Radical Conscience, and the Sovereign Power of the Nation-State’ by Daniel Juan Gil Literature & Theology 28.4 (2014), 389-410.

‘Meditations on the Face in the Middle Ages (with Levinas and Picard) by Michael Edward Moore Literature & Theology 24.1 (2010), 19-37.

Section 3: Post-colonial Post-humanism

‘The Zombie Saints: The Contagious Spirit of Christian Conversion Narratives: A Zombie Martyr’ by Sarah Juliet Lauro Literature & Theology 26.2 (2012), 160-178.

‘Postcolonial Science Fiction? Science, Religion and the Transformation of Genre in Amitav Ghosh’s The Calcutta Chromosome’ By James H. Thrall Literature & Theology , 23.3 (2009), 289-302.

Section 4: Wounded Humanity

‘Biddding the Animal Adieu: Grace in J. M. Coetzee’s The Lives of Animals and Disgrace’ by Brandi Estey-Burtt Literature & Theology, 31.2 (2017), 231-245.

‘Christina Rossetti’s “Wounded Speech”’ by Joel Westerholm Literature & Theology, 24.4 (2010), 345-359.

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