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Title: Frankenstein Overview
Description: This is a comprehensive overview of Shelley's 'Frankenstein' primarily targetted at GCSE and A-level English Literature students, though will be useful to anyone studying the text. It offers an overview of the plot, central quotes to the work with brief analysis, and relevant critical/historical/social/literary connections that can be observed in the text.
Description: This is a comprehensive overview of Shelley's 'Frankenstein' primarily targetted at GCSE and A-level English Literature students, though will be useful to anyone studying the text. It offers an overview of the plot, central quotes to the work with brief analysis, and relevant critical/historical/social/literary connections that can be observed in the text.
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Frankenstein
(1817/18)
Form: Gothic Novel, Tragedy
Mary Shelley
1797-1851
General Introduction
• Published anonymously in 1818, (revised in 1831)
...
• After a modest success of 500 copies this book went on
to world acclaim shortly afterwards
...
• Victor Frankenstein [protagonist] opens with his fascinations
for the sciences, particularly Chemistry
...
• Frankenstein intends on creating a human however goes
horribly wrong, hence becoming Frankenstein’s “monster”
...
• As time passes the creature is found out to have murdered
(strangled) Victor’s brother William
...
• Victor refuses at first, then attempts to however upon seeing
the monster staring at him with a frightening grin, he destroys
the new creation, laid all over the floor
...
• Knowing this, Frankenstein finally attempts to put an end to this
...
• From this point Walton’s letters continue until the end
...
A few days afterwards
Walton is astonished to see the monster standing over Victor telling
Walton of his suffering, hatred, and lonely solitude he experienced
as a “creature”
...
Context
• As a book written in the beginning of the 19th
century (1818), at the same time there was the
believed discovery that magnetism and electricity
could bring back the dead to life
...
(This was actually
just electrical stimulation to the muscles, and hence
incorrect
...
• 1815-1819 – 3 of her 4 children died, perhaps this
was a coping mechanism to her dealing with the loss
...
• It also goes into the interest people had over Charles Darwin’s
religious views and its conflict it made with his biological
theories
...
• It also concerns feminist critical literary theory: The creation
of Frankenstein is an act against God/nature, and also the
‘female principle’
...
The
horrors Frankenstein’s monster brought are a direct criticism
to genetic engineering and cloning, accentuating the purpose
of the woman
...
• He is feared and loathed by everyone that sees him – he
receives no love whatsoever from anybody – Arguably, this
links with the historical context of the French Revolution
[1787-99] where the brutalised became brutal (citizens below
the French royalty) – Frankenstein shows no love or remorse
as he did not receive such back
...
His sadness turns to fury
...
No mother that blessed me with
smiles and caresses”
NOTE: Right at the beginning of the main plot Frankenstein
reflects on “my mother’s tender caresses and my father’s
smile of benevolent pleasure” – There is considerable irony
strengthening just how rejected the monster is
...
• “I desire the company of a man who could sympathise with
me; whose eyes would reply to mine” – Walton
Platonic love
Quotes
• “Now that I had finished, the beauty of the dream vanished, and
breathless horror and disgust filled my heart” - Frankenstein
Notably, Frankenstein does not feel love and affection and even pride
for his creation
...
This sets the tone of the rejected love the
monster has
...
Interestingly, they
are the ones that go on to reject him, arguably a taste of his own
medicine in the way he treated the monster
...
Interestingly he uses the word
“susceptible” a biological term in his word choice
...
” – Monster
Note, he is capable of understanding the pain he
unleashed arguably trying to reject what he
believes Frankenstein made him for in the above
quote
...
• “For while I destroyed his hopes, I did not satisfy
my own desires
...
Was there no injustice to this? Am I to
be thought the only criminal when all human kind
sinned against me?”
[Monster]
Links to wider reading
• Oranges are not the Only Fruit – Jeanette Winterson [1985]
Ideas on rejected love due to characteristics/nature
...
“I made her ill, made the house ill,
brought evil into the church”
• The Picture of Dorian Gray – Oscar Wilde [1890/91]
Ideas on perfection and one’s love for it: Dorian Gray struggles
to come to terms with the coming of age of his beauty and
decline whilst Frankenstein is horrified by the imperfections
of his creation hence arguably being a pivotal reason for not
loving the creature
...
Title: Frankenstein Overview
Description: This is a comprehensive overview of Shelley's 'Frankenstein' primarily targetted at GCSE and A-level English Literature students, though will be useful to anyone studying the text. It offers an overview of the plot, central quotes to the work with brief analysis, and relevant critical/historical/social/literary connections that can be observed in the text.
Description: This is a comprehensive overview of Shelley's 'Frankenstein' primarily targetted at GCSE and A-level English Literature students, though will be useful to anyone studying the text. It offers an overview of the plot, central quotes to the work with brief analysis, and relevant critical/historical/social/literary connections that can be observed in the text.