Romantic and Gothic Notes in Frankenstein

Novel Background Frankenstein was created on a cold and stormy night. Percy Bysshe Shelley, Mary Shelley and Lord Byron decided to play a game. Whoever created and told the scariest story, would win. Upon hearing the story for the first time, Lord Byron is said to have run screaming from the room, so the desired effect was achieved by Mary Shelley.

Romantic Notes Romantic writers are concerned with: -nature -human feelings -compassion for mankind -freedom of the individual and Romantic hero -rebellion against society

Romantic Notes Writers also experiment with the discontent that they feel against all that seems commercial, inhuman, and standardized. Concern themselves with: -the rural and rustic life versus the modern life -far away places and travel to those places -medieval folklore and legends -the common people

Romantic Notes Mary Shelley lived among the practitioners of these concepts and used many of these principles in her novel Frankenstein. The monster is a Romantic hero because of the rejection he must bear from normal society. Wherever he goes, the monster is chased away because of his hideous appearance and his huge size. Shelley is attempting to show the readers how many people in conventional society reject the less than average or disfigured souls who live on the borders of our society.

Romantic Notes We cannot blame the monster for what happens to him, and Shelley elicits from the reader a sympathetic response for a creature so misunderstood. The monster tries to fit into a regular community, but because he is hideous to look at and does not know the social graces, he can never become part of mainstream society. The monster’s response is to overcompensate for his lack of learning and then shun all human contact except when necessary.

Romantic Notes Mary Shelley knew many of the famous writers of the time or knew the works of those authors intimately: Wordsworth, Coleridge, Byron, Keats, and her husband, Percy Shelley. Mary uses Coleridge’s The Rime of the Ancient Mariner several times in her novel to align her misguided monster with Coleridge’s ancient Mariner. Thus, she ties her novel to one of the most authentically Romantic works.

Romantic Notes The influence of her husband cannot be disputed and is sometimes the subject of debate among literary scholars. How much did Percy Shelley influence the novel that his wife wrote? Some argue that Percy Shelley wrote the novel under Mary’s name; others claim that he had a direct influence upon the writing of the book; while others maintain that Mary was the sole author, with some encouragement from Percy. Nevertheless, the novel was a work that was the product of an obviously fertile mind at a young age. From this viewpoint, Frankenstein is the pinnacle of Romantic thought and novel writing.

Gothic Notes 1. Setting in a castle. 2. An atmosphere of mystery and suspense - a threatening feeling, a fear enhanced by the unknown. 3. An ancient prophecy - connected with the castle or its inhabitants. 4. Omens, visions. 5. Supernatural or otherwise inexplicable events - dramatic, amazing events occur, such as ghosts or giants walking, or inanimate objects coming to life.

Gothic Notes 6. High, even overwrought emotion - characters are often overcome by anger, sorrow, surprise, and especially, terror. 7. Women in distress - female characters often face events that leave them fainting, terrified, screaming, and/or sobbing. 8. Women threatened by a powerful, impulsive, tyrannical male. 9. The metonymy of gloom and horror. Metonymy is a subtype of metaphor, in which something (like rain) is used to stand for something else (like sorrow).

Gothic Elements Relative to Novel Set in continental Europe, specifically Switzerland and Germany. Laboratories and scientific experiments = element of mystery and gloom. Monster “communicates” between himself and his creator, because the monster appears wherever Victor goes. Cloudy circumstances under which Victor gathers body parts for his experiments and the use of little known modern technologies for unnatural purposes.

Gothic Elements Relative to Novel A feeling of dread as Victor wanders the streets of Ingolstadt or the Orkney Islands after dark in search of body parts. Raising the dead Macabre research into unexplored fields of science unknown by most readers. Monster moves with amazing superhuman speed with Victor matching him in the chase towards the North Pole. (this bridges supernatural world with mortal world)