Historical Background ► American and French Revolution  Authority crumbled  God Question  Industrialization=large middle class  Interested in discovering the nature of man

Romanticism ► Emphasis on the individual and personal freedoms ► Rosseau: society is a corrupting force. Man is naturally good until contact with learning and human society. ► Godwin: “Man, in a wild state, is a social being capable of cooperation”

Shelley’s life ► Raised by two extremists  Mary Wollestonecraft- feminist  William Godwin-philosopher ► Affair with married man ► Children did not survive: miscarriages ► Mother died after childbirth, Percy drowned, half sister committed suicide

Form of Frankenstein ► Frame story: story within a story  Told in letters by an Englishman to his sister ► In letters, he recounts what Dr. Frankenstin has told him ► Frankenstein, in turn, recounts to Walton what the monster has told him ► Epistolary novel – composed of letters ► Critiques science ► Each character is biased ► No direct female narrator – world without woman’s point of view is flawed

Psychological Concepts ► Concept of id and superego  Divisions of the psyche  Introduced by Sigmund Freud  dynamic relations between the conscious and the unconscious  The “id” (fully unconscious) contains the drives and those things repressed by consciousness; the “ego” (mostly conscious) deals with external reality; and the “super ego” (partly conscious) is the conscience or the internal moral judge

Themes ► All three narrators are tragic heroes  Self conscious  Isolated in the midst of civilization ► Monster is metaphor for man ► Characters are allegorical figures of the human psyche ► Doppelganger: shadowy self  Victor and the monster  Sending monster to do what we wish or fear  Deep sleeps that keep Victor from killing the monster ► Birth motif-fear of fertility ► Emotions endure where reason dies

Conflicts ► Family conflicts  Need for family or domestic relationships (inspire fear instead of love) ► Mistrust of science ► Sympathy for mankind abandoned by its creator ► Ambition

Characteristics of Gothic literature Spooky... Spooky...

What it is... ► ► Gothic literature, sometimes referred to as Gothic horror, is a genre that combines elements of both horror and romanticism. ►. ► It developed in the mid to late 18 th century.

Who were the Goths? ► A Germanic group ► Fierce ► Pagan ► Contributed to the disintegration of the Roman Empire.

What it really is ► Middle ages (dark castles, gloominess, et al) ► Architecutre ► Creepy ► Unknown ► Life before Science

Characters in Gothic Literature ► Pursued protagonist: main character is chased by another character(s) OR is pursued psychologically (by dreams, sense of dread, fear of damnation) ► Villain-hero: Character who possesses some heroic characteristics BUT he performs a rebellious act. ► The outsider: character is rejected by his peers or by society.

Setting in Gothic Literature ► ► Weather - mists; lightning and thunder. Lightning is used as a metaphor for revelation (or revealing something important) ► ► Greatness and power of nature- Stunning landscapes or mountains (usually covered in mist. ► ► Ruined settings- graveyards, ruined castles or mansions ► ► Darkness, darkness, everywhere... ► ► Isolation

Plot Devices in Gothic Literature  Strange events!  Revenge  Payback! (“the sins of the father are visited upon the children”)  Journey into the Unknown  Strange Dreams

Gothic Poetry ► Emotions ► Dark descriptions ► Natural state of man ► Supernatural happenings ► Decay ► Secrets ► Damsels in Distress

TPCASTT When I have Fears WHEN I have fears that I may cease to be Before my pen has glean'd my teeming brain, Before high piled books, in charact'ry, Hold like rich garners the full-ripen'd grain; When I behold, upon the night's starr'd face, Huge cloudy symbols of a high romance, And think that I may never live to trace Their shadows, with the magic hand of chance; And when I feel, fair creature of an hour! That I shall never look upon thee more, Never have relish in the faery power Of unreflecting love! - then on the shore Of the wide world I stand alone, and think Till Love and Fame to nothingness do sink.