2. Structure of the Narrative
Walton’s letters frame
Frankenstein’s story which includes
The creature’s tale (and by extension, the DeLacey saga).
Why start with Walton?
Walton and his letters provide a strategic frame. If Shelley had simply begun with the childhood of Victor Frankenstein, the reader would have no basis on which to accept the “truth” of the “marvelous” images which make up the bulk of the novel. We would have difficulty believing in the story. MN
His own story of exploration forms a frame for the events of the tale itself. MN.
Instead of beginning w/ Victor’s POV, Shelley introduces us to Walton first. Using the frame device, in which the tale is told to us by someone who reads it or hears it from someone else, Shelley invites readers to believe Victor’s story through an objective person.
This literary device is known as the epistolary form – where letters tell the story – using letters between Walton and his sister to frame both Victor’s and the creature’s narrative.
Since the theme of listening is so central to this novel. Shelley makes sure, by incorporating 3 different narratives, that readers get to hear all sides of the story.
Walton’s letters to his sister introduce and conclude the novel, reinforcing the theme of nurturing. Source: Novels for Students
The use of multiple frame narratives calls attention to the telling of the story, adding new layers of complexity to the already intricate relationship between author and reader: as the reader listens to Victor's story, so does Walton; as Walton listens, so does his sister. By focusing the reader's attention on narration, on the importance of the storyteller and his or her audience, Shelley may have been trying to link her novel to the oral tradition to which the ghost stories that inspired her tale belong. Within each framed narrative, the reader receives constant reminders of the presence of other authors and audiences, and of perspective shifts, as Victor breaks out of his narrative to address Walton directly and as Walton signs off each of his letters to his sister. SparkNotes.com

3. Setting of the Novel
The majority of the novel takes place in the Swiss Alps and concludes in the Arctic.
Frankenstein goes to university in Ingolstadt.
He and Clerval travel to England and Scotland
Victor ends up in Ireland at one point.
All of these location, except for the Arctic, were among the favorite landscapes for Romantic writers.
Shelley’s setting is unusual b/c most Gothic novels produce a gloomy, haggard setting adorned with decaying mansions and ghostly, supernatural spirits.
It is possible the author intended the beautiful Alps to serve as a contrast to the creature’s unsightly appearance [and the monstrousness of Frankenstein’s act of creation amidst the grandeur of God]. Source: Novels for Students

4. Influences
Romanticism: writers experienced the newfound freedom of turning inward, rather than outward to the external world, to reflect on issues of the heart and the imagination. They wrote about natural scenes and rustic, commonplace lifestyles and explored the supernatural.
The Romantics wrote about the sources of human nobility and dignity, and certain stubborn elements of darkness and violence which seemed to form an integral and ineradicable part of human existence.
Gothicism: novels were usually mysteries in which sinister and sometimes supernatural events occurred and were ultimately caused by some evil human action. The Gothic novel usually expresses, often in subtle and indirect ways, our repressed anxieties. The settings usually take place far away from reality or realistic portrayals of everyday life. Frankenstein is an exception to this.
Romanticism 1: Source: NS
Gothicism1: Same source
Romanticism 2: Source: MN
Also: From the contemplation of the darkness and violence that exists within humanity, came the development of the so-called Satanic hero who had great qualities of mind and heart, but who was also a product of that inner darkness. Because the Romantic hero tends to shun human companionship in order to delve into private thoughts and feelings, the hero was by nature an anti-social being. [Therefore, the Romantic hero of this novel is the title character, Dr. Victor Frankenstein.]
The Romantic Movement elevated Satan, the villain of John Milton’s Paradise Lost, to the level of hero. [This was considered blasphemy].
They began to understand Satan as a metaphor for the constant human striving for individual freedom. Romanticism was deeply influenced by the events of the French Revolution of Poets linked the figure of the Satanic hero with this historical crusade for individual rights.MN.

5. “…I began the creation of a human being
“…I began the creation of a human being. I resolved to make the being of a gigantic stature… about eight feet in height, and proportionally large,” (Shelley 32).

6. “ A new species would bless me as its creator and source; many happy and excellent natures would owe their being to me. No father could claim the gratitude of his child so completely as I should deserve theirs” (Shelley 32).

7. “His yellow skin scarcely covered the work of muscles and arteries beneath…” (Shelley 35)

8. Prometheus was a God from Greek mythology
Prometheus was a God from Greek mythology. He molded humankind out of clay and gave them life. He made man’s body to be like the Gods. As their creator, he taught mankind how to live. He knew they needed fire, but Zeus did not want man to have fire, so Prometheus stole it from Mount Olympus.

9. When Zeus found out what Prometheus had done, he had him chained to a rock where an eagle would gnaw on his liver. Every night, his liver would grow back for the eagle to eat again the next day. This cycle would continue for many years.

10. Did I request thee, Maker, from my clay To mould me man
Did I request thee, Maker, from my clay To mould me man? Did I solicit thee From darkness to promote me? – Milton - Paradise Lost

11. Summary:
How does the quote from Milton and the story of Prometheus pertain to the novel Frankenstein? How are these three stories similar?

12. Literary Works
The Sorrows of Werther: the contemporary novel of sensibility. Taught the creature about “gentle and domestic manners” and “lofty sentiments”. It functioned as a Romantic conduct book. (Werther appears divine and beyond the creature’s range of experience. MN.)
Plutarch’s Lives: the serious history of Western civilization. Teaches him all the masculine intricacies of that history which his anomalous birth has denied him; (and about elevated thoughts of past heroes MN).
Milton’s Paradise Lost: the highly cultivated epic poem. Provides him w/ what appears to be a personal history.
Source: Norton, pg. 237, Gilbert and Gubar
1. Werther suffers from unrequited love, as does the creature, first w/o Frankenstein’s love, then w/o the love of a female companion.
PL: his shuddering sense of deformity, his nauseating size, his namelessness, and his orphaned, motherless isolation link him with Eve. Pg. 238.
These works have a symbolic significance NS

14. Frankenstein