Key themes in Frankenstein

?

Creation and Divine Aspirations

  • Victor usurps the role of God - Shelley suggested that this is his main crime.
  • Secular society - no God to enact vengeance, this role is given to the Creature.
  • Arguably, Victor's main crime is his failure to nurture his creation.
  • While his ambition and achievement can be interpreted as heroic, these aspects of his character cause chaos as he refuses to take responsibility for his actions.
  • Victor also usurps the role of women in reproduction - rebels against the family unit and shuns his responsibilities towards family.
  • Feminist critics: reveals a fear of birth, something which Shelley had experienced.
  • 'A new species would bless me as its creator and ... No father could claim the gratitude of his child so completely as I should deserve theirs'.
  • 'the moon gazed on my midnight labours ... my workshop of filthy creation'.
1 of 13

Isolation

  • Walton complains about his lack of companionship to his sister.
  • Victor and the Creature suffer due to their alienation away from society.
  • The Creature is forced into isolation by his creator and the people he encounters. He desires companionship and affection but he is made unhappy by his awareness of the fact that he will never experience love.
  • Victor argues that his isolation is necessary to protect those he loves but he chooses to isolate himself from his friends and family to carry out his scientific experiments.
  • 'I bitterly feel the want of a friend'.
  • 'I am malicious because I am miserable'.
2 of 13

The Family

  • The Creature strongly desires domestic affections.
  • The home is presented as a paradise and women are presented as presiding angels.
  • Some critics argue that Shelley questions the value of domestic affections and attacks the institution of the family.
    • She demonstrates that enforced artificial domestic roles can lead to passivity and dependency, rejection and violence.
    • Victor can only achieve his scientific goals once he leaves the home and his family.
  • The way the de Lacey family treats the Creature also highlights defects in the domestic setting. Although family may seem ideal and perfect, it functions by excluding anything that appears as a threat to its security.
    • The Creature devotes himself to destroying the idea of domesticity when he recognises that he can never achieve this.
  • 'if no man allowed any pursuit whatsoever to interfere with the tranquility of his domestic affections, Greece had not been enslaved; Caesar would have spared his country'.
  • 'No father had watched my infant days, no mother had blessed me with smiles or caresses'.
3 of 13

The Double

  • Doubles are common in Gothic fiction, often used to demonstrate tension between societal laws and individual desires as well as to give voice to the disenfranchised.
  • The Creature is often referred to Frankenstein in popular culture - develops the idea that they are mirrors of each other, 'my own spirit'.
  • 'my own vampire, my own spirit let loose from the grave, and forced to destroy all that was dear to me'.
  • 'the only unquiet thing that wanders restless in a scene so beautiful and heavenly' - Victor uses monstrous terms to describe himself.
4 of 13

Fear of Sexuality

  • Victor rejects human sexuality by creating the Creature and usurping the role of women.
  • When Victor dreams of kissing Elizabeth, she turns into a corpse - suggests he is repelled by sexuality.
  • He responds to his father's suggestions that he marry with horror and dismay.
  • Victor interprets the Creature's threat, 'I shall be with you on your wedding-night', as a threat against him instead of a threat against his wife.
    • It can be argued that the ugliness of the Creature is an externalisation of Victor's destructive sexual impulses.
    • Victor can no longer avoid confronting his sexuality on his wedding night. 
    • He leaves Elizabeth alone but his rejected sexuality doesn't disappear, it becomes destructive and kills her.
  • 'as I imprinted the first kiss on her lips, they became livid with the hue of death'.
  • 'Alas! to me the idea of an immediate union with my Elizabeth was one of horror and dismay'.
  • 'I shall be with you on your wedding night'.
5 of 13

Critique of society

  • General challenge to and criticism of the established social order and institutions.
  • De Laceys, treatment of the Creature, Justine's trial - emphasises human injustice and the monstrous nature of society.
    • Shows how the law and the church are corrupt.
    • The Creature learns about social injustice through the De Laceys.
  • Shelley uses the Creature as a way to criticise oppression and inequality in society.
  • 'men appear to me as monsters thirsting for each other's blood'.
  • 'Am I to be thought the only criminal, when all human kind sinned against me?'
6 of 13

The Monstrous and the Human

  • Early monsters
    • Monsters were viewed as signs of divine anger or portents of impending disasters.
    • The Creature - his horrific appearance serves a moral function as it provides a visible warning of the results of vice and folly and promotes virtuous behaviour.
    • Mythology - monsters are often constructed from poorly assorted parts. The Creature continues this as he is constructed out of parts taken from graves.
  • Gothic monsters
    • Typically, the monster is expelled or rejected.
    • Good is distinguished from evil.
    • Monsters were often characterised as the 'Gothic other'.
    • Monstrous figures are increasingly those with which we identify, and it is the systems that persecute these figures that are seen as monstrous.
  • Link to Frankenstein
    • Suggests that there is no clear distinction between monstrosity and humanity. While he appears to be vicious, he is compassionate at the beginning and his character is corrupted by human society.
    • Shows the process by which humans create and become monsters.
    • Ambiguity between good and evil, monstrous and human - lack of distinction and clarity.
7 of 13

Curiosity and Knowledge

  • Shelley questions whether too much knowledge is dangerous for humans.
  • All three narrators (Victor, Creature and Walton) are self-educated and have a desire for knowledge.
    • Shelley was also self-educated.
  • Victor ignores all warnings about the dangers of curiosity from his father and teachers. This allows his hubris to become his hamartia.
  • Walton's curiosity echoes Victor's but because of his nature, he is thwarted and saved with his crew.
  • The Creature's acquisiting of knowledge causes internal questioning. This means he changes from a state of innocence to one of knowledge and internal conflict.
8 of 13

Science and Society

  • Shelley imagines the effect of science on society when it's left unchecked and uncensored.
  • During the 18th/19th century, the scientist Galvani conducted experiments using electricity to 'reanimate' dead animals.
  • 'Body-snatching' - popular as financial rewards were given because of medical schools' demands for cadavers. Groups of people became anxious about the development of science and the boundaries it was breaking.
  • Idea of reanimating dead matter was seen as blasphemous and taboo - Shelley draws upon these ideas in the novel.
9 of 13

Loss

  • Shelley's life - she suffered many losses.
    • Her mother died when she was young, 4 of her children died and her husband died very young.
  • The catalyst for the Creature's destruction is caused by the loss of his parental figure when he's abandoned. This causes him to decide to take revenge by taking away everyone Victor loves.
  • Loss of innocence - related to the Creature's development in his meta-diegetic narration.
    • Link to Rousseau - he is corrupted by society.
  • Loss at the end of the novel: Victor's death, the Creature's suicide, Walton is forced to turn his boat around.
    • Victor becomes the Creature's only companion and when he realises that his creator has died, he doesn't have a reason to be alive anymore.
10 of 13

Human Companionship

  • Walton complains about his lack of companionship to his sister and feels overjoyed when he finds company with Victor.
  • The Creature lacks companionship and desires a female partner - demands that Victor create a female Creature for him.
  • Victor finds comfort in companionship with Clerval.
    • Isolates himself away from society.
    • Able to create the Creature because no one is supervising him.
11 of 13

Connection to Nature

  • Romantic movement - the imagination, emotions and connection to nature was valued.
  • Enlightenment movement - idea of rationalism, logic and man conquering nature through science.
  • Links to Frankenstein
    • Walton and Victor aspire to the Age of Enlightenment.
    • Creature, Clerval and Elizabeth can be associated with nature and Romanticism.
    • Victor and Romanticism - he feels peaceful and restored when he's surrounded by nature.
  • By usurping the role of God and nature, Victor breaks the sacred connection with nature. After this, life turns into death.
12 of 13

Injustice

  • William Godwin - believed that social institutions were inherently unjust and this creates crime in society. He proposed radical changes to politics and supported the ideals of the French Revolution.
  • Links to Frankenstein
    • Justine - miscarriage of justice that ends in her execution links to Godwin's ideas. The fact that she falsely confesses to the murder before her execution, in fear that she won't achieve salvation, can be viewed as a criticism of religion.
    • Victor's actions lead to many deaths, including the suffering of the Creature.
13 of 13

Comments

No comments have yet been made

Similar English Literature resources:

See all English Literature resources »See all Frankenstein resources »