Frankenstein
Frankenstein - or The Modern Prometheus by Mary Shelley and setting essay “A serene sky and verdant fields fill me with ecstasy (….) flowers of spring bloomed in the hedges, while those of the summer were already in bud.” A quotation from Frankenstein chapter 6. This quotation describes a scene in Frankenstein where the setting is important and we have many scenes in the book where the setting gives an extra thing to the story itself and why the characters do what they do and how they are as a person. Without the setting in Frankenstein the story would be lacking and the characters would not be fully developed.
What struck most when reading Frankenstein is that how Mary Shelley uses the landscape to parallel Victor Frankenstein's shifting mental condition. After Victor Frankenstein creates the monster, he discover a power so great that it successfully takes him away from all the things he has once held dear in his life, such as his family, Elizabeth and the beautiful familiar landscapes. From that point, Frankenstein can only identify himself with big, immense, sublime landscapes because these are the only landscapes extreme enough to describe what Frankenstein feels inside. “Dear mountains! My own beautiful lake! How do you welcome your wanderer? Your summits are clear; the sky and lake are blue and placid. Is this to prognosticate peace, or to mock at my unhappiness?” a quotation from Frankenstein chapter 7. Out from this quotation is it that Viktor Frankenstein is offended by the beautiful landscape because it conflicts with the inner turmoil he is dealing with inside.
One probably reason why he finds such beautiful landscape so offensive, can be found in this quotation from Frankenstein, chapter 9 “Nothing is more painful to the human mind, than, after the feelings have been worked up by a quick succession of events, the dead calmness of inaction and certainty which follows, and deprives the soul both of hope and fear”
This seems to suggest
What struck most when reading Frankenstein is that how Mary Shelley uses the landscape to parallel Victor Frankenstein's shifting mental condition. After Victor Frankenstein creates the monster, he discover a power so great that it successfully takes him away from all the things he has once held dear in his life, such as his family, Elizabeth and the beautiful familiar landscapes. From that point, Frankenstein can only identify himself with big, immense, sublime landscapes because these are the only landscapes extreme enough to describe what Frankenstein feels inside. “Dear mountains! My own beautiful lake! How do you welcome your wanderer? Your summits are clear; the sky and lake are blue and placid. Is this to prognosticate peace, or to mock at my unhappiness?” a quotation from Frankenstein chapter 7. Out from this quotation is it that Viktor Frankenstein is offended by the beautiful landscape because it conflicts with the inner turmoil he is dealing with inside.
One probably reason why he finds such beautiful landscape so offensive, can be found in this quotation from Frankenstein, chapter 9 “Nothing is more painful to the human mind, than, after the feelings have been worked up by a quick succession of events, the dead calmness of inaction and certainty which follows, and deprives the soul both of hope and fear”
This seems to suggest