Frankenstein Literary Analysis Essay

The Modern Prometheus; Analyzed

Novels come in many different genres, mainly separated by fiction and non-fiction. Fiction can also be broken down into subgroups. Gothic romance is a branch of fiction detailing in the dark tragedy including romance. The tragedy tells the tale of death. Shelley was surrounded by death, close family died quickly, she lost her children, her sister committed suicide and as result she had a lot of despair and loneliness in her life. This led to her gothic-romantic style of writing. Frankenstein, stylistically written for Shelley’s time period, is a worthy representation of both gothic and romantic literature. Frankenstein or the Modern Prometheus is a classic composition that entails conflict and uses point of view to tell the story in a constructive way.
The plot of Frankenstein is very complex; it is a gothic novel telling the story of evil and tragedy.
Victor is the protagonist of the story and is very consumed by science, even as a small child and grows into the scientific community. He is obsessed with knowing the unknown and as a result becomes infatuated with life and death. Because of Victor’s captivation with science he goes off to University. The death of Victor’s mother compelled Victor to find a way to bring her back to life. Through his loss of his mother, he was driven to create artificial life. Victor performed many experiments in his lab at the university. He bought animals back to life through lightning and using electricity to shock the to life. . Out of curiosity he developed a creature and shocks it to life with electricity. After this operation, Victor comes to the realization this undertaking was unethical and this wasn't the direction he intended his studies to head in. But it was too late; Victor’s
creature was out of hand. Victor created the creature with good intentions; he never expected to create something so evil. Victor’s creature was quite mangled and not socially accepted. His creature felt distant from society and saw s that victor was ashamed of him and viewed him as a mistake. Because he didn’t feel accepted by his creator, he did everything in his power to create misery in victor’s life. The creature began to kill the people closest to Victor and Victor set out on a quest to defeat his creature. Victor was always one step too late to control the revenge his monster caused. Before Victor can catch his creature, death already struck. After Victor thought his plans to escape with his wife on their wedding night were fool-proof, and his creature could never follow him, he must think again.

The way Frankenstein switches points of view gives you the advantage of hearing the story from different perspectives. The story is narrated by Robert Walton shifting to Victor, to victor’s monster, then back to Walton. The back and forth between the intense tale of Victor Frankenstein and him “story-telling” to captain Walton is one way that helps tell the story. The book starts out with these letters written to Mrs. Saville from Captain Robert Walton. He tells of his journey to the North Pole and his daily endeavors. He tells of him and his crew being trapped by ice on all sides of their ship. “In the morning, however, as soon as it was light, I went upon deck and found all the sailors busy on one side of the vessel, apparently talking to someone in the sea” (page 8) Walton writes that to his sister telling her the first interaction he has with Victor, before he climbs aboard and starts to spill his story. Frankenstein is a novel stuck in reverse; Victor is with Captain Walton, telling him his dark tale of curiosity and the tragic results. Victor tells his adventure he tells of all the tragedy his creature has brought upon him. The monster himself interrupts throughout the narrative to tell his own story. Because of the creature’s low esteem and feelings of hatred he begins to let revenge take over. “...from that moment I declared everlasting war against the species; and more than all, against him who had formed me and sent me forth this insupportable misery.” (Page 121) The monster interrupts multiple times and we get a share of his point of view that helps you understand his feelings developing a sense of his side of the story. As Victor then resumes and tells of how he strives to defeat his creature and the novel takes a new direction and tells you the contentions of how we got to this time and place.

In Frankenstein there is a lot of internal and external conflict. All humans are capable of committing good and evil, with that capability there comes internal and external conflict. Victor is constantly tearing himself apart throughout the novel because of the tragedy caused from bringing life to his creation. “...who shall conceive the horrors of my secret toil as I dabbled among the unhallowed damps of the grave of tortured the living animal to animate the lifeless clay?” (Page 136) If Victor never had the itching curiosity to mess with the spark of creation, Elizabeth, William, Clerval, Justine and Victor’s father would still be alive. It’s because of this tragedy Victor cannot stand himself, which triggers his depression and self-loathing. Victor’s creation is rejected, making him feel physically and socially distant from the rest of the world. The creature believes revenge is the only way to achieve his own internal happiness, but revenge can consume everything. “You hate me; but your abhorrence cannot equal that with which I regard myself. I look on the hands which executed the deed; I think on the heart in which the indignation of it was, and long for the moment when these hands will meet my eyes, when that imagination will haunt my thoughts no more.” (Page 192) These are some of the monster’s final words the monster dedicated his life to putting revenge on Victor and murdering those close to Victor. In the end this proved to only create misery for the creature. After taking everyone and everything from Victor, the creature feels meaningless and concludes he has nothing left to live for because revenge consumed everything.

Frankenstein entails conflict told from different points of view that make the story clearer. Frankenstein is told from three different points of view, it’s told from the monster, Captain Walton and victor. From hearing the intense tale told from each of these characters we get a better understanding of the story. From the internal conflict that Victor and the monster experience, we find ways to relate our personal experience to the characters in the book, and make the novel relevant to our own lives and help understand the story better. Frankenstein is a classic novel that tells the tale of man and his curiosity to explore the supernatural side of science and creation, it tells of his folly and how “curiosity killed the cat”. This is a book that everyone should read. Everyone should endure Victor’s adventure by reading this piece of work. You are exhilarated through Mary Shelley’s novel by her gothic romantic style of writing. Books of this genre keep you engulfed in the adventure and keep you reading.