Mary Shelley’s use of a frame story in her novel “Frankenstein” generates the problem of reliable narration as many narrations do. However unlike most novels, this story is told through three different narrations allowing much room for bias and a slight change in the tale. The title character, Victor Frankenstein, is not trust worthy due to his deep personal loathing for his monster or another narrator. This narrator cannot be taken as an accurate depiction due to its lack of empathetic behavior and constant vying for pity but also acts in a manner that is gruesome. The last narrator proves to be most reliable because he has the least amount to do with the actual story other than to pass along Victor’s story and to carry on what happens when one is tainted by science and the pursuit of too much knowledge.
Although “Frankenstein” is the story of Victor and his monster, Walton is the most reliable narrator throughout the novel. However, like most narrator’s, even his retelling of Victor’s story is skewed by prejudice and favoritism of the scientist’s point of view. Yet this could be attributed to the only view points he ever gets to truly hear are from Victor himself and not the monster that he only gets to meet after he comes to mourn his fallen master.
Victor himself is the most biased out of the three narrators based on the pure hatred he holds for the monster. Constantly, he is describing the monster in vivid detail of its grotesque nature, drawing light to its indescribable obscene features. One can only question whether or not he is exaggerating the atrocity of the monster with his own extreme disdain for the creature. “He approached; his countenance bespoke bitter anguish, combined with disdain and malignity, while its une...
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... is misrepresentation of the entire story based on whose point of view it is being told from. Despite Frankenstein and his monster being the core of the story, they are tainted by their own emotions as well as their own backstories. Through their animosity towards one another, they skew the story and are not capable of showing the tale in a light that is completely unbiased. Therefore they cannot encompass all of the themes of the novel because they are not able to show the truth of their own narrations. Walton on the other hand, is only there to bring to light the true themes of the novel therefore making him the most reliable of the three. He shows Shelley’s themes of religion, science, and nature all too well by retelling the story which Victor dies telling him and his lack of previous knowledge to the situation at hand makes him the least skewed of all three.
Mary Shelley’s gothic novel Frankenstein is a novel narrated by Robert Walton about Victor Frankenstein and the Monster that he creates. Frankenstein grew up surrounding himself with what he loved most, science. He attended Ingolstadt University where he studied chemistry and natural philosophy, but being involved in academics was not enough for him. Frankenstein wanted to discover things, but did not think about the potential outcomes that could come with this decision. Frankenstein was astonished by the human frame and all living creatures, so he built the Monster out of various human and animal parts (Shelley, 52). At the time Frankenstein thought this creation was a great discovery, but as time went on the Monster turned out to be terrifying to anyone he came in contact with. So, taking his anger out on Frankenstein, the Monster causes chaos in a lot of people’s lives and the continuing battle goes on between the Monster and Frankenstein. Throughout this novel, it is hard to perceive who is pursuing whom as well as who ends up worse off until the book comes to a close.
The start of Robert Walton and the monster’s final conversation, this paragraph near the end of Mary Shelly’s novel Frankenstein uncovers the untold perspective of Victor Frankenstein’s creation. Revealing to Robert that Frankenstein’s misery was not the only casualty of the novel, Shelly’s utilization of the monster’s pain illustrates mankind’s hatred and abandonment of the artificial being. Moreover, directing spiteful words towards Victor Frankenstein, Felix De Lacey, and even himself, the monster’s narration reflects the being’s unresolved emotions that have emerged because of society’s cruelty. Although science fiction, the narrative of Frankenstein’s monster exemplifies the literary reproduction of England’s monarchy deserting its own
One day as I was walking along through the tall blades of grass, I came upon a massive figure. I thought to myself, oh just another one of these uninteresting creatures, but this one, this one was different. This one was clad with long flowing hair, and other features that did not fit my ordinary image of these marvelous creatures. I quickly realized it was going to place itself on the ground, and I was in its way. I quickly sprung to safety as the massive creature collapsed where I was previously stationed. How rude, I thought, It ruined the perfect flow of the grass. But I did not ponder too much on it as it was commonplace for these large creatures to land here. By the tree. Next to the water.
He understands exactly what he is getting into and he chooses to continue anyway. George Levine states in his critical essay, ? Frankenstein and the Tradition of Realism,? that Walton is ? isolated from the rest of mankind by his ambition ??
Many authors have different ways of building characters and how they look. It is up to the reader to build their perspective from the descriptions given by the author in order to understand books. Mary Shelley, the author of Frankenstein, sculpts the readers’ perspective of her monster through powerful diction and emotional syntax. After Dr. Frankenstein finally accomplishes his goal of re-animating a lifeless human, Shelley uses her strong word choice to fully express the extent of horror that Frankenstein had felt, describing his monster as a “demonical corpse to which I had so miserably given life.” (Shelley 45). Frankenstein’s horror is shared with the reader simply from a well descripted sentence. The detail Shelley put into Victor Frankenstein’s perspective is gradually shaping our own, as the reader’s, perspective. Furthermore, the diction being used adds a more definitive appearance to the monster. It helps us imagine what the monster looks like and additionally, how Frankenstein feels about his success.
In reading Frankenstein, by Mary Shelly, a motif of distance and separateness can be discerned from the text. In the structure of the narrative, the reader is distant from the action. The setting of the narrative is situated often in isolated and nearly inaccessible areas, creating separateness between the action of the story and the everyday world. The Frankenstein monster is remote compared to the rest of world by narrative structure, geographic area, and his namelessness.
The following essay is concerned with the frame structure in Mary Shelley`s Frankenstein and its’ functions as it is suggested by Beth Newman`s "Narratives of seduction and the seduction of narratives". To start with, the novel Frankenstein is a symmetrically built frame narrative with a story at its center. This is not always the case with frame structured novels, as there are examples without a proper center (e.g. Heart of Darkness). The elaborate system of frames indicates that this center reveals some kind of a mystery. However, it would be wrong to asume that the center alone contains the meaning of the novel. On the contrary, the meaning of the novel is brought about by the relation between the different stories at the center and the frames around it.
Frankenstein, although well-educated himself, is a very closed-minded individual. He soaks in the information that he first learns from a young age and refuses to examine the perspectives of other scientists or educators. A later omitted text from Mary Shelley’s original draft of Frankenstein states that (when Frankenstein visited Oxford) “We found that the regulations of this university were much improved since the days of Gibbon, but there is still in fashion a great deal of bigotry and devotion to established rules that constrains the mind of students and leads to slavish and narrow principles of action” (Bugg 657). Not only does this briefly touch on Shelley’s belief that discrimination was actively being taught at universities in England,
Frankenstein is the story of an eccentric scientist whose masterful creation, a monster composed of sown together appendages of dead bodies, escapes and is now loose in the country. In Frankenstein, Mary Shelly’s diction enhances fear-provoking imagery in order to induce apprehension and suspense on the reader. Throughout this horrifying account, the reader is almost ‘told’ how to feel – generally a feeling of uneasiness or fright. The author’s diction makes the images throughout the story more vivid and dramatic, so dramatic that it can almost make you shudder.
In Mary Shelley’s novel, Frankenstein, values of society are clearly expressed. In this particular society and culture, a great value is placed on ideologies of individuals and their contribution to society. In order to highlight these values, Shelley utilizes the character of Victor Frankenstein. Frankenstein is the main character of the novel, and with his alienation, he plays a significant role that reveals the surrounding society’s assumptions and moral values of individualism and use in society. This is done through Victor’s actions of self-inflicted isolation.
Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein is a nineteenth century literary work that delves into the world of science and the plausible outcomes of morally insensitive technological research. Although the novel brings to the forefront several issues about knowledge and sublime nature, the novel mostly explores the psychological and physical journey of two complex characters. While each character exhibits several interesting traits that range from passive and contemplative to rash and impulsive, their most attractive quality is their monstrosity. Their monstrosities, however, differ in the way each of the character’s act and respond to their environment. Throughout Frankenstein, one assumes that Frankenstein’s creation is the true monster. While the creation’s actions are indeed monstrous, one must also realize that his creator, Victor Frankenstein is also a villain. His inconsiderate and selfish acts as well as his passion for science result in the death of his friend and family members and ultimately in his own demise.
Victor Frankenstein is a scientist whose ambition will be fatal. His story is central to Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. Nevertheless, Shelley gave a frame to Victor's tale as Frankenstein begins and ends with Captain Walton's letters. In this analysis, I will show that Shelley did not insert the letters by chance, but that they add a deeper dimension to the novel.
...the downfall of Frankenstein and the monster. Frankenstein found the secret to life, though he applies his gained knowledge and ambition to his own selfish goals, which wind up destroying him and those closest to him. Walton has something in common with Frankenstein; his ambition to achieve something that no man has ever accomplished before. The difference between Victor and Walton is tat Walton decides to turn back. The monster on the other hand never wanted any fame or glory; his ambition was motivated by the thirst for revenge. Ultimately even Frankenstein, on his deathbed, realized the harsh consequences of his actions. Victor states, "Seek happiness in tranquility, and avoid ambition..." (Shelley 229).
Victor Frankenstein, the monster’s creator, is the victim of his own pride. An ego unchecked is a dangerous thing. But in truth, it really just shows Victor’s humanity. He is privileged, educated, talented, loved, adored, but he is not perfect. His flaw is his own ego and pride. Without doubt, this is the result of a childhood where he was overindulged. Overindulged to the extent he was given a little girl “Elizabeth” as a “present”, whom he considered from childhood “mine only” (Shelley 21). Little wonder the twenty year old Victor would think he could create, control and command life. But Victor as with any indulged child did not take the time to learn much from his parents about parenting and fath...
In Frankenstein, Shelley creates two very complex characters. They embody the moral dilemmas that arise from the corruption and disturbance of the natural order of the world. When Victor Frankenstein is attending school, he becomes infatuated with creating a living being and starts stealing body parts from morgues around the university. After many months of hard work, he finishes one stormy night bringing his creation to life. However, “now that [Victor] had finished, the beauty of the dream vanished, and breathless horror and disgust filled [his] heart” (Chambers). Right after Victor realizes what he has done, he falls into deep depression and must be nursed back to health by his friend. Victor spends the rest of the story facing consequences and moral problems from creating unnatural life. When he realizes that the ‘monster’ has killed his brother, even though no one believes him, he feels responsible for his brother’s murder because he was responsible for the existence of the ‘monster’. Also feeling responsible, Victor...