Criticism And Romanticism In Mary Shelley's Frankenstein

Frankenstein Term Paper

Romanticism was a rebellion, in a sense, from the intellectualism and formality of the Enlightenment. This movement began in Europe in the mid-eighteenth century and eventually spread through Europe and North America over the course of the next century. During this time, a novel written by a young English woman would come to define the science fiction genre and is read by students even today. Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley’s Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus, first published in 1818 when the author was just 20 years old, has had far-reaching influence in culture and literature over the last 200 years. It is generally thought of as the first sci-fi story in the Western canon and is one of the most well-known examples

While Frankenstein certainly contains some of both, they’re not the main focus of the novel. The monster commits murder three separate times in the novel; his victims including Dr. Frankenstein’s brother William, best friend Henry Clerval, and wife Elizabeth. The motive for all three murders is understood to be out of rage toward and feelings of betrayal from the creator. Each time, Dr. Frankenstein has gone back on his word to his creation to create for him a companion with which to experience life as outsiders. The intent is certainly there, to include this decidedly Gothic element in a story full of Romantic references, but it is included to move the narrative in a further direction and build the character of the monster. The monster rides along the fine line between protagonist and antagonist as the tale is told, and the

A large part of what separates transcendentalism from romanticism is a focus on the individual and each person’s sense of self. Frankenstein’s monster is on his journey long enough to do some self-discovery

The first is of existence and expectation in a society not made for differences in any capacity. When Dr. Victor Frankenstein reanimates a previously dead body, creating the monster, after working for two years, he almost immediately regrets it because “no mortal could support the horror of that countenance” and it became “a thing such as even Dante could not have considered,” (46). At this point, it’s not clear what the creature is capable of, but Dr. Frankenstein is already ashamed of him because of his physical appearance. Later, during the creature’s tale, he recalls an incident where he saves a young girl from a river current. He describes his labors to revive the girl after he rescued her, and when she wakes, her father rushes over and sees this monster with his daughter and assumes the worst because of the creature’s size and appearance and shoots him. The creature laments that “this is now the reward for my benevolence! I [have] saved a human being form destruction, and, as a recompense, I now [writhe] under the miserable pain of a wound, which shattered the flesh and bone,” (108). This is just one of many examples of a general societal expectation for the creature based on superficial and surface-level observation. The creature himself tells Dr. Frankenstein that he was “benevolent and good” and his experienced misery made him the way he is perceived when he finds the dr. again (78).