Examples Of Darkness In Frankenstein

"The darkness that surrounds us cannot hurt us. It is the darkness in your own heart you should fear." The atmosphere around you could be filled with love, joy, and peace but if your hurting inside your heart your surrounding would seem to filled with the presence of evil, mystery, supernatural,and dark aspects of life. In Frankenstein the characteristics of a gothic novel is represented thoroughly. In the novel of Frankenstein, the presence of evil, mystery, supernatural, and dark aspects of life are exemplified, or clarify by giving an example, by the novel.

Darkness is the partial or total absence of light. Darkness cannot exist with the presence of light. Darkness only comes when everything else in gone. Darkness is nothing……. then

darkness is everything. When you are surrounded by darkness in your life, everything you come in contact with even it is beautiful and filled with love on the outside but you still observe a dark and evil feeling with it as well. A gothic novel usually has characters that are highly emotional and in Frankenstein all the characters feel highly emotional. The characters of Frankenstein, especially Victor and the creature, are often highly emotionally filled with dread, horror, sorrow or rage. Victor Frankenstein usually is emotionally filled with despondency or misery which is a state of low spirits caused by loss of hope or courage. He felt miserable because the creature murdered people and he was its creator. He also felt this emotion because he didn't understand the consequences that his passion would lead to. The creature felt Victor rage when Victor denied him of his wedding night which resulted in him threatening Victor causing Victor to feel dreaded.
“... If it is cloudy and raining, there are clouds and rain in my soul.” In Frankenstein, weather reflects Victors emotions greatly. This reflects as a gothic outlook because in majority of the novel the weather gave a bad omen, or an event regarded as a portent of good or evil. Mary Shelley uses rain and darkness to create an air of suspense and a sense of a gothic imagery. When Victor observed the lightning annihilate the oak tree with obsession. This gothic weather foreshadows that with him being obsessed with lethal science. Also the day when Victor created the creature Mary Shelley creates that dark and scary tone. “It was a dreary night in November …. .” While reading the novel knowing it’s night and dreary causes the reader to feel that gothic feeling.
“We all have a Monster within; the difference is in degree, not in kind.” In Frankenstein, Mary Shelley shows how the hero becomes a villian. After the creation of the creature Victor becomes obsessed with knowledge causing it to ruin his life. Also the behavior of the creature represents the presence of evil. When the creature kills the family of Victor just for attention, hurting Victor in the process indicates to the reader that the creature has no soul or any type of humanity. For a human or a creature in this case without a soul means to have no emotion or being a cold and heartless person.
Frankenstein could be either considered as either a romantic or gothic novel. Mary Shelley considers it as a gothic novel because it represents the elements of a Gothic literature which includes a dark setting , the supernatural, the sublime and an atmosphere of terror and horror. Terror is the anticipation of death, danger or the supernatural while horror is their realization. The supernatural is the creation of although it was transgresses the boundary between life and death. Darkness is represented by the feeling of isolation by both the creature and Victor. “There was something awesome in the thought of the solitary mortal standing by the open window and summoning in from the gloom outside the spirits of the nether world.”