Frankenstein: Gothic And Romance Genre

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Recommended: Aspects of Romanticism in Frankenstein

Ryee Heiner
Ms. Christensen
English 12B
1 May 2018

Frankenstein could be classified both as a gothic and romance genre, but many people would disagree and believe it to be more of a gothic genre. The book has a dark side to that makes it a gothic genre. Some people don't think that it falls in both categories. More than one character is in search for a friend, mate to have emotions with that make it romantic as well. In this essay I will show that this novel touches on characteristics of both romantic and gothic, with romance being the dominant genre.

Right when you start reading the book you see multiple romance characteristics. You see that Victor wants to make this creature. He isn't honest with anyone throughout the story about what …show more content…

The name Frankenstein alone sounds dark and gothic. Throughout the story the reader is exposed to the darker side of the characters. A lot of the settings take place in creepy basements or dungeons and Victor’s lab is just that. A mysterious lab that is bringing the dead back to life. 34Gothic also is about supernatural things. So the fact that Victor is bringing corpses to life in a basement laboratory, it naturally seems of gothic nature. Victor searches for body parts to use in his experiment in the night and brings a corpse to life. The monster that he creates has supernatural strength and speed as he chases Victor wherever he goes, on a mission of revenge. The supernatural characteristic is also …show more content…

Most of these are touched in the first few chapters of this book. Robert Walton, the shipman that saves Victor and tells him of the gigantic apparition that him and his crew had seen, speaks of nature when he explains the harvest season in a letter to his sister Margaret while he is out at sea. -”it was the most beautiful season; never did the fields bestow a more plentiful harvest, or the vines yield a more luxuriant vintage: but my eyes were more insensible to the charms of nature.” (pg. 75) See, Romantic writers loved nature, it inspired them, so they seemed to add it to their works. This novel also displays rebellion when the monster is cursing his creator and then he rebels against him. Heroism is seen again in the monster, who not only rebelled, but fought to become normal. He taught himself to read and right, showing he had human nature. He was a larger-than-life and unforgettable character, traits of a hero. Romantics were also obsessed with emotions and it is a common theme throughout the whole story. Mary Shelley makes you feel the emotion of each character and become overwhelmed with each encounter of nature with emotions, that it is referred to as ‘the sublime’, another characteristic of

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