Gothic And Romantic Elements In Mary Shelley's Frankenstein

Sumeet Gautam

Mrs. Southerland

English 4 AP - 1

1 August 2014

Gothic and Romantic Elements of Frankenstein

Frankenstein is by no means the first novel of its kind. Intertextuality with other works of the era cause it to fall under a larger literary continuum. Instead, the horror and shock value of Gothicism and the emotions of Romanticism work together to form a most unforgettable story.

The novel is unique because by the time Mary Shelley wrote Frankenstein, several existing novels had used Gothic themes, but the genre had only been around for sixty years. Gothic novels focus on the mysterious, unknown, or supernatural. In Frankenstein, Shelley portrays rather mysterious circumstances under which Victor Frankenstein creates the monster: the

Romantic writers are concerned with the natural world, human feelings, compassion for mankind, freedom of the Romantic hero, and rebellion against society. The writers also experiment with the discontent that they feel against all that seems commercial and standardized. Romantic writers usually write about the rural and rustic life versus the modern life, far away places, medieval folklore, and commoners. Mary Shelley lived among the practitioners of these concepts (including her husband, Percy Shelley) and used many of these principles in her novel Frankenstein. When Frankenstein 's monster, utterly forsaken, takes to the forest in an effort to track down his creator, he finds solace only in the beauty of spring, claiming that he “felt emotions of gentleness and pleasure that had long appeared dead, revive within [him]” (134). The Romantic idea of nature 's benevolence and ability to heal spiritually is juxtaposed with another idea held dearly by Romantics: the pure power of the natural world. The monster is a Romantic hero because of the rejection he must endure from society. Wherever he goes, he is chased away because he is “hideous and abhorred” (189). Shelley is attempting to show the

Though most of the plot and setting were borrowed from Gothic literature, the morals and principles of the book stem from the Romantic movement. From inherent homage to all things natural to the supremacy of human creation and imagination, Frankenstein is the very embodiment of Romanticism. These two styles combine to form the backbone of one of the most notable works of fiction of all