Horace Walpole Influence On Frankenstein

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Recommended: Elements of gothic literature in frankenstein mary shelly

The way Walpole wrote his first gothic novel inspired Radcliffe, Shelley, and Stoker’s novels by setting the format and tone for all gothic novels. The Castle of Otranto was the first gothic novel and it laid out how all other novels of its kind would be written. All of them have spooky, dramatic settings, include battles with demons or the supernatural, and include a moral to a story (Marinaro.) This is why Horace Walpole is credited with being the founder of the gothic novel.
During the 18th century, good reason was stressed and practiced (Gillie pg. 551.) Gothic novels helped emphasize that along with emotion by putting its characters in places that are stressful and need a good head to get out of. Originally meaning mid-evil, the term …show more content…

She would sit and tell him tales of folklore and truth (Sullivan pg. 404.) The great story of Dracula actually insists on the protection of women as there was much fear about the changing sexualization of them and they wanted to stop it. Rebecca Stott says that, “liberation of expressed desires,” is the main concern as Dracula only attacks women (Stott.)
Another inspiration to gothic literature is Mary Shelley. Possibly the most well-known horror story, Frankenstein, was written by her and was designed to scare her readers how she had been scared at certain times in her life. She can thank Dr. Erasmus Darwin for Frankenstein because she was inspired to write this great novel by listening to a conversation he was having about some of his experiments (Sullivan pg. 379.) Shelley wrote this in an effort to explore the unknown. The great moral behind the novel is that how you treat a man is how he will become so be careful with what you do to …show more content…

Bram Stoker, Mary Shelley, and Ann Radcliffe all had big impacts on the gothic world of literature but everything they knew about it came from Walpole. His novel, The Castle of Otranto, is the first gothic novel written and continues to inspire young and old writers. His
writing is actually considered amateurish in how he crafted the novel but also important as the earliest of its kind. This tale gets its location setting by Horace Walpole looking at a map of Naples and choosing Otranto. He confessed that it was chosen simply because it was, “well sounding,” though he had never been there before or even seen the place (Williams.) Walpole even did not know a thing about the castle that was in Otranto. Despite all this, his choice of Naples was still very influential because it began the trend of nearly all writers choosing Europe because of its exotic locations.
Horace Walpole, Bram Stoker, Ann Radcliffe, and Mary Shelley all left huge, lasting impressions on the gothic genre of literature. Horace set the table for the major parts of a novel, Then Stoker, Shelley, and Radcliffe added distinct details to expand, differentiate, and define the gothic novel. Whether it’s skipping character details or making the hero and villain fall in love, each writer to come though and publish a tale that impacts someone else’s writing helps carry on the original basis of a gothic tale while also allowing it to become what it is today as well as transform into what it will be

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