Theme Of Dreams In Frankenstein

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Frankenstein
Dreams appear several times throughout the novel Frankenstein, but only in chapters narrated by Victor. Examples of this are when he dreams about Elizabeth dying in his arms in chapter five and when he dreams that the creature will come to kill him in chapter 21. Shelly uses these dreams to reveal to the reader what Victor is subconsciously thinking, but is not yet willing to admit.
The first example of this is his dream at the beginning of chapter five. After building his ‘monster’, Victor becomes deeply conflicted about whether it was right or wrong for him to play god and attempt to give life to an inanimate object. In the preceding chapter, Shelly leads the reader down the path of Victor’s all consuming obsession with ‘bestowing animation upon lifeless matter’ (Shelley, 47). However, after his experiment succeeds Victor is confronted with the …show more content…

Victor was just released from his imprisonment on suspension of the mysterious murder of Henry Clerval, but Victor recognizes him to be the second victim of the creature he created. In his dream Victor feels the creature’s ‘grasp in [his] neck, and could not free [himself] from it’ (Shelly, 163). Shelly creates this dream not only to represent Victor’s fear of the creature, but his desire for it to kill him and end his suffering. Victor says his life is full of ‘various misfortunes’ but even after taking double the dosage of his sleeping medication he is unable to escape his ‘thoughts and misery’ (Shelly, 163). At this point in the novel Victor is now responsible for the deaths of, at least, three people because of his creation and longs for peace but not even sleep can give him that. Victor’s dream of being murdered by his own creation is Shelly’s way to represent his want of release from life so no longer has to remember the mistakes of his

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