Frankenstein

Question 1

• “A new species would bless me

Answer 1

• “A new species would bless me as its creator and source; many happy and excellent natures would owe their being to me. No father could claim the gratitude of his child so completely as I should deserve theirs” - Frankenstein crafts an image of him as a nurturing figure, but we are warned of him through the language. First, this thought came to him “like a hurricane”. “claim” “owe” and “deserve” are selfish words. No loving tones. Also blasphemous as he intends to usurp god.

Question 2

” i was delighted

Answer 2

• “I was delighted when I discovered that the pleasant sounds… proceeded from the throats of the little winged animals”. The creature is initially benevolent, collecting fire wood for the De Laceys, saving the girl in the river, but is only cruel when shunned from the world.
• The creature’s speech, unlike Frankenstein’s cursing and swearing, is surprisingly moving, and elevated his diction above that of Victors (who struggles to communicate in their first encounter). The creature takes control of the narrative by seizing it in the last chapter before telling his story. He reveals his true articulate self to both victor and the reader.

Question 3

creature as noble savage and initially benevolent

Answer 3

• Creature as a noble savage. The tragedy of his story is how the creature had so much potential for great good. The creature is innocent and good, unlike the Christian teaching of man being flawed and fundamentally sinful.
• The narrative changes everything as it illuminates the consequences of Victor’s inhumanity by demonstrating the suffering of his creation. He has forfeited the creature’s own potential for goodness and arguably lost his own soul in doing so. He is therefore the monstrous one.
• Idea of ‘self as “other”’. You define yourself through others (women in the novel being defined as not being like the reckless victor? Victor’s abuse to monster and alienating of him so as to separate himself from him, yet they are actually very similar.”

Question 4

Technology

Answer 4

• Scientist Volta was experimenting with electricity. Galvani managed to make nerves and muscles twitch from dead animals.
• An Experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump is a 1768 oil-on-canvas painting by Joseph Wright. The painting depicts a natural philosopher, a forerunner of the modern scientist, recreating one of Robert Boyle’s air pump experiments, in which a bird is deprived of air, before a varied group of onlookers. The group exhibits a variety of reactions, but for most of the audience scientific curiosity overcomes concern for the bird. The central figure looks out of the picture as if inviting the viewer’s participation in the outcome.

Question 5

Darwin

Answer 5

• Eugenics and ‘the new woman’. Eugenic enthusiasts argued that the middle-class feminists who campaigned for women’s access to education and employment opportunities were in fact being diverted from their most important role as child-bearers. Some women were hostile as a result, seeing eugenics as another justification for unequal and unfair treatment. Others, however, saw eugenics as providing support for women’s emancipation. Women must be well educated to make rational choices about marriage. By the 1890s, these ideas were being taken up amongst what were called ‘New Women’. These women were modern and independent and used fiction to upturn traditional marriage plots. ‘New Woman’ heroines were prepared to deny love rather than risk having a child with an unsuitable husband. She is thus fit to be mans equal.
• The redefinition of human nature and its possible shaping through education was a crucial concern for eighteenth-century British culture

Question 6

Male psyche under patriarchal pressure

Answer 6

• The patriarchal pressure Victor flees is the pressure to be the patriarch in the strictest famil- ial sense− in the role of a husband and a father. Walton expresses his homosocial longing by writing, “I desire the company of a man who could sympathize with me, whose eyes would reply to mine” (4). Walton uses the lan- guage of erotic desire not to express a longing for a woman, wife or sexual partner, but for a male companion. Considering that he is isolated on a ship surrounded by rugged, seafaring men, Walton’s desire for male companion- ship seems unusual if not illogical. Eyes, in many romantic novels of this time, were the pools of desire.
• Victors only near-erotic dream where he kisses Elizabeth, end in her repulsive death. The monster then becomes to symbolize repressed desire, as Victor wakes with him leaning over his bed and staring into his eyes. Also at the beginning he has a “desire” to make his creation.
• The monster similarly feels sexually deprived due to his image. He looks on the portrait longingly, only to feel enraged that the women would fear his face.

Question 7

Colonial imperialism

Answer 7

• The “traveler” he sees seems to be “a sav- age inhabitant of some undiscovered island” (9). His aspect sharply contrasts with that of Victor, whom Walton imme- diately identifies as “a European” (6). In a remarkable par- allel to the racial ideologies of Shelley’s day, the monster has “the shape of a man” but is never considered completely human because of his physical differences.
• As Mary Shelley wrote Frankenstein, a series of slave rebel- lions and revolutions were rocking the foundations of the British Empire. Particularly significant was the Jamaican revolution of 1813. The enormous threat posed by what Britain perceived to be legions of non-white peoples insist- ing on independence parallels the monstrous threat posed by Victor’s creation.
• Opponents of colonialism (like Shelley’s own parents) frequently viewed the British Empire as a parent who, having given birth to the colonies, needed to nurture them into adulthood. This concern with the nurturing and development of offspring is mirrored in Shelley’s concern with the education and socialization of the monster. There is something morally problematic and dangerous about bringing children into the world without appropriately socializing them.

Question 8

The pursuit of knowledge / science / exploration

Answer 8

• Allusion to Lucifer and Adam – desire to steal knowledge from god. Creation lies with the hands of God, so Victors actions to a 19th century reader would have been blasphemous. However he has noble statements to “renew life where death had… devoted the body to corruption”.
• Question whether science improves life or threatens our existence? Victor becomes almost inhuman. The usurping of god in the novel ultimately leads to chaos and death. Victor fails in preceding gods role as he fails to love his creation, and refuses the creature a partner.
• Gothic novels tend to be about transgression, overstepping boundaries and entering a realm of the unknown. Reason no longer rules. Paradoxically gothic literature also lent itself to those who wish to warn society against the effects of breaking with the natural order.

Question 9

Contexts

Answer 9

• The setting would have spoken to some of the most compelling aspects of 19th century culture: fascination with exploration both scientific and geographical. The Alps (where victor encounters creature) was a popular place of exploration at that time.
• Victor represents the threats of modernization, yet also embodies the Romantic rebelliousness towards accepted modes through is pursuit of forbidden knowledge.
• 19th century there was a commonly held belief that external beauty or deformity reflected internal beauty or deformity – creature says “I became dully convinced that I was in reality the monster that I am. Only blind De Lacey is kind to monster.