Frankenstein: Critics

Question 1

Film adaptation, Kenneth Branagh

Oedipal complex

Answer 1

Elizabeth’s head used to create she-monster

Frankenstein’s ‘wife’ (also monster’s ‘mother’) is now monster’s mate

Question 2

Maurice Hindle

- Gothic era

Answer 2

powerful and commercial middle class
increasing curiosity in science and chemistry

Question 3

Andrew Green

- Ambition

Answer 3

landscape is metaphor for wild determination

and frontiers of human intellect

Question 4

Marilyn Butler

- Vitalism, materialism

Answer 4

MARILYN BUTLER
controversy between Abernathy and Lawrence - debated on electricity/life
- friends of Mary and Percy

Question 5

Ellen Moers

- Effeminate male

Answer 5

ELLEN MOERS
Frankenstein defies morality by giving birth
Frankenstein defies social and scientific convention by creating life
Adopts female role in society

Question 6

Chris Bond

- Nature / nurture

Answer 6

CHRIS BOND

monster’s evil is nurture not nature - Frankenstein’s sole regret = didn’t make monster aesthetically pleasing

Question 7

Beth Newman

- Narrative structure

Answer 7

BETH NEWMAN
Chinese box narrative structure: importance placed on monster’s narrative
(ARGUE AGAINST: monster’s narrative is encircled by other characters’ narratives - is entrapped)

Question 8

Peter Brookes

- Physiognomy

Answer 8

PETER BROOKES

when monster sees reflection in pool, realises he is not human, and therefore not desirable

Question 9

Jeffrey Berman

- Narcissism

Answer 9

JEFFREY BERMAN
Frankenstein is the ‘Modern Narcissus’
(Narcissus fell in love with his own image and he wasted away due to UNSATISFIED DESIRE)

Question 10

Rebecca Platt

- Safie / Elizabeth

Answer 10

Rebecca Platt

• Shelley allows the oriental Safie, arguably most active female character, to live. The perfect passive Elizabeth is destroyed
• fate of women who end up trapped in male idealisation and expectation

Question 11

Anne Mellor

- Frankenstein destroying female monster / feminist perspective

Answer 11

Anne Mellor

• Frankenstein is truly fearful of a woman who is sexually liberated as it defies sexist aesthetic of passive women
• thf. Frank violently reasserts male control by penetrating and mutilating female creature

Question 12

Ellen Moers

- ‘Frankenstein’’s emphasis is on afterbirth

Answer 12

Ellen Moers
- novel is a woman’s myth making on subject of birth because its emphasis on the trauma of afterbirth
=> novel focuses on effects/consequences of parental neglect after birth, a unique approach in Gothic literature w a feminine motif of the revulsion against newborn life

Question 13

David Seed

- Frankenstein’s narrative tactics to refer to fate or destiny

Answer 13

David Seed
- One of Frank’s standard narrative tactics is to refer everything to fate or destiny
- negative inversion of his original belief that he was destined for some great enterprise
=> irony: Frank’s belief that his destiny is to achieve great things, revealed to be the fate of his destruction
=> motif of cycles - everything (Nature) is balanced out

Question 14

Harriet Hustis

- Speedy process of the monster’s creation

Answer 14

Harriet Hustis
- Frankenstein willingly sacrifices creative precision for speed in creation of life
- purely theoretical interest - conceives life with blatant disregard for specifics
=> Frank so concentrated on pursuit of knowledge for his own gain that he dismisses ‘minor’ details of the monster’s appearance - details which lead to his neglect of the monster and ultimate self-destruction

Question 15

Harriet Hustis

- Death of Frankenstein’s loved ones

Answer 15

Harriet Hustis
- those who pay for Frankenstein’s actions are ironically those he claims to hold most dear
=> Frank’s loved ones are physically hurt, tormenting Frank psychologically

Question 16

Chris Bond

- Frankenstein’s isolationist attitude

Answer 16

Chris Bond
- Frank sought to eliminate the need of anyone else in his creation
=> Frankenstein’s neglect of his family and bride as they are not needed during his scientific studies, in his mind, are therefore killed off literally by his scientific study

Question 17

Andrew Green

- The Rime of the Ancient Mariner comparisons

Answer 17

Andrew Green

• Like the Ancient Mariner, who is forced to carry the albatross he has killed, Frank is cursed to carry with him the burden of what he has done
• The pole is a place of nemesis : Ancient Mariner, Frank, Walton, and the monster are forced to come face to face with their destinies and horrible reality of consequences of their actions

Question 18

Andrew Green

- Paradise Lost comparison - forbidden fruit/ Paradise

Answer 18

Andrew Green

• Frank’s relationship w family and friends, a luxury afforded to neither Adam nor the monster = Paradise
• Frank irrevocably loses this paradise as a result of the ‘sin’ of indulging in the forbidden fruit of knowledge