Mary shelley - Frankenstein

Question 1

1797

Answer 1

born to radical philosophers William Godwin and Mary Wollstonecraft (who dies immediately after childbirth)

Question 2

1811

Answer 2

Mary sent to scotland and spends adolescence in the countryside

Question 3

1814

Answer 3

returns to London and meets the 21 yr old Percy Shelley at her father’s house
- she becomes pregnant a few months later and they flee to France with Mary’s stepsister Jane clairmont

Question 4

February 1815

Answer 4

gives premature birth to daughter who dies 12 days afterward

Question 5

January 1816

Answer 5

gives birth to son William

Question 6

spring/summer 1816

Answer 6

begins writing Frankenstein while in Geneva

Question 7

october 1816

Answer 7

Fanny Imlay (Mary’s half-sister) commits suicide

Question 8

december 1816

Answer 8

Harriet shelley (Percy’s abandoned wife) commits suicide while pregnant

Question 9

April 1817

Answer 9

finishes writing frankenstein

Question 10

1818

Answer 10

Frankenstein published anonymously; third child Clara passes away

Question 11

1819

Answer 11

Son William passes away
Son Percy florence was born who survives into adulthood

Question 12

1822

Answer 12

Percy Shelley drowns
- Mary widowed at age 24

Question 13

1826

Answer 13

publishes The Last Man, an eary scifi novel

Question 14

after death of first child (Feb 1815)

Answer 14

Dream that my little baby came to life
again; that it had only been cold, and
that we rubbed it before the fire, and
it lived.

• looked at it as origin of Frankenstein
• child coming back to life => blurring line b/twn life and death
• reanimate brain

Question 15

epistolary fiction

Answer 15

• a text in which narrative plot is conveyed by the exchange of letters between characters
• popular in 18th c.: Samuel Richardson’s Pamela (1740) and Clarissa (1747-48)
• associated w/ psychological interiority as characters attempt to make sense of the world by writing and reflecting
• enlightenment about exploring the world, rationality etc.
  
  • people rationalizing relationship with the world
• when people map the world = usually about commerce and trade
  
  • already introducing to a world of men understanding science to conquer world
  • what motivates him to write to his sister?
• science is never subjective - Mary

Question 16

Science and sea expeditions

Answer 16

This expedition has been the favourite dream of my early years. I have read with ardour the accounts of the various voyages which have been made in the prospect of arriving at the North Pacific Ocean through the seas which surround the pole. You may remember that a history of all the voyages made for purposes of discovery composed the whole of our good Uncle Thomas’ library. My education was neglected, yet I was passionately fond of reading. These volumes were my study day and night, and my familiarity with them increased that regret which I had felt, as a child, on learning that my father’s dying injunction had forbidden my uncle to allow me to embark in a seafaring life

Question 17

analysis

Answer 17

• reading and culture is a way of mapping the world
• this is the era of hollow earth theory: very top and bottom of earth, there’s a hollow thing in the earth
  
  • another world inside world and can get to it by going to north/south pole

Question 18

Robert Walton’s desire for frienship

Answer 18

But I have one want which I have never yet been able to satisfy, and the absence of the object of which I now feel as a most severe evil, I have no friend, Margaret: when I am glowing with the enthusiasm of success, there will be none to participate my joy; if I am assailed by disappointment, no one will endeavour to sustain me in dejection. I shall commit my thoughts to paper, it is true; but that is a poor medium for the communication of feeling. I desire the company of a man who could sympathise with me, whose eyes would reply to mine. You may deem me romantic, my dear sister, but I bitterly feel the want of a friend. I have no one near me, gentle yet courageous, possessed of a cultivated as well as of a capacious mind, whose tastes are like my own, to approve or amend my plans. How would such a friend repair the faults of your poor brother! I am too ardent in execution and too impatient of difficulties

Question 19

analysis

Answer 19

• chief missing thing is a figure who can sympathise
  
  • dream of communion with someone else - cult of sensibility
    
    • what Victor is looking for as well => yearning for intimacy/connection
• closest intimacy is among men
  
  • women come and go

Question 20

Robert and victor’s friendship

Answer 20

I said in one of my letters, my dear Margaret, that I should find no friend on the wide ocean; yet I have found a man who, before his spirit had been broken by misery, I should have been happy to have possessed as the brother of my heart.

• “brother of my heart” => have shared identity or affiliation that make it seem like they’re brothers together
  
  • incestrous logic in novel -> blurring line b/twn elective and biological
• Victor has bodily compartment in world

Question 21

Victor as creaturely

Answer 21

My affection for my guest increases every day. He excites at once my admiration and my pity to an astonishing degree. How can I see so noble a creature destroyed by misery without feeling the most poignant grief? He is so gentle, yet so wise; his mind is so cultivated, and when he speaks, although his words are culled with the choicest art, yet they flow with rapidity and unparalleled eloquence

• how do Robert and Victor interact w/ each other?
  
  • a thesis and anti-thesis simultaneously
  • Victor as a sensitive writer = cult of sensibility
    
    • feels grief looking at his friend in pain
  • description of Robert = sounds like a poet/writer
• this is what it means to be a romantic writer

Question 22

Robert transcribing Victor’s tale

Answer 22

I have resolved every night, when I am not imperatively occupied by my duties, to record, as nearly as possible in his own words, what he has related during the day. If I should be engaged, I will at least make notes. This manuscript will doubtless afford you the greatest pleasure; but to me, who know him, and who hear it from his own lips–with what interest and sympathy shall I read it in some future day! Even now, as I commence my task, his full-toned voice swells in my ears; his lustrous eyes dwell on me with all their melancholy sweetness; I see his thin hand raised in animation, while the lineaments of his face are irradiated by the soul within. Strange and harrowing must be his story, frightful the storm which embraced the gallant vessel on its course and wrecked it–thus!

• transcribing what Victor has told him
  
  • Victor seems depressed
  • level of mediation: Robert containing ceremony of how Victor came to be this way

Question 23

Frankenstein

Answer 23

• updates the gothic tradition by imagining human psychology - rather than medieval castles or historical units as haunted
• epistolary frame narrative of the novel emphasizes characters’ psychological states
• human subjectivity as increasingly irrational or unpredictable: a counterpoint to Enlightenment era belief in progress and logic
  
  • if left unchecked, what can science produce?
  • first volume of novel: how to conquer and transcend world
    
    • Victor wants to play god, wants to triumph over god & create life of his own: “hideous progeny”
• S&S responds to cult of sensibility, Frankenstein responds to Enlightenment

Question 24

The origin story of Frankenstein

Answer 24

In the summer of 1816, we visited Switzerland, and became the neighbours of Lord Byron. At first we spent our pleasant hours on the lake, or
wandering on its shores; and Lord Byron, who was writing the third canto
of Childe Harold, was the only one among us who put his thoughts upon
paper. These, as he brought them successively to us, clothed in all the light
and harmony of poetry, seemed to stamp as divine the glories of heaven
and earth, whose influences we partook with him

• spent a lot of time inside, bad weather

Question 25

Byron’s challenge

Answer 25

“We will each write a ghost story,” said Lord Byron; and his proposition
was acceded to. There were four of us. The noble author began a tale, a
fragment of which he printed at the end of his poem of Mazeppa. Shelley,
more apt to embody ideas and sentiments in the radiance of brilliant imagery, and in the music of the most melodious verse that adorns our language, than to invent the machinery of a story, commenced one founded on the experiences of his early life. Poor Polidori had some terrible idea about a
skull-headed lady, who was so punished for peeping through a key-hole—
what to see I forget—something very shocking and wrong of course; but
when she was reduced to a worse condition than the renowned Tom of
Coventry, he did not know what to do with her, and was obliged to despatch
her to the tomb of the Capulets, the only place for which she was fitted

• how they’re passing time inside
• Percy Shelley better w/ images than plot

Question 26

The illustrious poets also, annoyed by the platitude of prose, speedily relinquished their uncongenial task

Answer 26

I busied myself to think of a story,—a story to rival those which had
excited us to this task. One which would speak to the mysterious fears of
our nature, and awaken thrilling horror—one to make the reader dread to
look round, to curdle the blood, and quicken the beatings of the heart. If I
did not accomplish these things, my ghost story would be unworthy of its
name. I thought and pondered—vainly. I felt that blank incapability of
invention which is the greatest misery of authorship, when dull Nothing
replies to our anxious invocations. Have you thought of a story? I was asked
each morning, and each morning I was forced to reply with a mortifying
negative

• Mary doesn’t have a muse, divine spark of inspiration
  
  • horrifying for her b/c she was living w/ famous writers

Question 27

The dream turned nightmare

Answer 27

When I placed my head on my pillow, I did not sleep, nor could I be said to think. My imagination, unbidden, possessed
and guided me, gifting the successive images that arose in my mind with
a vividness far beyond the usual bounds of reverie. I saw—with shut eyes,
but acute mental vision—I saw the pale student of unhallowed arts kneeling beside the thing he had put together. I saw the hideous phantasm of a
man stretched out, and then, on the working of some powerful engine, show
signs of life, and stir with an uneasy, half vital motion. Frightful must it
be; for supremely frightful would be the effect of any human endeavour
to mock the stupendous mechanism of the Creator of the world. His success would terrify the artist; he would rush away from his odious handywork, horror-stricken

• representation of imagination is very different => it’s a nightmare
  
  • horror image of creature gazing upon Victor
  • nonverbal recognition b/twn creature and us => confronting Victor

Question 28

The novel as transcript of the dream much like Robert’s transcription of Victor’s tale

Answer 28

Swift as light and as cheering was the idea that broke in upon me.
“I have found it! What terrified me will terrify others; and I need only
describe the spectre which had haunted my midnight pillow.” On the morrow I announced that I had thought of a story. I began that day with the
words, It was on a dreary night of November, making only a transcript of
the grim terrors of my waking dream.

• Mary copying transcript of dream like Robert copied what Victor tells him
• non-speaking eyes gazing on us

Question 29

Frankenstein asks “what does it mean to be natural?” by interrogating the nature of science q

Answer 29

• is the creature natural?
  
  • comprised of human body parts, although he’s artificially constructed
• Creature at the limits of the human
  
  • hyper-human: learns culture, language, moves and looks like a human but not regarded as one
• enlightenment: what it means to be human or animal or exploring the world

Question 30

The horizon of science

Answer 30

None of those who have experienced them can conceive of the enticements of science. In other studies you go as far as others have gone before you, and there is nothing more to know; but in a scientific pursuit there is continual food for discovery and wonder

• colonial or imperial imagination you’re exploring
  
  • the “horizon”: the discovery and wonder that you can breach the limits of what’s already known and unknown
    
    • what motivates Victor and his mentors

Question 31

studying the origin of life

Answer 31

One of the phenomena which had peculiarly attracted my attention was the structure of the human frame, and, indeed, any animal endued with life. Whence, I often asked myself, did the principle of life proceed? It was a bold question, and one which has ever been considered as a mystery; yet with how many things are we upon the brink of becoming acquainted, if cowardice or carelessness did not restrain our inquiries. I revolved these circumstances in my mind and determined thenceforth to apply myself more particularly to those branches of natural philosophy which relate to physiology

• he became like Prometheus => transcend and play god
• human exploration or world often tampered or restricted by cowardice and carelessness

Question 32

Knowledge, science, and masculinity

Answer 32

I read and studied the wild fancies of these writers with delight; they appeared to me treasures known to few besides myself. I have described myself as always having been imbued with a fervent longing to penetrate the secrets of nature. In spite of the intense labour and wonderful discoveries of modern philosophers, I always came from my studies discontented and unsatisfied. Sir Isaac Newton is said to have avowed that he felt like a child picking up shells beside the great and unexplored ocean of truth. Those of his successors in each branch of natural philosophy with whom I was acquainted appeared even to my boy’s apprehensions as tyros engaged in the same pursuit.

The untaught peasant beheld the elements around him and was acquainted with their practical uses. The most learned philosopher knew little more. He had partially unveiled the face of Nature, but her immortal lineaments were still a wonder and a mystery. He might dissect, anatomise, and give names; but, not to speak of a final cause, causes in their secondary and tertiary grades were utterly unknown to him. I had gazed upon the fortifications and impediments that seemed to keep human beings from entering the citadel of nature, and rashly and ignorantly I had repined.

But here were books, and here were men who had penetrated deeper and knew more. I took their word for all that they averred, and I became their disciple.

Question 33

analysis

Answer 33

• part of Mary’s critique of science is that primarily occurs in very segregated regimented domains of knowledge production that align w/ university during this time period
  
  • Frankenstein as what happens when men want to produce life
• representation of hubris of scientist
• feminized attributes of the world/ecology/nature => Victor is no different in feminizing nature as woman
• seeks to usurp the gods and that fact in creating life by reanimating corpses => seeks to triumph over god
  
  • transcend biological confines of animate and inanimate objects

Question 34

The creature’s beauty

Answer 34

How can I describe my emotions at this catastrophe, or how delineate the wretch whom with such infinite pains and care I had endeavoured to form? His limbs were in proportion, and I had selected his features as beautiful. Beautiful! Great God! His yellow skin scarcely covered the work of muscles and arteries beneath; his hair was of a lustrous black, and flowing; his teeth of a pearly whiteness; but these luxuriances only formed a more horrid contrast with his watery eyes, that seemed almost of the same colour as the dun-white sockets in which they were set, his shrivelled complexion and straight black lips.

Question 35

analysis

Answer 35

• qs Mary asks/raises is what responsibility does parent owe to child?
  
  • Victor balks at responsibility
• Victor praises himself
• idea of proportion from Edmund Burke
  
  • sublime & beautiful => harmonious
• beauty is already marred by deformity
• superhuman attributes is what makes it monstrous in a way

Question 36

From beauty to disgust

Answer 36

For this I had deprived myself of rest and health. I had desired it with an ardour that far exceeded moderation; but now that I had finished, the beauty of the dream vanished, and breathless horror and disgust filled my heart. Unable to endure the aspect of the being I had created, I rushed out of the room and continued a long time traversing my bed-chamber, unable to compose my mind to sleep.

• how quickly he moves from one aesthetic category to another: the beautiful to the sublime
  
  • creature becomes source of terror and horror
• victor and creature are twins of each other (doppelgangers)
  
  • as rational and logical & logical and scientifically methodical Victor is, creature is anti-thesis
  • Mary exploring darker side of science

Question 37

Frankenstein about how people learn

Answer 37

• Shelley influenced by Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s ideas regarding children’s education
  
  • sympathy through education
  • how children are socialized => corrupting source is human society
• Shelley also influenced by John Locke’s ideas regarding faculty psychology: the mind as a “blank slate” onto which we are impressed by the world
  
  • Locke undermining humans’ identities or experiences or personalities are predetermined => nature vs. nurture
  • Creature acquiring language and culture similar to how people do
• b/c creature can become human, Shlley suggests there’s nothing innate or natural or being human
  
  • any living organism can become human based on how we define it
  • sensibility to suffering => human
• decentering human from humanity

Question 38

Victor’s hunger to learn

Answer 38

My temper was sometimes violent, and my passions vehement; but by some law in my temperature they were turned not towards childish pursuits but to an eager desire to learn, and not to learn all things indiscriminately. I confess that neither the structure of languages, nor the code of governments, nor the politics of various states possessed attractions for me. It was the secrets of heaven and earth that I desired to learn; and whether it was the outward substance of things or the inner spirit of nature and the mysterious soul of man that occupied me, still my inquiries were directed to the metaphysical, or in its highest sense, the physical secrets of the world.

Question 39

analysis

Answer 39

• 19th c term: he becomes monomaniacal
  
  • monomania = one passion
  • relationship to nature & knowledge => not interested in all aspects of the world
    
    • only the metaphysical or physical secrets of the world
      - Victor aspiring to become godlike authoritative figure
      - one of his many transgressions of the human => overstepping his bounds

Question 40

Creature’s eloquence

Answer 40

“Devil,” I exclaimed, “do you dare approach me? And do not you fear the fierce vengeance of my arm wreaked on your miserable head? Begone, vile insect! Or rather, stay, that I may trample you to dust! And, oh! That I could, with the extinction of your miserable existence, restore those victims whom you have so diabolically murdered!”

“I expected this reception,” said the dæmon. “All men hate the wretched; how, then, must I be hated, who am miserable beyond all living things! Yet you, my creator, detest and spurn me, thy creature, to whom thou art bound by ties only dissoluble by the annihilation of one of us. You purpose to kill me. How dare you sport thus with life? Do your duty towards me, and I will do mine towards you and the rest of mankind. If you will comply with my conditions, I will leave them and you at peace; but if you refuse, I will glut the maw of death, until it be satiated with the blood of your remaining friends.”

Question 41

analysis

Answer 41

• invokes terminology of duty
  
  • Victor bound to creature and creature acknowledges that he’s bound to him and others
  • creature suggesting Victor owes something to him like parent owed something to child
    - brought him to life => obligation to take care of it
• ending: creature offers ultimatum
  
  • rational and logical
  • offer him this, he’ll leave him alone and if not, he’ll kill him
• is eloquent: uses big words
  
  • also something grotesque: “glut the maw of death”
    - suggest how well read creature is & also strip things down to bared essentials
    - disorienting way of expressing themselves => toeing line b/twn eloquence and violence

Question 42

creature’s logic and sensibility; victor’s unfeeling response

Answer 42

My rage was without bounds; I sprang on him, impelled by all the feelings which can arm one being against the existence of another.
He easily eluded me and said,

“Be calm! I entreat you to hear me before you give vent to your hatred on my devoted head. Have I not suffered enough, that you seek to increase my misery? Life, although it may only be an accumulation of anguish, is dear to me, and I will defend it. Remember, thou hast made me more powerful than thyself; my height is superior to thine, my joints more supple. But I will not be tempted to set myself in opposition to thee. I am thy creature, and I will be even mild and docile to my natural lord and king if thou wilt also perform thy part, the which thou owest me.

Question 43

analysis

Answer 43

• Victor: physical
• creature: sensible (would expect the opposite)
• creature’s speech not meant to sound natural
  
  • Shelley deliberately writing speech & language as Shakespearean or Miltonic
  • sounds slightly antiquated
  • speaks complicated alternate syntax that not many humans do in this novel

Question 44

creature’s logic and sensibility; victor’s unfeeling response

Answer 44

Oh, Frankenstein, be not equitable to every other and trample upon me alone, to whom thy justice, and even thy clemency and affection, is most due. Remember that I am thy creature; I ought to be thy Adam, but I am rather the fallen angel, whom thou drivest from joy for no misdeed. Everywhere I see bliss, from which I alone am irrevocably excluded. I was benevolent and good; misery made me a fiend. Make me happy, and I shall again be virtuous.”

“Begone! I will not hear you. There can be no community between you and me; we are enemies. Begone, or let us try our strength in a fight, in which one must fall.”

Question 45

analysis

Answer 45

• juxtapose how long and how creature talks vs. how short and violent and elemental victor’s response is
• something heartbreaking => remind Victor of his responsibility
  
  • he has completely seated ethical obligation and duty to creature
  • creature’s sympathy and sensibility to remind him
• Shelley: absence of sympathy or sensibility to others that we create these monstrous creatures that we ourselves fear
  
  • creature became the way he was, wasn’t innate b/c of other unfeeling interactions w/ humans made him this way

Question 46

Creature appealing to victor’s sympathy

Answer 46

“How can I move thee? Will no entreaties cause thee to turn a favourable eye upon thy creature, who implores thy goodness and compassion? Believe me, Frankenstein, I was benevolent; my soul glowed with love and humanity; but am I not alone, miserably alone? You, my creator, abhor me; what hope can I gather from your fellow creatures, who owe me nothing? They spurn and hate me. The desert mountains and dreary glaciers are my refuge. I have wandered here many days; the caves of ice, which I only do not fear, are a dwelling to me, and the only one which man does not grudge. These bleak skies I hail, for they are kinder to me than your fellow beings. If the multitude of mankind knew of my existence, they would do as you do, and arm themselves for my destruction. Shall I not then hate them who abhor me?

Question 47

analysis

Answer 47

• nature more assertive and sympathetic than humans

Question 48

Creature appealing to victor’s sympathy

Answer 48

I will keep no terms with my enemies. I am miserable, and they shall share my wretchedness. Yet it is in your power to recompense me, and deliver them from an evil which it only remains for you to make so great, that not only you and your family, but thousands of others, shall be swallowed up in the whirlwinds of its rage. Let your compassion be moved, and do not disdain me. Listen to my tale; when you have heard that, abandon or commiserate me, as you shall judge that I deserve. But hear me. The guilty are allowed, by human laws, bloody as they are, to speak in their own defence before they are condemned. Listen to me, Frankenstein. You accuse me of murder, and yet you would, with a satisfied conscience, destroy your own creature. Oh, praise the eternal justice of man! Yet I ask you not to spare me; listen to me, and then, if you can, and if you will, destroy the work of your hands.”

Question 49

analysis

Answer 49

• explicitly asking for charity/benevolence
• invokes testimony or narrative as building block for sympathy
  
  • as if Frankenstein have murdered somebody
  • listen and persuade him to be sympathetic towards him

Question 50

the creature learning language

Answer 50

“This reading had puzzled me extremely at first, but by degrees I discovered that he uttered many of the same sounds when he read as when he talked. I conjectured, therefore, that he found on the paper signs for speech which he understood, and I ardently longed to comprehend these also; but how was that possible when I did not even understand the sounds for which they stood as signs? I improved, however, sensibly in this science, but not sufficiently to follow up any kind of conversation, although I applied my whole mind to the endeavour, for I easily perceived that, although I eagerly longed to discover myself to the cottagers, I ought not to make the attempt until I had first become master of their language, which knowledge might enable me to make them overlook the deformity of my figure, for with this also the contrast perpetually presented to my eyes had made me acquainted.

Question 51

analysis

Answer 51

• Creature and Equiano learning language
  
  • Shelley and Equiano suggesting something about language and ability to express & articulate ourselves that makes us human
    
    • human cognition is the ability to communicate w/ others (key idea that makes human human)
• before familiarizing to villagers => understanding that if he doesn’t he can’t communicate
  
  • creature’s identity is response to circumstances/env.
    
    • also a blank slate
    • made who he is by how he’s treated
      
      • ex: nurture children & allow them to pursue what they want => grow happy & healthy
      • discourage & penalize them unnecessarily => repercussions down the line
      • shelley explores it with creature

Question 52

From innocence to experience

Answer 52

“Of what a strange nature is knowledge! It clings to the mind when it has once seized on it like a lichen on the rock. I wished sometimes to shake off all thought and feeling, but I learned that there was but one means to overcome the sensation of pain, and that was death—a state which I feared yet did not understand. I admired virtue and good feelings and loved the gentle manners and amiable qualities of my cottagers, but I was shut out from intercourse with them, except through means which I obtained by stealth, when I was unseen and unknown, and which rather increased than satisfied the desire I had of becoming one among my fellows. The gentle words of Agatha and the animated smiles of the charming Arabian were not for me. The mild exhortations of the old man and the lively conversation of the loved Felix were not for me. Miserable, unhappy wretch!

“Other lessons were impressed upon me even more deeply.”

Question 53

analysis

Answer 53

• exploring idea of knowledge
  
  • Paradise Lost: Adam & Eve got kicked out of Eden b/c they disobey
    
    • association w/ naive and innocence
    • once you learn about the world, experience and knowledge contaminates
• more knowledge creature acquires, more aware he has of his tragic plight & situation

Question 54

Creature’s romantic intertexts

Answer 54

“One night during my accustomed visit to the neighbouring wood where I collected my own food and brought home firing for my protectors, I found on the ground a leathern portmanteau containing several articles of dress and some books. I eagerly seized the prize and returned with it to my hovel. Fortunately the books were written in the language, the elements of which I had acquired at the cottage; they consisted of Paradise Lost, a volume of Plutarch’s Lives, and the Sorrows of Werter. The possession of these treasures gave me extreme delight; I now continually studied and exercised my mind upon these histories, whilst my friends were employed in their ordinary occupations.

“I can hardly describe to you the effect of these books. They produced in me an infinity of new images and feelings, that sometimes raised me to ecstasy, but more frequently sunk me into the lowest dejection. In the Sorrows of Werter, besides the interest of its simple and affecting story, so many opinions are canvassed and so many lights thrown upon what had hitherto been to me obscure subjects that I found in it a never-ending source of speculation and astonishment. The gentle and domestic manners it described, combined with lofty sentiments and feelings, which had for their object something out of self, accorded well with my experience among my protectors and with the wants which were for ever alive in my own bosom. But I thought Werter himself a more divine being than I had ever beheld or imagined; his character contained no pretension, but it sank deep. The disquisitions upon death and suicide were calculated to fill me with wonder. I did not pretend to enter into the merits of the case, yet I inclined towards the opinions of the hero, whose extinction I wept, without precisely understanding it.

“As I read, however, I applied much personally to my own feelings and condition. I found myself similar yet at the same time strangely unlike to the beings concerning whom I read and to whose conversation I was a listener. I sympathised with and partly understood them, but I was unformed in mind; I was dependent on none and related to none. ‘The path of my departure was free,’ and there was none to lament my annihilation. My person was hideous and my stature gigantic. What did this mean? Who was I? What was I? Whence did I come? What was my destination? These questions continually recurred, but I was unable to solve them.

Question 55

analysis

Answer 55

• creature cries reading novel => like Marianne
  
  • has immense sensibility and capacity to sympathize w/ others
  • irony/tragedy: humans don’t repay the favor that humans do not possess
    
    • doesn’t reciprocate creatures’ intense feeling he has for other humans
• more he reads, becomes more familiar w/ canonical works of philosophy and history => realizes he’s an outsider
  
  • more he internalizes knowledge & grows => feels more alien from the rest of the world
  • like he’s conjuring/invoking community that has no interest to listen to him

Question 56

creature’s identification w/ paradise lost

Answer 56

“But Paradise Lost excited different and far deeper emotions. I read it, as I had read the other volumes which had fallen into my hands, as a true history. It moved every feeling of wonder and awe that the picture of an omnipotent God warring with his creatures was capable of exciting. I often referred the several situations, as their similarity struck me, to my own. Like Adam, I was apparently united by no link to any other being in existence; but his state was far different from mine in every other respect. He had come forth from the hands of God a perfect creature, happy and prosperous, guarded by the especial care of his Creator; he was allowed to converse with and acquire knowledge from beings of a superior nature, but I was wretched, helpless, and alone. Many times I considered Satan as the fitter emblem of my condition, for often, like him, when I viewed the bliss of my protectors, the bitter gall of envy rose within me.

Question 57

analysis

Answer 57

• closest kinship/intimacy is b/twn creature & literary characters
• drawing analogy: Adam rely on creator
  
  • Creature also rely on creator but victor shirks responsibility
• going back to Locke => child’s mind is blank slate
  
  • made & forged in response to circumstances
  • creature could’ve been adam => Victor creates his monstrosity

Question 58

Frankenstein

Answer 58

• novel about traumas (Victor’s, the creature’s, Robert’s)
  
  • confronting sentiments & feelings & people & experiences that defies reason
• trauma as an event that defies rational explanation and is not internalized or assimilated as everyday
• fragmentation, partial knowledge, uncertainty: trauma something to be worked through by successive repetitions and returns
• 4 narrators seek to work through trauma through storytelling
  
  • to make sense and comprehend the illogical

Question 59

the novel as transcript of the dream

Answer 59

Swift as light and as cheering was the idea that broke in upon me. “I have found it! What terrified me will terrify others; and I need only describe the spectre which had haunted my midnight pillow.” On the morrow I announced that I had thought of a story. I began that day with the words, It was on a dreary night of November , making only a transcript of the grim terrors of my waking dream.

• nightmare is traumatic experience
• Sigmund Freud’s insight about psychoanalysis: in drams that unconscious & return of repressed occurs (residual)
  
  • one site where mind runs free

Question 60

the original gothic opening

Answer 60

It was on a dreary night of November that I beheld the accomplishment of my toils. With an anxiety that almost amounted to agony, I collected the instruments of life around me, that I might infuse a spark of being into the lifeless thing that lay at my feet. It was already one in the morning; the rain pattered dismally against the panes, and my candle was nearly burnt out, when, by the glimmer of the half-extinguished light, I saw the dull yellow eye of the creature open; it breathed hard, and a convulsive motion agitated its limbs.

• Shelley’s dream becoming Victor’s reality
• chronology is not the same chronology of novel
• to get to backstory => need 50 pages to make sense

Question 61

Victor’s melancholy

Answer 61

After some days spent in listless indolence, during which I traversed many leagues, I arrived at Strasburgh, where I waited two days for Clerval. He came. Alas, how great was the contrast between us! He was alive to every new scene, joyful when he saw the beauties of the setting sun, and more happy when he beheld it rise and recommence a new day. He pointed out to me the shifting colours of the landscape and the appearances of the sky. “This is what it is to live,” he cried; “now I enjoy existence! But you, my dear Frankenstein, wherefore are you desponding and sorrowful!” In truth, I was occupied by gloomy thoughts and neither saw the descent of the evening star nor the golden sunrise reflected in the Rhine. And you, my friend, would be far more amused with the journal of Clerval, who observed the scenery with an eye of feeling and delight, than in listening to my reflections. I, a miserable wretch, haunted by a curse that shut up every avenue to enjoyment.

Question 62

analysis

Answer 62

• Clerval similar to romantic poets => like Wordsworth in prelude or coleridge/percy
• Victor resembles somebody manic depressive => somebody who’s enthralled by his ability to transcend life and death
  
  • brings only misery and sorrow

Question 63

victor’s nightmare of the creature

Answer 63

Towards morning I was possessed by a kind of nightmare; I felt the fiend’s grasp in my neck and could not free myself from it; groans and cries rang in my ears. My father, who was watching over me, perceiving my restlessness, awoke me; the dashing waves were around, the cloudy sky above, the fiend was not here: a sense of security, a feeling that a truce was established between the present hour and the irresistible, disastrous future imparted to me a kind of calm forgetfulness, of which the human mind is by its structure peculiarly susceptible.

• boundary separating victor and creature => physical intimacy that they share
  
  • Victor belongs to the world of the creature that victor dreams and thinks about
• most emotional is their relationship

Question 64

victor abandoning the world of humans

Answer 64

I followed, when I could, the courses of the rivers; but the dæmon generally avoided these, as it was here that the population of the country chiefly collected. In other places human beings were seldom seen, and I generally subsisted on the wild animals that crossed my path. I had money with me and gained the friendship of the villagers by distributing it; or I brought with me some food that I had killed, which, after taking a small part, I always presented to those who had provided me with fire and utensils for cooking.

• overlap b/twn victor and creature => wandering the wild
  
  • victor becomes more creature-like over the course of the novel
• realizes world of humans isn’t for him

Question 65

trauma

Answer 65

• processing trauma can involve the presence of a witness (therapist, analyst, friend, confidante) who can help make sense of things
• Frankenstein a novel of multiple testimonies: Mary shelley’s, Robert’s, victor’s, the creature’s
  
  • does anyone find a listener who understands? (think of the Creature’s search for a mate)
  • grapple with experiences that don’t make sense
• Frankenstein a novel about what it means to read novels - allegories of interpretation
• impetus is to rationalize and comprehend traumatic events
  
  • Shelley offers hypothesis for the way the world is

Question 66

the meta-fictional moment

Answer 66

You have read this strange and terrific story, Margaret; and do you not feel your blood congeal with horror, like that which even now curdles mine? Sometimes, seized with sudden agony, he could not continue his tale; at others, his voice broken, yet piercing, uttered with difficulty the words so replete with anguish. His fine and lovely eyes were now lighted up with indignation, now subdued to downcast sorrow and quenched in infinite wretchedness. Sometimes he commanded his countenance and tones and related the most horrible incidents with a tranquil voice, suppressing every mark of agitation; then, like a volcano bursting forth, his face would suddenly change to an expression of the wildest rage as he shrieked out imprecations on his persecutor.

Question 67

analysis

Answer 67

• victor still in his trauma => has this almost inability to narrate his experiences
• still reliving experiences/historical events that are still taking place
• Robert makes recourse to sister => attempt to consider fiction/engage the narrative
  
  • “Isn’t it crazy” => realize that not everyone will react the same way
• cult of sensibility: 2 people can look upon same event and have different reactions
  
  • Robert acknowledging no correlation in how people will respond to events

Question 68

Robert as witness to Victor’s tale

Answer 68

Thus has a week passed away, while I have listened to the strangest tale that ever imagination formed. My thoughts and every feeling of my soul have been drunk up by the interest for my guest which this tale and his own elevated and gentle manners have created. I wish to soothe him, yet can I counsel one so infinitely miserable, so destitute of every hope of consolation, to live? Oh, no! The only joy that he can now know will be when he composes his shattered spirit to peace and death. Yet he enjoys one comfort, the offspring of solitude and delirium; he believes that when in dreams he holds converse with his friends and derives from that communion consolation for his miseries or excitements to his vengeance, that they are not the creations of his fancy, but the beings themselves who visit him from the regions of a remote world. This faith gives a solemnity to his reveries that render them to me almost as imposing and interesting as truth.

Question 69

analysis

Answer 69

• how to respond to victor (broken person)
  
  • Victor has the only communion/sociability in dreams (fantastic spaces rather than in reality)
    
    • Shelley exploring realities of sympathy

Question 70

creature’s rejection of sympathy

Answer 70

Yet I seek not a fellow feeling in my misery. No sympathy may I ever find. When I first sought it, it was the love of virtue, the feelings of happiness and affection with which my whole being overflowed, that I wished to be participated. But now that virtue has become to me a shadow, and that happiness and affection are turned into bitter and loathing despair, in what should I seek for sympathy? I am content to suffer alone while my sufferings shall endure; when I die, I am well satisfied that abhorrence and opprobrium should load my memory. Once my fancy was soothed with dreams of virtue, of fame, and of enjoyment. Once I falsely hoped to meet with beings who, pardoning my outward form, would love me for the excellent qualities which I was capable of unfolding. I was nourished with high thoughts of honour and devotion. But now crime has degraded me beneath the meanest animal. No guilt, no mischief, no malignity, no misery, can be found comparable to mine. When I run over the frightful catalogue of my sins, I cannot believe that I am the same creature whose thoughts were once filled with sublime and transcendent visions of the beauty and the majesty of goodness. But it is even so; the fallen angel becomes a malignant devil. Yet even that enemy of God and man had friends and associates in his desolation; I am alone.

Question 71

analysis

Answer 71

• creature seems to abdicate any ties to culture of sympathy => doesn’t care he doesn’t have sympathy
  
  • people want charity/witnesses to pain
• extricate himself from world of humans => unbothered
  
  • everything he encountered seemed to be insensible/cruel/violent
  • humans don’t extend what creature asks

Question 72

Victor’s advice to robert

Answer 72

Learn from me, if not by my precepts, at least by my example, how dangerous is the acquirement of knowledge and how much happier that man is who believes his native town to be the world, than he who aspires to become greater than his nature will allow.

• Shelley drawing upon long-standing kind of skepticism about literature
  
  • anxiety what fiction is for
  • suspicion that women read salacious novels & lose sensibility
  • idea that literature teaches us something
• moralizing the dangers of acquirement of knowledge => lead to mass destruction etc.
  
  • everything that happened to him should teach Robert

Question 73

Robert as another scientific explorer like Victor - has he learned his lesson?

Answer 73

“What do you mean? What do you demand of your captain? Are you, then, so easily turned from your design? Did you not call this a glorious expedition? “And wherefore was it glorious? Not because the way was smooth and placid as a southern sea, but because it was full of dangers and terror, because at every new incident your fortitude was to be called forth and your courage exhibited, because danger and death surrounded it, and these you were to brave and overcome. For this was it a glorious, for this was it an honourable undertaking. You were hereafter to be hailed as the benefactors of your species, your names adored as belonging to brave men who encountered death for honour and the benefit of mankind. And now, behold, with the first imagination of danger, or, if you will, the first mighty and terrific trial of your courage, you shrink away and are content to be handed down as men who had not strength enough to endure cold and peril; and so, poor souls, they were chilly and returned to their warm firesides.

Question 74

analysis

Answer 74

• robert exploring geographical limits
• story of failed transmission => sympathetic in a way & receptive to stories & traumatic testimony & events that defied comprehension
• unwilling to disidentify w/ relationship to the world
  
  • persevering what destroyed so many people
• Shelley grappling w/ what comes w/ exploration
  
  • voyages of British Romanticism = physical of maritime (ancient mariner), emotional, intensities of feelings like Marianne, supernatural
• narrator might not listen as readers have