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Close Reading of Frankenstein – Extract 1
Romanticism as a sphere of literature is often noted as a movement which demonstrates, through
language and imagery, a deep relationship between human emotions and the natural world. This
connection is developed throughout Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. This extract in particular invites
the reader into the introspective emotional world of Shelley's protagonist Victor, and in doing so
highlights Shelley's views regarding the advancing, knowledge hungry society in which she lived.
This essay will explore how the use of narrative voice within Frankenstein facilitates the emphasis
of Shelley’s own thoughts, ideas and emotions.
In keeping with the Romantic fascination with emotion, physical surroundings and their expression
through literature, Victor's narrative is dominated by his emotional descriptions and sensory
observations. Shelley's implementation of first person narration creates an introspective account of
the character's thoughts and actions, inviting the audience into close proximity of the protagonist,
allowing the audience to become immersed in Victor's psychology. Shelley relates these emotions,
through pathetic fallacy, to the natural phenomena which surround Victor in his ironically unnatural
experimentation (such as the rain which 'pattered dismally against the pains' 1 as Victor rouses the
creature). Although placed in the typically urban surroundings of his laboratory, Shelley still
portrays a traditionally Gothic scene as Victor, having physically segregated himself from society,
works at night by the diminishing light of his 'nearly burnt out' 2 candle; a metaphor for the weary
state that he later describes to the audience, having 'deprived' himself 'of rest and health' 3 in order to
create the monster. Through the observance of his physical surroundings, Victor’s anxious, agitated
state is reinforced allowing Shelley to parallel the Romantic connections between human emotion
and physical surroundings as both a philosophical concept and dramatic device.
To develop and emphasise Victor's introspective, self-involved character and the start of his
psychological decline, Shelley uses numerous techniques to place Victor in a continuously active
participant role. Despite the retrospective, past-tense language of the extract, a sense of the current
and continuous is felt through the implementation of reporting clauses as Victor 'beheld the
accomplishment of my toils'4 and '[...] collected the instruments of life' 5. This technique highlights
the ever-present significance of these events in Victor's own thoughts. The way in which they are
recalled, with poignancy, adds to Victor’s characterisation and more specifically, a sense of
1 Mary Shelley, Frankenstein (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), p. 38
2 Mary Shelley, Frankenstein: 1818 Text, p. 38
3 Mary Shelley, Frankenstein: 1818 Text, p. 39
4 Mary Shelley, Frankenstein: 1818 Text, p. 38
5 Mary Shelley, Frankenstein: 1818 Text, p. 38
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continual paranoia and anxiety: a notion which resonates through much of the novel. Victor’s
agitated, fast-paced tone is facilitated by the elliptical style of his prose. Victor's description of the
monster's features6 creates a sense of some ‘stream of consciousness’, as a result of the verbose,
heavily descriptive style of his sentences. The otherwise considered style of Victor's prose reminds
the reader of his edited and retrospectively constructed narrative. Shelley uses active unergative
verbs such as 'collected', 'saw' and 'rushed' to cement Victor's role as the sole agent of almost all of
the mental and physical processes described throughout his narrative. Even when describing the
creature, Victor places himself as an active agent by stating 'I saw the dull eyes […] open'. This
instantly puts the monster in a passive position, placing Victor in a role of menacing authority.
Through Victor's illogical psychology, Shelley suggests the possibility of nature and natural objects
as, in some way, intimidating to the human psyche. Shelley creates a manifestation of the sublime
through Victor's paranoia surrounding nature, enhancing his vulnerable mental state and
psychological battle with the creature. At one point, he ponders the intent of nature's beauty,
questioning if its purpose is to 'mock at [my] unhappiness' 7, reinforcing the loss of control that
overwhelms him once he has gone 'against' nature and created life. Much of Victor's loathing for the
'thing'8 he creates comes from its physical appearance. Victor selects the monster's features for this
purpose alone, yet ironically, only able to accept the 'beauty of the dream' 9 of his creation, he is
unable to foresee or acknowledge the reality of what he gives life to. The skewed God and 'Adam' 10-
like roles that Victor and the monster encompass, along with Victor's physiognomic response to his
creation and his role as some unnatural maternal figure, emphasise this disjunction from logic and
reality. Through Victor, Shelley's own fears and preconceptions of a changing social, industrial and
scientific world are projected onto society. Through an element of narrated monologue, Shelley and
Victor become intertwined as the reader is reminded that 'the different accidents of life are not so
changeable as the feelings of human nature'11. The lack of personal pronouns here emphasises a
sense of authorial voice, allowing Shelley to directly address her audience, further illuminating both
her fears and attempts to ignite in society, some sense of fearful morality.
As a piece of literature written in a time of great change, uprising and uncertainty, Frankenstein
attempts to hold up a mirror to society by problematizing, both morally and ideologically, man’s
corruption of nature as a means of advancing our knowledge of the natural world. Shelley
6 Mary Shelley, Frankenstein: 1818 Text, p. 39
7 Mary Shelley, Frankenstein: 1818 Text, p. 55
8 Mary Shelley, Frankenstein: 1818 Text, p. 38
9 Mary Shelley, Frankenstein: 1818 Text, p. 38
10 Mary Shelley, Frankenstein :1818 Text, p. 105
11 Mary Shelley, Frankenstein :1818 Text, p. 39
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implements a range of stylistic and literary devices to highlight the Romantic connection thought to
exist between human emotion and physical surroundings. Through this idea, she juxtaposes humans
and nature through the characters of Victor and the monster, creating an inharmonious, destructive
relationship which foreground’s Victor’s paranoid thoughts and reinforces Romantic notions of the
sublime. Through this idea, Shelley reinforces an array of advancing 19 th century ideas, particularly
those related to the search for knowledge and an explanation of the natural world through science.
Through the connection of these ideas in literature along with elements of the popular Gothic genre,
Shelley attempts to reinforce traditional, hegemonic ideas regarding science and religion by
producing a sinister allegorical foretelling of what may ensue if the moral reasoning which defies
the deformation and exploitation of nature is not upheld.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Registration number: 090178519 Word count: 1,041
Primary texts
Shelley, Mary, Frankenstein: 1818 Text, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998).
