Frankenstein Extensive Notes

Frankenstein

Romantic novel by Mary Shelley

Themes

* Anxiety about science

o Natural philosophy (hybrid) [bunk!]

* Philosophical

* Religious

* Scientific

 Fascination with electricity and magnetism

* Thought that electricity was the key to life

 Intense interest in the origins of life

* Beginning to find fossils and pre-Darwin evolution

* Life and Death (see below)

Romantic Triad

Divine / nature / humanity

Frankenstein is the opposite (upside down triangle).

Prometheus Unbound (Romantic Hero)

Advocate of humanity

Good intentions = happy ending

Suffers, gains wisdom

Wisdom leads to final decision

Isolation leads to redemption of society

Filled with the virtues of sacrifice, love, protection, savior

Hero (particularly to the romantics)

Frankenstein--or The Modern Prometheus

Destroys humanity

Good intentions = dark endings (the road to hell is paved with good intentions)

Suffers, gains wisdom

Wisdom leads to suffering

Isolation leads to madness

Abandons his creation, revolution, unnatural, "bad parent"

Anti-hero (rather than "villain")

Frankenstein's goal is to create life (thus eliminating death) yet most of the images are of death. The slaughter houses, the "revolution" of is "human nature." The human contact brings him back from the brink of madness (his friend, spring, letter).

LIFE DEATH (Life in death)

Beauty- black hair, white teeth

Horrific-black lips, yellow papery skin, watery yellowed eyes

Health-wants to eliminate death

Illness--creator wastes away

"Alas! Victor, when falsehood can look so like truth, who can assure themselves of certain happiness?" (956)

Polarity (Polar Opposite)

Natural Philosophy (electricity, morality, religion)

The central motif of Frankenstein is a disjunctive appearances in reality.

Frankenstein is more than just a horror story or thriller, but also an intense look at the human psyche. Shelley in many ways examines the human tendency to think of pretty things as GOOD and ugly things as BAD.

Don't mess with the triad: Sacred (God) / Nature / Humanity

Major Poles: Life & Death; Good & Evil; Nature vs. Nurture; Morality vs. Anarchism; Naпve vs. Knowledge; Good Judgment & Bad Judgment;

Social Opposite

Good father vs. bad father

"Noble Savage" untainted by civilization vs. the ills of civilization. [Society tainted the creature]

Ignorance vs. knowledge; bliss vs. suffering

Male power vs. female disempowerment

Sense of responsibility vs. whim and folly

Rationality vs. irrationality

Global (creature) vs. Selfish (Frankenstein)

Emotional Opposites

Love vs. rage / revenge

Bliss vs. misery; acceptance vs. isolation; [lack of companion]

Sane vs. insane

Creator immature vs. creature mature

Religions Opposites

Physical creation vs. imaginative

Social religion vs. inner spirituality [Justine dies for a crime she did not commit; "forced" to confess to crime to be "redeemed."

Christ vs. "Adam."

Sacred vs. Profane

Creator vs. destroyer

Polarity comparison to Ode to the Nightingale

Frankenstein--Inversion of Romantic Themes

Romantic triad harmonic--dismantled

Marriage of heaven and earth--broken

Frankenstein and Elizabeth

Frankenstein and creature

Frankenstein and brother/friends/family

Poet-Prophet brings good inverted to evil--creating evil / brings evil

Romantic man of feeling--creature vs.