Frankenstein

1
Frankenstein

• Chapters 1-4

2
Chapter 1

• Victor takes over as narrator
• Victors childhood
• Death of mother
• Parallels Shelleys mother
• My mothers tender caresses and my fathers
  smile of benevolent pleasure while regarding me
  are my first recollections (19)

3
Chapter 1

• Victors Family
• Loving family
• Eccentric
• Traveling
• Adopting Elizabeth
• Negatives turned into positives (Beaufort
  Elizabeth)

4
Chapter 1

• Relationships/ Friendship
• Victor and Walton
• Victors dad and Beaufort
• My father loved Beaufort with the truest
  friendship and was grieved by his retreat in
  these unfortunate circumstancesHe lost no time
  in endeavoring to seek him out, with the hope of
  persuading him to begin the world again through
  his credit and assistance (17)

5
Chapter 1

• Relationships
• Caroline and father
• There was a sense of justice in my fathers
  upright mind which rendered it necessary that he
  should approve highly to love strongly(18).

6
Chapter 1

• Relationships
• Caroline and father
• There was a show of gratitude and worship in his
  attachment to my mother, differing wholly from
  the doting fondness of age, for it was inspired
  by reverence for her virtues and a desire to be
  the means of, in some degree, recompensing her
  for the sorrows she had endured, but which gave
  inexpressible grace to his behaviour to her (19).

7
Chapter 1

• Relationships
• Victor and Elizabeth
• my more than sister (21)
• and looked upon Elizabeth as mine- mine to
  protect, love, and cherish. All praises bestowed
  upon her I received as made to a possession of my
  own (21)

8
Chapter 1

• Role of Women
• Woman as passive
• Loving mother
• Sacrificial
• Innocent child
• Purity and beauty
• He came like a protecting spirit to the poor
  girl, who committed herself to his care (18)

9
Chapter 2

• Desire for knowledge
• I delighted in investigating their causes. The
  world to me a secret which I desired to divine.
  Curiosity, earnest research to learn the hidden
  laws of nature, gladness akin to rapture, as they
  were unfolded to me, are among the earliest
  sensations I can remember (22).

10
Chapter 2

• Characterization/ desire for knowledge
• My temper was sometimes violent, and my passions
  vehementbut eager to desire to learn, and not to
  learn all things indiscriminately (23).
• 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 it highest sense, the
  physical secrets of the world (23).

11
Chapter 2

• Desire for knowledge
• Faustian legend
• Mans desire for ultimate knowledge, and the
  disasters that this desire can have
• Will lead Victor to commit the Faustian deed of
  creating life itself

12
Chapter 2

• Relationships
• Victor and Henry Clerval
• but I united myself in the bonds of the closest
  friendship to one among them (23)
• Reverts to a happier time
• Nostalgic
• Clerval interested with the moral relations of
  things.
• Victor more concerned with natural philosophy

13
Chapter 2

• Foreshadowing
• Feel of impending doom
• I feel exquisite pleasure in dwelling on the
  recollections of childhood, before misfortune had
  tainted my mind and changed its bright visions of
  extensive usefulness into gloomy and narrow
  reflections upon self (24).

14
Chapter 2

• Science
• Occupied by exploded systemsof a thousand
  contradictory theories (24-25)
• Cornelius Agrippa
• German magician, occultist, astrologer, alchemist
  
• Paracelsus
• Alchemist, astrologer, occultist, physician
• Albertus Magnus
• Priest believed in the peaceful coexistence of
  religion and science
• Thought to create life unnaturally

15
Chapter 2

• Science
• Natural Phenomenon
• Galvanism
• contraction of a muscle that is stimulated by an
  electric current.
• Leads to Victor wanting to create life
• Foreshadows his use of electricity to create life
  
• It was a strong effort of the spirit of good,
  but it was ineffectual. Destiny was too potent,
  and her immutable laws had decreed my utter and
  terrible destruction (27).

16
Chapter 3

• Foreshadowing
• the first misfortune of my life occurred- an
  omen, as it were, of my future misery (28).

17
Chapter 3

• Romantic Elements
• Death and Loss
• Victors first exposure to death
• Victors mother dies
• I need not describe the feelings of those whose
  dearest ties are rent by that most irreparable
  evil, the void that presents itself to the soul,
  and the despair that is exhibited on the
  countenance (29)
• Foreshadows the deaths of future loved ones

18
Chapter 3

• Romantic Elements
• Death and Loss
• I, who had ever been surrounded by amiable
  companions, continually engaged in endeavoring to
  bestow mutual pleasure- I was now alone (31)
• Clerval not attending university
• Sad and lonely tone
• First time he is completely alone
• Foreshadows the loneliness of the monster

19
Chapter 3

• Science
• they penetrate into the recesses of nature and
  show how she works in her hiding-places.
• M. Waldman introduces Victor to modern science
• Lead him to create his monster
• Indicates the creator is not evil but highly
  moralistic and humane person
• As will be the monster

20
Chapter 3

• Science
• I felt as if my soul were grappling with a
  palpable enemy one by one the various keys were
  touched which formed the mechanism of my being
  chord after chord was sounded, and soon my mind
  was filled with one thought, one conception, one
  purposewill I achieve treading in the steps
  already marked, I will pioneer a new way, explore
  unknown powers, and unfold to the world the
  deepest mysteries of creation (33).
• Beginning of his quest for creation
• His downfall
• Thus ended a day memorable to me it decided my
  future destiny (35).

21
Chapter 4

• Victors obsession
• Prometheus
• From this day natural philosophy, and
  particularly chemistry, in the most comprehensive
  sense of the term, became nearly my sole
  occupation (36).
• as I proceeded and soon became so ardent and
  eager that the stars often disappeared in the
  light of the morning whilst I was yet engaged in
  my laboratory (36).
• Romantic quest
• Search for the creation of life
• Altruistic and noble Prideful
• Lacks compassion and human interaction
• Parallels Waltons quest

22
Chapter 4

• Victors Obsession
• One of the phenomena which had peculiarly
  attracted my attention was the structure of the
  human frameI often asked myself, did the
  principle of life proceed? (37).
• Remember, I am not recording the vision of a
  madman (38).
• Reminds that he is not mad but a creator, in
  search of life

23
Chapter 4

• Foreshadowing
• to your destruction and infallible misery.
  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 (39).
• Foreshadows the impending doom and misfortune
• Gothic elements

24
Chapter 4

• Foreshadowing
• Life and death appeared to me ideal bounds,
  which I should first break through, and pour a
  torrent of light into our dark world. A new
  species would bless me as its creator and source
  (40)
• Take away feelings of loneliness
• Create life not destroy it
• Irony
• Creation destroys life
• Pride

25
Chapter 4

• Tone and Diction
• I pursued nature to her hiding-places. Who
  shall conceive the horrors of my secret toil as I
  dabbled among the unhallowed damps of the grave
  or tortured the living animal to animate lifeless
  clay? My limbs now tremble and my eyes swim with
  the remembrance but then a resistless and almost
  frantic impulse urged me forward I seemed to
  have lost all soul or sensation but for this one
  pursuit (40)

26
Chapter 4

• Isolation/ Obsession
• In a solitary chamber (40)
• The summer months passed while I was thus
  engaged, heart and soul, in one pursuit (41)
• I wishedto procrastinate all the related to my
  feelings of affection until the great object,
  which swallowed up every habit of my nature,
  should be completed (41)

27
Chapter 4

• Setting
• The dissecting room and the slaughterhouse
  furnished many of my materials and often did my
  human nature turn to loathing from my occupation,
  whilst, still urged on by an eagerness which
  perpetually increased, I brought my work near to
  a conclusion (41)
• Self-hate at his endeavor
• Pride keeps him working to his goal

28
Chapter 4

• Irony
• A human being in perfection ought always to
  preserve a calm and peaceful mind and never to
  allow passion or a transitory desire to disturb
  his tranquility (41).
• Victors creation will cause him to forever lose
  his tranquility

29
Chapter 4

• Narrator
• But I forgot that I am moralizing in the most
  interesting part of my tale, and your looks
  remind me to proceed (42).
• Reminds reader that Frankenstein is telling his
  tale to Walton
• More realistic and believable to reader