The Literature Book

121

See also: Doctor Faustus 75 ■ Nachtstücke 111 ■ Faust 112–15 ■

Wuthering Heights 132–37 ■ The Picture of Dorian Gray 194 ■ Dracula 195

ROMANTICISM AND THE RISE OF THE NOVEL

sophisticated exploration of one of

the key Romantic preoccupations of

the period: the alienated individual

in the modern world.

A fable for the times

The title name of Frankenstein

refers not to the infamous monster,

but to Victor Frankenstein, the

novel’s protagonist—the scientist,

artist, and creator of the unnamed

creature whom he describes as

“the demoniacal corpse to which

I had so miserably given life.”

Frankenstein is a solitary creative

genius, whose “secret” horror stems

from within, as he overreaches the

ethical laws of humankind in

typical Romantic fashion. Through

him, Shelley reworks the gothic

theme of monstrosity in the form of

the idealized persona of the exiled

or wandering outsider. As scholar

David Punter suggests, the book

focuses on “rejection of the strange,

at both social and psychological

levels.” Frankenstein’s monster

is a product of the moment of his

creation in the new and unsettling

age of industrialization and of the

author’s negotiation of the political

and social upheaval of the time.

The horror of Frankenstein lies

not with its monster but rather—in

its melding of key gothic tropes of

haunting, exile, and isolation—with

the anxieties of the period that so

preoccupied the Romantics, such

as questions about religion versus

science; philosophies of justice;

debates about the origins of life;

and the role of education, culture,

and nurture in shaping identity.

Frankenstein’s downfall through

his own monstrous creation is the

ultimate modern fable, cleverly

wrapping moral and social issues

in the guise of gothic terror. ■

Crumbling castles, dark forests,

mysterious towers, wild and remote

places, graveyards, and tombs.

The villainous tyrant, the maiden in

distress, madwomen and maniacs, the

femme fatale, and the evil monk or nun.

Omens, portents, visions, dreams,

storms, and full moons.

Ghosts, monsters, inexplicable events,

vampires, or werewolves.

Terror, madness, mental anguish, fury,

passion, curiosity, or screaming.

Gloomy

settings

Stock

characters

Foreboding

signs

The

supernatural

Overwrought

emotions

Elements of gothic

Mary Shelley

The birth of novelist Mary

Wollstonecraft Shelley on

August 30, 1797 in London,

England, was closely followed

by the death of her mother,

the feminist author Mary

Wollstonecraft, 11 days later.

Her father was the radical

philosopher William Godwin.

At the age of 14, Shelley

was sent to live in Scotland.

In 1814 she returned to her

(remarried) father’s London

home and met the young poet

Percy Bysshe Shelley. He was

already married, but the pair

eloped to Europe and wed in

1816. It was a loving but tragic
      union: only one of their four
      children survived, and in 1822
      Percy drowned. Mary wrote
      until her death in 1851. She
      is best remembered for her
      novel Frankenstein, which
      she began drafting in 1816,
      during happier times with
      her husband and their circle
      of close friends.

Other key works

1817 History of a Six

Weeks’ Tour

1819 Mathilda

1826 The Last Man

1830 The Fortunes of

Perkin Warbeck

1835 Lodore

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