Étude du roman Frankenstein de Mary Shelley (document en anglais)

In this extract, Dr Frankenstein achieves his goal : He gives life to a motionless body through the power of science. By doing so, he defies God. We should not forget that the full title of Mary Shelley's novel is Frankenstein or the modern Prometheus. In Greek mythology, Prometheus was responsible for creating man. Victor Frankenstein is trying to be God-like by creating life.

When the creature finally awakes, its awful appearance horrifies Victor. He rushes to the next room and tries to sleep, but he is troubled by nightmares

« Breathless horror and disgust filled my heart » (l.20)

« Unable to compose my mind to sleep » (l.22)

« I was disturbed my the wildest dreams » (l.25)

« I started from sleep with horror » (l.30)

« A mummy again endued with animation could not be so hideaous as that wretch » (l.42)

 Frankenstein is the main  character in this chapter because it’s all his feelings and emotions. (l .17) “I had worked hard for nearly two years, for the sole purpose of infusing life into an inanimate body. For this I had deprived myself of rest and health”, I feel this is effective because it shows how bad he feels towards and about his creation.  Mary Shelley shows how Frankenstein had dreamed of this nearly all of his life but that all goes wrong; (l.18) “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”, this emphasizes his disgust with the creature and himself.

Dr Frankenstein is scared by his creation, which he finds horrific. Because it's ugly he imagines that it's evil and runs away from it.

The romantic theme is quite obvious in this chapter, Victor dreams of embracing his loved one, Elizabeth. Their intent to marry each other is made clear quite early in the story. But Frankenstein is also a good illustration of a gothic novel, indeed in this extract, we can see there are some of the main themes of the gothic novel : An atmosphere of mystery and suspense, a high, even overwrough emotion and the metonymy of gloom and horor.

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