Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein as a Gothic Novel

Frankenstein as a Gothic Novel in Detail : Frankenstein: or, The Modern Prometheus is a novel written by Mary Shelley. Shelley wrote the novel when she was 18 years old. The title of the novel refers to a scientist, Victor Frankenstein, who learns how to create life and creates a being in the likeness of man, but larger than average and more powerful. In modern popular culture, people have tended to refer to the Creature as “Frankenstein” (especially in films since 1931), despite this being the name of the scientist. Frankenstein is a novel infused with some elements of the Gothic novel and the Romantic Movement. It was also a warning against the “over-reaching” of modern man and the Industrial Revolution, alluded to in the novel’s subtitle, The Modern Prometheus. The story has had an influence across literature and popular culture and spawned a complete genre of horror stories and films. It is arguably considered the first fully realized science fiction novel. The novel raises many issues that can be linked to today’s society.

Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein is by no means the first Gothic novel. Instead, this novel is a compilation of Romantic and Gothic elements combined into a singular work with an unforgettable story. The Gothic novel is unique because by the time Shelley wrote Frankenstein, several novels had appeared using Gothic themes, but the genre had only been around since 1754. The History Gothic Novels And Their Features In Frankenstein

The first Gothic horror novel was The Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole, published in 1754. Perhaps the last type of novel in this mode was Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights, published in 1847. In between 1754 and 1847, several other novels appeared using the Gothic horror story as a central story telling device, The Mysteries of Udolpho (1794) and The Italian (1794) by Ann Radcliffe, The Monk (1796) by Matthew G. Lewis, and Melmouth the Wanderer (1820) by Charles Maturin.

Gothic novels focus on the mysterious and supernatural. In Frankenstein, Shelley uses rather mysterious circumstances to have Victor create the monster: the cloudy circumstances under which Victor gathers body parts for his experiments and the use of little known modern technologies for unnatural purposes. Shelley employs the supernatural elements of raising the dead and macabre research into unexplored fields of science unknown by most readers. She also causes us to question our views on Victor’s use of the dead for scientific experimentation. Upon hearing the story for the first time, Lord Byron is said to have run screaming from the room, so the desired effect was achieved by Mary Shelley.

Spooky castles, ominous portents, mystery, and suspense: these are all elements of a Gothic novel. Though Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, written in the early 19th century, certainly contains many components of a Gothic novel, it cannot be correctly grouped under that genre. Shelley employs various literary devices to support the elements, a supernatural event, portent dream, overwrought emotion, and metonymy of gloom, which classify Frankenstein as a Gothic novel. The eerie atmosphere of Frankenstein is typical of the Gothic tradition. Victor, unafraid of the dark, spends his time in “vaults and charnel-houses.” He boldly visits the cemetery at night and vows to avenge the murders of his family members. Such details as the creaking doors, the soft blowing of the wind in the still of the night, and the quiet footsteps in the house all lead to a feeling of fear and suspense. Frankenstein succeeds as a gothic horror and as a “ghost story.”

The fine settings within the novel are striking and distinctively Gothic. Appropriately, the creature first breathes on a “dreary night of November.” Victor creates his monster in a remote laboratory at Ingolstadt, while the second “monster” is begun in a desolate area of Scotland. Elizabeth is killed on a stormy night, the perfect time for a dramatic murder. The supernatural event, Frankenstein’s creation, is one element the author utilizes to support the Gothic genre. The setting around the creation creates an ominous mood. For example, Chapter Five opens with the evening of Frankenstein’s creation, a dreary night of November:

It was on a dreary night of November that I beheld the accomplishment of my toils. With an anxiety that almost amounted to agony, I collected the instruments of life around me, that I might infuse a spark of being into the lifeless thing that lay at my feet. It was already one in the morning; the rain pattered dismally against the panes, and my candle was nearly burnt out, when, by the glimmer of the half-extinguished light, I saw the dull yellow eye of the creature open; it breathed hard, and a convulsive motion agitated its limbs. This is symbolic for the beginning of the birth of misery for Victor and his creature. For example, in Chapter Nine, when the Frankensteins visit their house in the country, Victor blames himself for William’s murder and Justine’s execution: Nothing is more painful to the human mind than, after the feelings have been worked up by a quick succession of events, the dead calmness of inaction and certainty which follows and deprives the soul both of hope and fear. Justine died, she rested, and I was alive. The blood flowed freely in my veins, but a weight of despair and remorse pressed on my heart which nothing could remove. Sleep fled from my eyes; I wandered like an evil spirit, for I had committed deeds of mischief beyond description horrible, and more, much more (I persuaded myself) was yet behind. Yet my heart overflowed with kindness and the love of virtue. I had begun life with benevolent intentions and thirsted for the moment when I should put them in practice and make myself useful to my fellow beings. Now all was blasted; instead of that serenity of conscience which allowed me to look back upon the past with self-satisfaction, and from thence to gather promise of new hopes, I was seized by remorse and the sense of guilt, which hurried me away to a hell of intense tortures such as no language can describe.

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Additionally, the monster’s birth results in Shelley’s use of another element of the Gothic genre, Victor’s over wrought emotion. The rain and absence of light are metaphors for sorrow and distress; the metonymies further the cheerlessness of the conception scene. The ominous dream, a common component of Gothic novels, serves as a presage of the monster’s savage homicide of Victor’s true love. November, a bleak and gloomy month, marks the beginning of wintry weather, a time of isolation and cold-the rain pattered dismally against the panes, and the candle was nearly burnt out. Victor dreams that he saw Elizabeth, in the bloom of health, walking. “I embraced her, but as I imprinted the first kiss on her lips, they begin livid with the hue of death?” The supernatural event, portent dream, overwrought emotion and metonymy of gloom and horror combine to create the haunting and poignant tale that is Frankenstein. Five opens with the evening of Frankenstein’s creation, a dreary night of November. This portentous dream that eventually becomes reality is a consequence of Victor’s desertion and society’s rejection of his creation. The setting also implements the gothic element of the metonymy of gloom and horror. The hyperbole of the pilgrimage demonstrates Victor’s extreme desperation to rid him of the regret and sorrow caused by the monster.

The Gothic tradition highlights the grotesque, relies on mysterious and remote settings, and is intended to evoke fear. All of these qualities are evident in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. The “monster” around whom the novel revolves is itself a product of Victor Frankenstein’s attraction to the grotesque, which results in deformity and deviation. The monster towers over other human beings. While he has a good soul, he strikes fear in all who lay eyes on him. Gothic novels also take place in gloomy places like old buildings (particularly castles or rooms with secret passageways), dungeons, or towers that serve as a backdrop for the mysterious circumstances. A familiar type of Gothic story is, of course, the ghost story. Also, far away places that seem mysterious to the readers function as part of the Gothic novel’s setting. Frankenstein is set in continental Europe, specifically Switzerland and Germany, where many of Shelley’s readers had not been. Further, the incorporation of the chase scenes through the Arctic regions takes us even further from England into regions unexplored by most readers. Likewise, Dracula’ is set in Transylvania, a region in Romania near the Hungarian border. Victor’s laboratory is the perfect place to create a new type of human being. Laboratories and scientific experiments were not known to the average reader, thus this was an added element of mystery and gloom.

Just the thought of raising the dead is gruesome enough. Shelley takes full advantage of this literary device to enhance the strange feelings that Frankenstein generates in its readers. The thought of raising the dead would have made the average reader wince in disbelief and terror. Imagining Victor wandering the streets of Ingolstadt or the Orkney Islands after dark on a search for body parts adds to the sense of revulsion purposefully designed to evoke from the reader a feeling of dread for the characters involved in the story.

In the Gothic novel, the characters seem to bridge the mortal world and the supernatural world. Dracula lives as both a normal person and as the undead, moving easily between both worlds to accomplish his aims. Likewise, the Frankenstein monster seems to have some sort of communication between himself and his creator, because the monster appears wherever Victor goes. The monster also moves with amazing superhuman speed with Victor matching him in the chase towards the North Pole. Thus, Mary Shelley combines several ingredients to create a memorable novel in the Gothic tradition. In the Gothic there is a strong reliance on the fantastic and the supernatural, which often overrides inconsistencies within the details of the plot. The fact that the monster unfailingly follows Victor everywhere he goes is rather questionable. Almost no mention is made of the obstacles he could have faced along the way. It is equally striking that the murders committed by the “monster” have all gone unwitnessed.

Finally, the Gothic takes the theme of death in an interesting direction: overcoming the limits of mortality is a major concern. On a certain level, Victor’s interest in creating life is an extension of this desire to escape death. By assembling the body parts of the dead, Victor makes a “monster” who is part human and part ghost. Like a tormented spirit, his creation haunts the living.