English 241: British Writers -- November 15-19, 1998 -- Week 14 -- Frankenstein

Gothic Tradition

• View scene from Bram Stoker's Dracula: What are the features of this scene?  Make a list.  As you read Frankenstein, keep in mind how the novel integrates these characteristics.
• What are characteristics of horror films -- one of our modern-day equivalents of the gothic?
  • Horror films usually begin with a disruption in a peaceful community.
  • Conventions:
    • Creature is first hidden from outside world
    • Victims are linked to the monster
    • Hero is seldom young -- usually an older figure such as a doctor
    • The films end with the thing that threatened the community being subdued -- everything returns to normal.
  • Do not confuse gothic horror films with slasher films such as Scream.   With slasher films the fear of random violence replaces psychological fear.   Audience does not care about the slasher like they might care about the creature in a gothic horror film.  To distance audience even further from the slasher, the slasher typically hides his identity with a mask.
• The Castle of Otranto (1764) usually is considered the first of the Gothic novels.  It is set in medieval times in southern Italy.  It features castles, vaults, ghosts, "living" statues, disappearances, sudden violent death, etc.
• Frankenstein is much more psychological than previous gothic works.   Furthermore, it does not have a female protagonist who is subjected to the horrors in the novel.

• What are the features of the gothic tradition?

1. Preoccupied with the individual consciousness
• One way that this came to pass in the 18^th century was through the novels of sensibility in which the authors began filling their characters with much psychological depth
• Gothic authors take a different approach - they literalize the fear and passions of their main characters. Thus gothic novels tend to have supernatural elements.
2. Terror and horror. How are we scared?
1. Through the possibilities of danger - we are kept in suspense for pages in a book or minutes, hours in a movie theater. What are the possibilities; what can the consequences be?
2. Shock reader (viewer) with events that are disturbing - murder, torture, rape. Shelley uses this method in Frankenstein. The monster is physically shocking; he murders. This method allows for a lot of moral ambiguity - is Frankenstein a monster; is he completely evil; is he responsible for the actions of his creation?
3. The Uncanny and the Fantastic - something is terrifying because it cannot be adequately explained.

uncanny
uncanny (ùn-kàn´ê) adjective
uncannier, uncanniest
1. Peculiarly unsettling, as if of supernatural origin or nature; eerie. See synonyms at WEIRD.
2. So keen and perceptive as to seem preternatural.
- uncan´nily adverb
- uncan´niness noun

The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Third Edition copyright © 1992 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Electronic version licensed from InfoSoft International, Inc. All rights reserved.
 

fantastic
fantastic (fàn-tàs´tîk) also fantastical (-tî-kel) adjective
1. Quaint or strange in form, conception, or appearance.
2. a. Unrestrainedly fanciful; extravagant: fantastic hopes. b. Bizarre, as in form or appearance; strange: fantastic attire; fantastic behavior. c. Based on or existing only in fantasy; unreal: fantastic ideas about her own superiority.
3. Wonderful or superb; remarkable: a fantastic trip to Europe.
noun
An eccentric person.
[Middle English fantastik, imagined, from Old French fantastique, from Late Latin phantasticus, imaginary, from Greek phantastikos, able to create mental images, from phantazesthai, to appear. See FANTASY.]
- fantas´tical´ity (-tî-kàl´î-tê) noun
- fantas´tically adverb
- fantas´ticalness noun
Synonyms: fantastic, bizarre, grotesque, fanciful, exotic. These adjectives apply to what is very strange or strikingly unusual. Fantastic in this comparison describes what seems to have slight relation to the real world because of its strangeness or extravagance: fantastic imaginary beasts such as the unicorn. Bizarre stresses oddness of character or appearance that is heightened by striking contrasts and incongruities and that shocks or fascinates: a bizarre art nouveau façade. Grotesque refers principally to appearance or aspect in which deformity and distortion approach the point of caricature or even absurdity: rainspouts terminating in gargoyles and other grotesque creatures. Fanciful applies to a character, nature, or design strongly influenced by imagination, caprice, or whimsy: a fanciful pattern with intertwined vines and flowers. Something exotic is unusual and intriguing in appearance or effect: exotic birds.

The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Third Edition copyright © 1992 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Electronic version licensed from InfoSoft International, Inc. All rights reserved.
 

supernatural
supernatural (s¡´per-nàch´er-el) adjective
1. Of or relating to existence outside the natural world.
2. Attributed to a power that seems to violate or go beyond natural forces.
3. Of or relating to a deity.
4. Of or relating to the immediate exercise of divine power; miraculous.
5. Of or relating to the miraculous.
noun
That which is supernatural.
- su´pernat´urally adverb
- su´pernat´uralness noun

The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Third Edition copyright © 1992 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Electronic version licensed from InfoSoft International, Inc. All rights reserved.
 

• The Female Gothic. This term was coined in 1977 by Ellen Moers. What separates the Female Gothic from other kinds of Gothic? For many women gothic authors the female character would be both a persecuted victim and a courageous heroine. With Frankenstein it is very different.

• What specific elements of Frankenstein that place it within the Gothic Tradition?
1. The novel literalizes fears the main characters or readers may have.
2. What kind of terror or horror is evident in the novel?
• p. 30 - the first time he describes the creature fully; the dream; the first appearance of the Monster coming to life.
3. Uncanny/supernatural
• read from the 1831 preface that Mary Shelley wrote. Pages ix-x in the Signet Edition. She argues that the story originated from a dream. See if the class can tell if this sounds like Kubla Khan.
• The dream of Frankenstein - he dreams that his kissing Elizabeth causes her to change, etc. p. 30.
4. Supernatural - Frankenstein relates to the supernatural in two ways:
• First, the Monster is something that violates natural forces
• Second, the creation process relates to the "diety" part of the definition.
5. The Female Gothic: The monster's creation provides a link to childbirth.
• Look at page 29-30 for images of childbirth.
• Read Ellen Moers's comments in class; Read a few passages from the web site on child birth in Frankenstein - The "Birth" of a Monster.

Feminist and gender aspects in Frankenstein:

• Consider male/female relationships in the novel.
• Opens with a ship and all male crew isolated from women, but Walton is writing to a woman (his sister).
• Consider Frankenstein's attitude toward women:
• Look at his description of Elizabeth on page 17-18.
• Victor and Elizabeth when young are like Adam and Eve
• Victor as narrator places Elizabeth in negative positions more than once:
• Her scarlet fever is responsible for his mother's death - p. 22.
• She feels responsible for William's death
• She is killed on her wedding night, but Victor assumes he will be the one to die (p.98)
• Victor destroys the female creation
• The monster as a female representation. - He feels isolated, degraded, a second-comer. He is less than an original creation - in this manner he is like Eve from Paradise Lost who was created second.

 Paradise Lost influence.

• Read title page. Discuss Prometheus. Greek Titan who some say was creator of mankind. Definitely a champion of mankind. Because he stole fire from Zeus to give to man, he was chained to a mountain and a vulture ate at his liver. The subtitle is somewhat ironic, for while Frankenstein is a creator, his creation was a liability to mankind, not a champion or helper. On the other hand, Prometheus himself can be seen as both a positive and negative figure. For while he helped mankind get fire, this aid led to Zeus plaguing man with Pandora and her box of ills - old age, sickness, etc.
• Look first at Creature's comments upon the book on pages 74-75.
• Novel is ambiguous and the manner in which she makes use of Paradise Lost is an excellent example of her ambiguity.
• Prometheus - applies to Victor because he created the Monster; but the Monster forces a different meaning because he becomes the creation rules the master in this book.
• Who parallels what character in P. Lost?

God: Victor - creator
Monster - creator's master
Adam: Victor - innocent child
Monster - original creature
Satan: Victor - tormented overreacher
Monster - vengeful fiend
Eve: Victor - he has a "child"; does his work in secret
Monster - he is less than the original creation

Structure of the novel

• Why three narrators?
• Discuss what each narrator provides - look at perspective.
• By having three narrators, we as readers are able to see more than ever how biased a narrator can be. For example, because of Victor's narration, we have our sensibility formed one way about the Creature. When the Creature begins talking, however, our sensibilities are altered.
• Look at foreshadowing.

Specific characters from the novel

• Victor - why is he so passive?
• Creature - what should our attitude be toward him?

Romantic notion of creativity: destructive powers of the imagination - think of Kubla Khan. Also, think of how one defines the notion of self - think of what the Monster did to come to terms with himself, etc.
 

Group Work:

• Group One: What themes does the novel raise?

• Group Two: Compare/Contrast to Gulliver's Travels -- how does it differ?

• Group Three: How can this work be classified as a Romantic Work?

Bibliography

Gilbert, Sandra and Gubar, Susan. The Madwoman in the Attic: The Woman Writer and the Nineteenth-Century Literary Imagination. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1984.

The Gothic: Materials for Study.  <http://www.engl.virginia.edu/~enec981/Group/title.html>
 

 British Writers