Frankenstein
Quotation Analysis
For your assigned quotation, identify:
a) the speaker (narrative voice)
b) the listener
c) significance of this quotation to the rest of the play (in light
of character, theme, and plot – pay attention to devices!)
1.
“These are my enticements, and they are sufficient to conquer all fear of danger and
death, and to induce me to commence this laborious voyage with the joy a child feels
when he embarks in a little boat, with his holiday mates, on an expedition of discovery
up his native river” (pg 16)
2. “The saintly soul of Elizabeth shone like a shrine-dedicated lamp in our peaceful home.
Her sympathy was ours; her smile, her soft voice, the sweet glace of her celestial eyes,
were ever there to bless and animate us.” (pg 39)
3. “I beheld the corruption of death succeed to the blooming cheek of life; I saw how the
worm inherited the wonders of the eye and the brain. I paused, examining and
analyzing all the minutiae of causation, as exemplified in the change from life to death,
and death to life, until from the midst of this darkness a sudden light broke in upon me –
a light so brilliant and wondrous…that I alone should be reserved to discover so
astonishing a secret.” (pg 53)
4. “Oh! no mortal could support the horror of that countenance. A mummy again endued
with animation could not be so hideous as the wretch. I had gazed on him while
unfinished; he was ugly then; but when those muscles and joints were rendered capable
of motion, it became a thing such as even Dante could not have conceived.” (pg 59)
5. “I became the same happy creature who, a few years ago, loved and beloved by all, had
no sorrow or care. When happy, inanimate nature had the power of bestowing on me
the most delightful sensations. A serene sky and verdant fields filled me with ecstasy.
The present season was indeed divine; the flowers of spring bloomed in the hedges,
while those of summer were already in bud.” (pg 71)
6. The appearance of Justine was calm. She was dressed in mourning; and her
countenance, always engaging, was rendered, by the solemnity of her feelings,
exquisitely beautiful. Yet she appeared confident in innocence and did not tremble,
although gazed on and execrated by thousands; for all the kindness which her beauty
might otherwise have excited was obliterated in the minds of the spectators by the
imagination of the enormity she was supposed to have committed.” (pg 83)
7. “ ‘Be calm! I entreat you to hear me, before you give vent to your hatred on my devoted
head. Have I not suffered enough, that you seek to increase my misery? Life, although
it may be an accumulation of anguish, is dear to me, and I will defend it. Remember,
thou hast made me more powerful than thyself; my height is superior to thine, my joints
more supple.’ “ (pg 102)
8. “ ‘ Of what a strange nature is knowledge! It clings to the mind, when it has once seized
on it, like a lichen on the rock. I wished sometimes to shake off all thought and feeling;
but I learned that there was but one means to overcome the sensation of pain, and that
of death – a state which I feared yet did not understand. I admired virtue and good
feelings, and loved the gentle manners and amiable qualities of my cottagers, but I was
shut out of intercourse with them…’ “ (pg 123)
9. “Who can describe the their horror and consternation on beholding me? Agatha fainted,
and Safie, unable to attend to her friend , rushed out of the cottage. Felix darted
forward, and with supernatural force tore me from his father, to whose knees I clung: in a
transport of fury, he dashed me to the ground and struck me violently with a stick. I
could have torn him limb from limb, as the lion rends the antelope. But my heart sunk
within me as with bitter sickness, and I refrained.” (pg 137)
10. “At length I wandered towards these mountains, and have ranged through their immense
recesses, consumed by a burning passion which you alone can gratify. We may not part
until you have promised to comply with my requisition. I am alone, and miserable; man
will, not associate with me; but one as deformed and horrible as myself would not deny
herself to me” (pg 146)
Good luck! Don’t be too ambitious now...