Frankenstein
Elements of the Gothic Novel
The gothic novel was invented almost single-handedly by Horace Walpole, whose The Castle of
Otranto (1764) contains essentially all the elements that constitute the genre. Walpole's novel was
imitated not only in the eighteenth century and not only n the novel form, but it has influenced
writing, poetry, and even film making up to he present day.
Gothic elements include the following:
1. Setting in a castle. The action takes place in and around an old castle, sometimes seemingly
abandoned, sometimes occupied. The castle often contains secret passages, rap doors, secret
rooms, dark or hidden staircases, and possibly ruined sections. The castle may be near or
connected to caves, which lend their own haunting flavour with their branching, claustrophobia, and
mystery.
2. An atmosphere of mystery and suspense. The work is pervaded by a threatening feeling, a
fear enhanced by the unknown. Often the plot itself is built around a mystery, such as unknown
parentage, a disappearance, or some other inexplicable vent. Elements 3, 4, and 5 below
contribute to this atmosphere.
3. An ancient prophecy is connected with the castle or its inhabitants (either former or present).
The prophecy is usually obscure, partial, or confusing. "What could it mean?" In more watered
down modern examples, this may amount to merely a legend: "It's said that the ghost of old man
Krebs still wanders these halls."
4. Omens, portents, visions. A character may have a disturbing dream vision, or some
phenomenon may be seen as a portent of coming events. For example, if the statue of the lord of
the manor falls over, it may portend his death.
5. Supernatural or otherwise inexplicable events. Dramatic, amazing events occur, such as
ghosts or giants walking, or inanimate objects (such as a suit of armour or painting) coming to life.
In some works, the events are ultimately given a natural explanation, while in others the events are
truly supernatural.
6. High, even overwrought emotion. The narration may be highly sentimental, and the characters
are often overcome by anger, sorrow, surprise, and especially, terror. Characters suffer from raw
nerves and a feeling of impending doom. Crying and emotional speeches are frequent.
Breathlessness and panic are common.
7. Women in distress. As an appeal to the pathos and sympathy of the reader, the female
characters often face events that leave them fainting, terrified, screaming, and/or sobbing. A lonely,
pensive, and oppressed heroine is often the central figure of the novel, so her sufferings are even
more pronounced and the focus of attention.
Frankenstein
8. Women threatened by a powerful, impulsive, tyrannical male. One or more male characters
has the power, as king, lord of the manor, father, or guardian, to demand that one or more of the
female characters do something intolerable. The woman may be commanded to marry someone
she does not love (it may even be the powerful male himself), or commit a crime.
9. The metonymy of gloom and horror. Metonymy is a subtype of metaphor, in which something
(like rain) is used to stand for something else (like sorrow). For example, the film industry likes to
use metonymy as a quick shorthand, so we often notice that it is raining in funeral scenes. Note
that the following metonymies for "doom and gloom" all suggest some element of mystery, danger,
or the supernatural.
wind, especially howling rain, especially blowing
doors grating on rusty hinges sighs, moans, howls, eerie sounds
footsteps approaching clanking chains
lights in abandoned rooms gusts of wind blowing out lights
characters trapped in a room doors suddenly slamming shut
ruins of buildings baying of distant dogs (or wolves?)
thunder and lightning crazed laughter
Elements of Romance
In addition to the standard gothic machinery above, many gothic novels contain elements of
romance as well. Elements of romance include these:
1. Powerful love. Heart stirring, often sudden, emotions create a life or death commitment.
2. Uncertainty of reciprocation. What is the beloved thinking? Is the lover's love returned or
not?
3. Unreturned love. Someone loves in vain (at least temporarily). Later, the love may be
returned.
4. Tension between true love and father's control, disapproval, or choice. Most often,
the father of the woman disapproves of the man she loves.
5. Lovers parted. Some obstacle arises and separates the lovers, geographically or in some
other way.
6. Illicit love or lust threatens the virtuous one. The young woman becomes a target of
some evil man's desires and schemes.
Frankenstein
7. Rival lovers or multiple suitors. One of the lovers (or even both) can have more than
one person vying for affection.
The Modern Prometheus is the novel's subtitle (though some modern publishings of the work now
drop the subtitle, mentioning it only in an introduction).
Read “The Myth of Prometheus” and answer the following questions:
1. What knowledge was forbidden to man by Zeus? Why?
2. What might have motivated Prometheus to defy Zeus?
3. What was Prometheus’s punishment? What does it symbolize?
The Myth of Prometheus
Prometheus was a Titan from Greek myth, born
from the union of the Titan Iapetus and the Nymph
Asia he was one of four children born to the pair.
The siblings of Prometheus included Menoetius,
Atlas and Epimetheus, all of them Titans. The name
Prometheus means foresight, his brother's name
Epimetheus means hindsight.
Their father, Iapetus led the revolt against the Gods,
his children Menoetius and Atlas joined with him,
while his other two sons, Prometheus and
Epimetheus sided with the Gods. Menoetius was
killed during the revolt and Atlas was given the
weight of the world to bear for his actions during the
revolt.
According to the myths, a horrendous headache
overcame Zeus and no healer of the realm was able
to help the Lord of the Gods. Prometheus came to
him and declared that he knew how to heal Zeus,
taking a rock from the ground Prometheus
proceeded to hit Zeus in the head with it. From out
of Zeus' head popped the Goddess Athena, with her
emergence Zeus' headache disappeared.
Prometheus and Epimetheus journeyed to Earth
from Olympus, they ventured to the Greek province
of Boitia and made clay figures. Athena took the
figures and breathed life into them, the figures that
Prometheus had created became Man and honored
him. The figures that his brother Epimetheus had
created became the beasts, which turned and
attacked him.
Zeus was angered by the brother's actions, he
forbade the pair from teaching Man the ways of
civilization, Athena chose to cross Zeus and taught
Prometheus so that he might teach Man.
For their actions, Zeus demanded a sacrifice
from Man to the Gods to show that they were
obedient and worshipful. Man went to
Prometheus to inquire which parts belonged
to Zeus and the Gods, and which parts
belonged to Man. At Prometheus instructions,
Man sacrificed an ox and placed the sacrifice
into two bags. In the first bag the bones were
placed with the fat from the ox placed on top
to conceal them. In the second bag the meat
was placed with the intestines on top to
conceal them as well. Prometheus called for
Zeus to choose which portion of the sacrifice
he and the other Gods demanded. Zeus
chose the bag with the fat on top, giving the
Gods the bones of the ox as their sacrifice.
Zeus was angered by the actions of Man and
Prometheus, he forbade the Gods to give fire
to Man. Prometheus was upset with Zeus'
proclamation and was determined to bring fire
to Man, but Zeus had guarded the entrance
to Olympus. Athena told Prometheus about
an unguarded back entrance to Olympus
where he would be able to enter with ease.
Prometheus snuck into Olympus at night
through the back entrance that Athena had
told him of. He made his way to the Chariot of
the Sun and lit a torch from the fires that
burned there. Extinguishing the torch,
Prometheus carried the still hot coals down
the mountain in a pithy fennel stalk to prevent
being seen. Upon reaching the lands of Men,
Prometheus gave to them the coals, breaking
Zeus' order by giving fire to Man.
Zeus was extremely angered by Prometheus'
actions, he had not wanted fire to be given to
Man, Zeus set out to make a trap for
Prometheus. Zeus gathered the gifts of the
Gods and created Pandora and her box, into
the box he placed all the horrors of the
world. Pandora was sent to Prometheus as a
gift from Zeus himself.
Prometheus saw the curse that Pandora and
her box carried, he refused the gift, giving it
instead to his brother Epimetheus who
opened the box and released the chained
horrors upon the world.
Zeus was personally affronted by
Prometheus actions, he had refused a gift
from the Lord of the Gods himself. At Zeus
order Prometheus was chained to a rock in
the Caucasus Mountains where his torture
was to be carried out. Every day a great
Eagle would come to Prometheus and eat
his liver, leaving only at nightfall when the
liver would begin to grow back once more,
only to repeat the process again the next
day.
Zeus offered to free Prometheus if he would
tell the secret of the prophecy that told of the
dethroning of Zeus one day, Prometheus
refused. The mother of Prometheus, the
Nymph Asia, also had the gift of Foresight
and went to Zeus and told him the secret of
the prophecy. The prophecy told that the
offspring of Zeus and the Nymph Clymene
would one day rise up and destroy Zeus and
Gods.
Zeus sent Heracles to free Prometheus from
the rock, but required that Prometheus still
be bound to the rock for the rest of eternity.
A link of the chain he had been bound with
Frankenstein
was set with a chip of the rock and Prometheus was
required to carry it with him always. Men also
created rings with stones and gems set into them to
commiserate with him and to honor
Prometheus for the actions he had taken on
their behalf.
Throughout history, Prometheus has
symbolized unyielding strength that resists
oppression.
Sublime in Nature: “Lines Written a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey”
Like Frankenstein, William Wordsworth’s “Lines Written a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey”
examines man’s relationship to Nature.
Read Wordsworth’s poem and to answer the following questions about the impact of nature
on the poet.
1. How does the poet feel when he revisits the banks of the Wye?
2. What gifts does he receive from Nature?
3. What does the poet mean by the use of the word sublime?
4. How does Nature serve the poet?
LINES WRITTEN A FEW MILES ABOVE TINTERN ABBEY
July 13, 1798.
Five years have past; five summers, with the length
Of five long winters! and again I hear
These waters, rolling from their mountain-springs
With a sweet inland murmur.*—Once again
Do I behold these steep and lofty cliffs,
Which on a wild secluded scene impress
Thoughts of more deep seclusion; and connect
The landscape with the quiet of the sky.
The day is come when I again repose
Here, under this dark sycamore, and view
These plots of cottage-ground, these orchard-tufts,
Which, at this season, with their unripe fruits,
Among the woods and copses lose themselves,
Nor, with their green and simple hue, disturb
The wild green landscape. Once again I see
These hedge-rows, hardly hedge-rows, little lines
Of sportive wood run wild; these pastoral farms,
Green to the very door; and wreathes of smoke
Sent up, in silence, from among the trees,
With some uncertain notice, as might seem,
Of vagrant dwellers in the houseless woods,
Or of some hermit's cave, where by his fire
The hermit sits alone.
Though absent long,
These forms of beauty have not been to me,
As is a landscape to a blind man's eye:
But oft, in lonely rooms, and mid the din
Of towns and cities, I have owed to them,
In hours of weariness, sensations sweet,
Felt in the blood, and felt along the heart,
And passing even into my purer mind
With tranquil restoration:—feelings too
Of unremembered pleasure; such, perhaps,
As may have had no trivial influence
On that best portion of a good man's life;
His little, nameless, unremembered acts
Of kindness and of love. Nor less, I trust,
To them I may have owed another gift,
Of aspect more sublime; that blessed mood,
In which the burthen of the mystery,
In which the heavy and the weary weight
Of all this unintelligible world
Is lighten'd:—that serene and blessed mood,
In which the affections gently lead us on,
Until, the breath of this corporeal frame,
And even the motion of our human blood
Almost suspended, we are laid asleep
In body, and become a living soul:
While with an eye made quiet by the power
Of harmony, and the deep power of joy,
We see into the life of things.
If this
Be but a vain belief, yet, oh! how oft,
In darkness, and amid the many shapes
Of joyless day-light; when the fretful stir
Unprofitable, and the fever of the world,
Have hung upon the beatings of my heart,
How oft, in spirit, have I turned to thee
O sylvan Wye! Thou wanderer through the wood
How often has my spirit turned to thee!
And now, with gleams of half-extinguish'd though[t,]
Frankenstein
With many recognitions dim and faint,
And somewhat of a sad perplexity,
The picture of the mind revives again:
While here I stand, not only with the sense
Of present pleasure, but with pleasing thoughts
That in this moment there is life and food
For future years. And so I dare to hope
Though changed, no doubt, from what I was, when
first
I came among these hills; when like a roe
I bounded o'er the mountains, by the sides
Of the deep rivers, and the lonely streams,
Wherever nature led; more like a man
Flying from something that he dreads, than one
Who sought the thing he loved. For nature then
(The coarser pleasures of my boyish days,
And their glad animal movements all gone by,)
To me was all in all.—I cannot paint
What then I was. The sounding cataract
Haunted me like a passion: the tall rock,
The mountain, and the deep and gloomy wood,
Their colours and their forms, were then to me
An appetite: a feeling and a love,
That had no need of a remoter charm,
By thought supplied, or any interest
Unborrowed from the eye.—That time is past,
And all its aching joys are now no more,
And all its dizzy raptures. Not for this
Faint I, nor mourn nor murmur; other gifts
Have followed, for such loss, I would believe,
Abundant recompence. For I have learned
To look on nature, not as in the hour
Of thoughtless youth, but hearing oftentimes
The still, sad music of humanity,
Nor harsh nor grating, though of ample power
To chasten and subdue. And I have felt
A presence that disturbs me with the joy
Of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime
Of something far more deeply interfused,
Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns,
And the round ocean, and the living air,
And the blue sky, and in the mind of man,
A motion and a spirit, that impels
All thinking things, all objects of all thought,
And rolls through all things. Therefore am I still
A lover of the meadows and the woods,
And mountains; and of all that we behold
From this green earth; of all the mighty world
Of eye and ear, both what they half-create,*
And what perceive; well pleased to recognize
In nature and the language of the sense,
The anchor of my purest thoughts, the nurse,
The guide, the guardian of my heart, and soul
Of all my moral being.
Nor, perchance,
If I were not thus taught, should I the more
Suffer my genial spirits to decay:
For thou art with me, here, upon the banks
Of this fair river; thou, my dearest Friend,
My dear, dear Friend, and in thy voice I catch
The language of my former heart, and read
My former pleasures in the shooting lights
Of thy wild eyes. Oh! yet a little while
May I behold in thee what I was once,
My dear, dear Sister! And this prayer I make,
Knowing that Nature never did betray
The heart that loved her; 'tis her privilege,
Through all the years of this our life, to lead
From joy to joy: for she can so inform
The mind that is within us, so impress
With quietness and beauty, and so feed
With lofty thoughts, that neither evil tongues,
Rash judgments, nor the sneers of selfish men,
Nor greetings where no kindness is, nor all
The dreary intercourse of daily life,
Shall e'er prevail against us, or disturb
Our chearful faith that all which we behold
Is full of blessings. Therefore let the moon
Shine on thee in thy solitary walk;
And let the misty mountain winds be free
To blow against thee: and in after years,
When these wild ecstasies shall be matured
Into a sober pleasure, when thy mind
Shall be a mansion for all lovely forms,
Thy memory be as a dwelling-place
For all sweet sounds and harmonies; Oh! then,
If solitude, or fear, or pain, or grief,
Should be thy portion, with what healing thoughts
Of tender joy wilt thou remember me,
And these my exhortations! Nor, perchance,
If I should be, where I no more can hear
Thy voice, nor catch from thy wild eyes these gleams
Of past existence, wilt thou then forget
That on the banks of this delightful stream
We stood together; and that I, so long
A worshipper of Nature, hither came,
Unwearied in that service: rather say
With warmer love, oh! with far deeper zeal
Of holier love. Nor wilt thou then forget,
That after many wanderings, many years
Of absence, these steep woods and lofty cliffs,
And this green pastoral landscape, were to me
More dear, both for themselves and for thy sake.
Footnotes.
[4] * The river is not affected by the tides a few miles above Tintern.
[107] * This line has a close resemblance to an admirable line of Young, the exact
expression of which I cannot recollect.
Frankenstein