Week One: Frankenstein

One example of Frankenstein’s Gothic-ness that really stood out to me, was the sympathy for The Monster, and how he was portrayed as not being just a bloody gruesome antagonist, but an living creature, who thinks and feels, and has an “active positive force in the narrative, for the characters as well as the reader.” I think humanizing The Monster gives the narrative more tension, and really ups the stories emotional stakes. I think adding this element to the story makes it more complex, and more horrific. Instead of a simple story about good versus evil, where you’re fully invested in the winning side, Shelley makes you sit back and watch in horror as two genuine points of view come clashing together with horrific results.

That being said, I was a little confused or frustrated with the character Frankenstein himself. I’m not sure if it was Shelly’s attempt to make him seem like a contempory man for the times, or she tried to deliberately make him frustrating so that we’d sympathize more with the Monster. To me it seemed weird that Frankenstein had enough mad passion to rob graves and live with human cadavers, and yet was scared beyond words when the thing actually came to life. I didn’t understand why he thought if he simply left the house, that the monster would go away. Or why a man so fascinated by the wonders of nature and science would abandon his experiments and creation. I also didn’t understand why he seemed so unsympathetic towards the monster when he was the one that brought him forcefully to life in the first place. I realize that without these elements that there probably wouldn’t be a gothic novel, but I think the story could be tweaked a little bit to justify Frankenstein’s horror or brutally unsympathetic feelings towards the monster in the first place.