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For Tuesday: Shelley, Frankenstein, Letters I-IV & Chapters 1-5



NOTE: Be sure to read the opening Letters as well as Chapters 1-5 for Tuesday's reading (some people skip them, thinking it's not the 'real' book). Use the questions below as a reading guide, since they'll help you see things or at least think about some of the chapters as you do. But you only have to answer any TWO of the questions for Tuesday's class (bring them to class if possible, but you can also e-mail them to me). 

ALSO: Please avoid using AI or internet summaries to answer these questions. It will be obvious, because your answers will sound stilted and generic, and worse, you won't learn a thing or enjoy the reading! 'Nuff said? 

Q1: Most first-time readers of Frankenstein are surprised to find that the novel begins with a frame narrative: that of Walton, the Arctic explorer, who is writing home to his sister, Mrs. Saville. Why do you think Shelley found this a necessary intro to the story? Why not simply open up with Frankenstein’s story? Also, why is a narrator like Walton a horror (or Gothic) convention even in films and books today? 

Q2: According to the story of his early education that Victor gives to Walton, what set him on the path of creating new life? How did he go from an earnest, naive young man to a “modern Prometheus” who would “pour a torrent of light into our dark world”? In other words, what went ‘wrong’ in his life, considering he had a good family, wealth, and the support of his parents? 

Q3: Immediately after he creates his “monster,” Victor ends up falling asleep and has a nightmare of Elizabeth, where as soon as he kisses her, “her lips...became livid with the hue of death; her features appeared to change, and I thought that I held the corpse of my dead mother in my arms." How do you read this strange dream in relation to the events of the story? What might this say about his mission or his motives? 

Q4: How does Frankenstein react to his first meeting with his Creature? Since he created it to be beautiful and powerful, why is he so horrified by it? And related to that, shouldn't he have known what it looked like all along? What else is unusual about the appearance and disappearance of his Creation in Chapter 4? 

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