In this column, choose five quotations from the text, one focusing on each of the following literary elements: In this column, analyze the significance of your quotations. Allow the following questions to guide your responses: Why is this important? What does this reveal? Why does the author say it this way? What is the tone/mood of this passage?
Theme
“Seek happiness in tranquility and avoid ambition.”
-Victor Frankenstein
This is part of the theme of the book, sometimes too much knowledge is a bad thing, like the death of Victors family members. He did not think through the consequences of creating such a creature and therefore it led to the death of his family. He now wishes that he had been happy and thankful for the life that he was living instead of attempting to alter it, because then maybe his family would still be alive.
Characterization
“William, Justine, and Henry – they all died by my hands.”
-Victor Frankenstein
This quote is an expression of the sorrow and the guilt that Victor feels for being the reason his family died. Because of the death of his family he has a very Debbie Downer outlook on life and does not end up making the monstrous creature his companion.
Setting
“When I looked around I saw and heard of none like me. Was I, the, a monster, a blot upon the earth from which all men fled and whom all men disowned?” – The monster, Chapter 13, page 105
The Essay on Death of a family member
In this chapter on Crisis in Family, the death of one’s child, parent, or suicide of a close family member can cause a devastating crisis within a marriage. Mothers and fathers relate to death in different ways, which causes conflict within the marriage. Depending on the circumstances of the death, one spouse may accuse the other of not sharing in the grief, or blaming the other for the death of ...
The creature realizes what a monster he is, because everyone he encounters runs from him in terror. He is lonely on this Earth and wants Victor to make him a companion in female form.
Symbolism
“What was I? Of my creation and creator I was absolutely ignorant, but I knew that I possessed no money, no friends, and no kind of property. I was, besides, endued with a figure hideously deformed and loathsome…was I, then, a monster, a blot upon the earth, from which all men fled and whom all men disowned. “ -The creature, chapter 13
Sometime after being created by Victor, the creature no longer thought that he was happy and did not understand why he was alive. He tried to fit in with the world around him but everyone was afraid of him and at one point or another he just gave up on trying to fit in with society. In this quote he explains his actions and the reasoning behind them.
Imagery
“It was already one in the morning; the rain pattered dismally against the panes, and my candle was nearly burnt out, when, by the glimmer of the half-extinguished light, I saw the dull yellow eye of the creature open…” -Victor Frankenstein, Chapter 5
This is when Victor brings the creature to life, the creature that he has work endlessly, spending all of his time on it. This scene is used in movies to make audiences fear the monster that Victor created.
