Mary Shelley’sFrankenstein asks the questions science fiction tends most often to ask: What does it mean to be human? Where does one draw the line between what is human and what is not?
One of the most curious things about Frankenstein, the novel, and the movies made from it, is the tendency people have to call the Monster himself Frankenstein. Is this mere careless usage, or does it reflect something telling about the story?
In the “Author’s Introduction,” Mary Shelley describes her objective: “I busied myself to think of a story–a story to rival those which had excited us to the task. One which could speak to the mysterious fears of our nature and awaken thrilling horror–one to make the reader dread to look around, to curdle the blood, and quicken the beating of the heart.” Why would she want to partake in it? In other words, what are the uses of horror?
Describe the narrative structure of the novel? Why use an epistolary structure? Who is the narrator? What are the uses of the letters?
Much of Frankenstein takes place in austere or forbidding natural settings, many of them in regions of ice and desolation. How is this symbolically important?
Victor says: “After having formed this determination and having spent some months in successfully collecting and arranging my materials, I began” (52). What materials is he talking about? What attitude of perspective does this attitude represent? Shelley is not giving us all the details. What is the effect?
Some people argue that the Monster is more human than his creator, Victor Frankenstein. What are the various meanings of this statement?
One of the most disturbing things some readers find in Frankenstein is the suggestion that physical ugliness is so powerful a force that nothing can compensate for it, even among high-minded people like the cottagers. What do you make of this motif in the novel?
The creation of the Monster by Frankenstein can also be understood as a usurpation of gender: the usual role of the mother in bringing life into the world is negated. Especially in light of the general treatment of women in the novel, do you think this motif is important?
Mary Shelley is careful to outline the progression of the Monster’s awareness, beginning with his earliest sense impressions, and this progression seems to duplicate the stages of infant, childhood, and general human development. Does this account tell us anything important about what it means to be human?
Although the monster seems to learn compassion and reason from the cottagers, he still–in the end–vows to make humans suffer. Why? What prevents the monster from developing a sense of ethics?