Character

• Victor Frankenstein


  Main teller of the tale; parallels with Coleridge's 'ancient mariner', barely alive, returning only to tell of the horrors he has seen as a warning to others
• Victor Frankenstein


  • Opening chapters have elements of the bildungsroman (formation novel), however, it becomes clear that the 'silken cord' of domesticity and love that surrounds Victor in his childhood is rejected; it is only at the end of the novel he recognises its value
  • Begins with a worthy aim: 'If I could banish disease from the human frame and render man invulnerable to any but a violent death!' However, is apparently corrupted by his desires, emphasised by the almost sexual language accorded to his desire to 'penetrate into the recesses of nature'
  • Isolation of Victor is self-imposed; directly contrasts creature
  • Narrowness of intellectual interest; notably, aspects that relate to 'real people such as language, politics and government are of no interest
• First-person narrative suggests subjective and biased view; interesting to look at the different, and often contradictory, ways he presents himself and how the Creature and Walton perceive him
• VICTOR: ''no human being could have passed a happier childhood than me' 'my temper was sometimes violent/1 always came from my studies discontented and unsatisfied/ No one can conceive the anguish I suffered'/My own spirits were high... I bounded along with feelings of unbridled joy and hilarity."'
• WALTON: 'ironically describes him as 'helpless creature' adjectives like 'madness' 'wildness; he then says he begins to love him as a brother' and describes him as 'so noble a creature, destroyed by misery' and 'glorious spirit.'
• CREATURE: ''my creator father' 'cursed, cursed creator "Farewell, Frankenstein'
• The depth of his suffering arguably exonerates him from his past actions; suffering was central to the Romantic conception of the tortured artist
• The creature asserts in the final pages of the novel

  "Blasted as thou wert, my agony was still superior to thine."
• Creature


  • Constructed from aesthetically perfect pieces, however, the combined effect suggests death and decay-a symbolic contrast to the 'life' he intended to imbue on his lifeless creation
• His birth: His jaws opened, and he muttered some inarticulate sounds, while a grin wrinkled his cheeks. He might have spoken, but I did not hear, one hand was stretched out, seemingly to detain me, but I escaped and rushed downstairs.
• Creature


  • As the creature begins to learn language and more importantly, reads above the actions of man, his language is full of abstract nouns like virtue and 'vice. At this stage, the creature has no direct experience of these qualities or the actions of men (such as those he reads about in Plutarch/ Goethe). These qualities/ life experiences exist only as concrete 'signs' within the new language is trying to learn, hence the fact he questions how these qualities can seemingly co-exist within in one man
• By the end of the novel, the creature has become the 'monster' his appearance suggests and indeed, fully embodies the way people like the De Laceys and Victor responded to him
• Some of his final words show a full awareness of his own condition and he now defines himself as 'the miserable', the accursed', and 'an abortion -the self-questioning of during his early development (What was 1?) is gone.
• This could be viewed as a criticism of society, suggesting that it is society that creates monsters This was a key idea of Romanticism, expressed by those like Rousseau ('man is born free but everywhere he is chains'), William Blake ('mind-forged manacles) and Mary Wollstonecraft (unless educated otherwise, women themselves perpetuate the cycle of oppression).
• Epistolary frame narrative


  • Restrains the text, also maintains the idea of a listener, perhaps reflecting the ghost story competition in which the idea was conceived.
• Walton: 'I cannot describe to you my sensations on the near prospect of my undertaking. It is impossible to communicate to you a conception of the trembling sensation, half pleasurable and half fearful, with which I am preparing to depart. I am going to Allexon t therefore do not be alarmed for my safety or if I should come back to you as worn and woeful as the "Ancient Mariner." You will smile at my allusion, but I will disclose a secret. I have often attributed my attachment to, my passionate enthusiasm for, the dangerous mysteries of ocean to that production of the most imaginative of modern poets. There is something at work in my soul which I do not understand. I am practically industrious-painstaking, a workman to execute with perseverance and labour-but besides this there is a love for the marvellous, a belief in the marvellous, intertwined in all my projects, which hurries me out of the common pathways of men, even to the wild sea and unvisited regions I am about to explore.'
• Walton: 'But success SHALL crown my endeavours. Wherefore not? Thus far I have gone, tracing a secure way over the pathless seas, the very stars themselves being witnesses and testimonies of my triumph. Why not still proceed over the untamed yet obedient element? What can stop the determined heart and resolved will of man?'
• Walton: '1) desire the company of a man who could sympathise with me, whose eyes would reply to mine.'
• Walton: 'his eyes have generally am expression of wildness, and even madness, but there are moments when, if anyone performs an act of kindness...his whole countenance lighted up.'
• Walton: 'for nothing contributes so much to tranquilize the mind as a steady purposa a point on which the soul may fix its intellectual eye''
• As the listener, his role in the story and his actions after it mirrce and symbolise those of the reader. Notably, there may well be some differences between the listeners' responses; Walton consents to return to save the lives of his crew because of the fresh dangers of ice and because of the loss of his friend. True enlightenment in the perils of over-reaching is perhaps something to be consolidated (er) by the novel's final listener, Margaret Saville-perhaps the 'true' reader.
• Introduces key themes; journeys, pride, madness, breaking acceptable boundaries, wild landscapes and relationships.
• Margaret Saville


  • Elements of parody in Walton's letter, e.g. the female passive listener and the narrabic solipsistic explorer; the almost sexual language when describing his hope to 'satiate constras his ardent curiosity; his lacklustre attempts to describe the 'sublime' aspects of the S will to landscape and his slightly clumsy allusion to Coleridge.
• Clerval


  • Victor's double; offered a vision warning of what might be. Obsessed by his quest and desire for recognition and deserts the happy domesticity of his sister/family for a journey to the limits of human discovery.
• Clerval: '"My life might have been passed in ease and luxury, but I preferred glory to every enticement that wealth placed in my way."'
• However, not as alienated as Victor, he actively seeks companionship and his lack of privilege and his apparently substandard education, creates a sense of insecurity.
• We are able to see some of the effects of Victor's tale on Walton by the end of the novel; on finding the creature and vividly describing the loathsome, yet appaling hideousness', he 'shut my eyes, involuntarily, and endeavoured to recollect what were my duties with regard to this destroyer. I called on him to stay.' He enables the creature to speak, effectively giving him the last word of the novel. Although he doesn't have total empathy and is wise to his powers of eloquence and persuasion', our final vision is of the creature borne away by
• Victor is obsessed by his quest and desire for recognition

  He deserts the happy domesticity of his sister/family for a journey to the limits of human discovery
• Victor is not as alienated as the creature, the creature actively seeks companionship and his lack of privilege and his apparently substandard education, creates a sense of insecurity
• Walton is able to see some of the effects of Victor's tale on himself by the end of the novel
• Walton shuts his eyes involuntarily and endeavours to recollect what were his duties with regard to the creature after finding it and vividly describing its loathsome, yet appalling hideousness
• Walton enables the creature to speak, effectively giving him the last word of the novel
• Walton doesn't have total empathy and is wise to the creature's powers of eloquence and persuasion
• The final vision is of the creature borne away by the waves, and lost in darkness and distance
• The creature


  • Can be seen as an overly-idealised character, he is balanced and is able to combine masculine ambition and independence with softness and empathy
  • Like Victor and Walton, he loved enterprise, hardship, and even danger for its own sake, but has managed to obtain balance
  • The literature he loves like the Arthurian legends, concern virtuous quests, undertaken for the good of all
• The creature's name


  Recalls 'clear valley' and Frankenstein can be translated as 'open rock', which depicts their difference in character
• The creature prefers tales of fancy and passion
• The creature inspires the better feelings of Victor's heart, although can be read as simply another victim of his obsession
• There is argument to suggest that the creature's most passionate relationship is with Clerval rather than Elizabeth; he is his friend and dearest companion and possibly his true 'soul mate'
• M. Krempe


  Professor of natural philosophy, uncouth but deeply imbued in the secrets of his science, let Victor know he has 'wasted' his years studying outdated texts