Themes and Concerns

• Aesthetic prejudice


  The central issues of the novel are joined in the opposition of sight and speech
• Creatures treated with love and sympathy

  • Caroline, Elizabeth, Justine, Safie
• Shelley uses exaggerated language to stress the beauty of Elizabeth's hair
• Judgment of the creature

  Purely aesthetic, lexicon associated with him is of ugliness and abnormality
• In Gothic fiction, the 'double' is often associated with ugliness, signifying the depravity of its more upright twin
• Monstrous


  (in Gothic fiction) something that serves to demonstrate or warn
• Aesthetic 'otherness' also defines the normal, forming a binary opposition
• In Shelley's novel, the creature is only a reflection of his creator, and is more natural and humane than others in the novel
• Elizabeth comments that in their violence and cruelty, people appear to be monsters thirsting for each other's blood
• Responsibility


  The creature's plea to Frankenstein echoes notions of Godwinian justice: "Do your duty towards me, and I will do mine towards you and the rest of mankind."
• Victor is prepared to usurp the role of God, but is not prepared to fulfil his responsibilities towards his creation
• Mary Shelley suggests in her 1831 introduction that Victor's main crime is not fulfilling his responsibilities towards his creation
• Role of women


  • Domestic and wifely roles are presented as demeaning and vulnerable
  • Victims of Victor's creature are mostly female, emphasising the focus on man
• Nature in the novel is always presented as female, and Frankenstein's scientific penetration and exploitation of it symbolises the destruction of the female
• Frankenstein's creation effectively steals the female's right to reproduction and eliminates the necessity of females at all
• Violence is at the heart of every home in the novel
• The novel is a radical indictment of the forces of patriarchy and domesticity
• Masculine and feminine spheres


  • Men work outside the home, women are restricted within it working as housewives, childcare providers, nurses, servants or even 'pets'
• When Victor destroys the female mate intended for the creature, it reflects his fear of an independent female will
• All the women have non-distinct identities, presenting an ideal of femininity
• Safie is the only woman who opposes the self-effacing and passive nature of the other women
• Until all the women in his life are dead, Victor fails to recognise the importance of the women in his life
• Family relationships


  What human beings need above all is companionship and love
• The epistolary structure, framing the narrative with the intimate letters between brother and sister, highlights the importance of family
• The patriarchal and rigid hierarchical organisation of the family is presented as damaging, involving self-sacrifice and death
• Gothic doubles (reflections and opposites)


  • The creature is a symbolic figure and a projection of the protagonist's inner life on the outer world
  • The creature is often spotted framed by windows, which can be seen as mirrors
  • The moment when Victor catches sight of the creature on the mountains is a reference to the 'Brocken' moment, a symbol of the viewer's ego or personal obsession
• The novel is full of doubles, such as the resemblance between Margaret Saville and Mary Shelley, and between Walton and Victor
• Belief in destiny/fate


  • Victor suggests fate and destiny control his actions, possibly to exonerate himself
  • The idea of 'character is destiny' is explored, which Victor fails to understand until the consequences of his actions manifest themselves
• Walton has the choice to control his own fate, as shown by his decision to turn the ship around
• The creature is a living embodiment of the nature vs nurture debate, as his fate is biological and restricted by Victor
• Science


  • The verdict on science is ambiguous, with Victor portrayed as a questing, Romantic figure, but also as a sinister man in a white coat, trading humanity for speculation and experimentation
  • Variety of scientific approaches explored, from Victor's early fascination with alchemists to the conflicting approaches of Waldman and Krempe
• As Victor's experimentations continue, the scientific language is replaced by Gothic depictions of his 'filthy creation'