GOTHIC

• 'I am thy creature: I ought to be thy Adam, but I am rather the fallen angel' (Ch.10)
• 'The world was to me a secret which I desired to divine' (Ch.2)
• 'Of what a strange nature is knowledge' (Ch.13)
• 'What can stop the determined heart and resolved will of man' (L.3)
• 'Beware; for I am fearless, and therefore powerful' (Ch.20)
• Psychoanalytic criticism: 


  Making use of some of Sigmund Freud’s work on the concept of the self, psychoanalytic criticism applies the central role of unconscious thought to the study of literature and the characters that inhabit texts. Through an exploration of Freud’s theories of the Ego and Id, psychoanalytic critics explore the notion of repression, considering a character’s unresolved conflicts, hidden desires and responses to traumatic memories.
• Ego - The conscious part of our personality that mediates between the demands of the id and the realities of the external world.
• Id - The primitive and instinctual part of our personality associated with pleasure-seeking impulses.
• Id - The primitive and instinctual part of our personality associated with pleasure-seeking impulses
• Superego - The moral conscience or superego develops from the ego ideal as we grow up and internalise parental values and expectations.
• Repression - A defence mechanism whereby unpleasant thoughts are pushed out of consciousness so they cannot be acknowledged by the conscious mind.
• trope


  commonly recurring motifs or ideas found in a particular genre or writer's works

  • e.g. 'In Frankenstein, Shelley uses the Gothic trope of the sublime to emphasise the exciting yet dangerous power of nature'
• ‘she presented Elizabeth to me as her promised gift, I, with childish seriousness, interpreted her words literally and looked upon Elizabeth as mine—mine to protect, love, and cherish.‘ (Ch.1)
• ‘No word, no expression could body forth the kind of relation in which she stood to me—my more than sister, since till death she was to be mine only.‘ (Ch.1)
• Epithets: '‘ugly’ ‘wretch’ ‘fiend’ 'monster' 'devil' 'villain'
• Gothic element = Doppelganger: ‘convulsive’ + ‘convulsed’ Victor and Monster mirror each other’s behaviour, expressed by the repressed, subconscious expression
• Symbolism of light/ lightning ‘blasted stump’ destructive sense of creation, tree symbol of apple and science, potentially metaphor for Victor (male hubris)
• Celestial imagery of Elizabeth – the solace women bring men, Justine ‘saintly sufferer’ (sibilance) pure close to God, innocence and oppression of women (denial of humanity)
• ‘vices’ his morality is wicked/ corrupted ‘children’ – Victor’s creation of the Monster ‘forced solitude’, rejection of the other + ‘communion with an equal’ – if nurtured with humanity he wouldn’t be a monster
• ‘Let your compassion be moved… listen to my tale’ = centre of the box narrative (telling story, use of narrative enables compassion and humanity that they are denied)
• ‘penetrate into the recesses of nature’ – desire to control the world around them, specifically nature + ‘unlimited power’ ‘command the thunders of heaven’ = transgression and playing God (male hubris)
• ‘The fatal impulse that led to my ruin’ = failure to take responsibility (hamartia)
• Latin word for monster – to demonstrate + to ware = has no name (limits of science, playing God, isolation and rejection of the individual
• Gothic inspires fear and horror in the readers (transgression, hubris, playing God) – ideas inherent in the text causes horror (fear of losing our self’s, fear of not being able to tell story)
• The Promethean myth: fire symbol of creation – modern version into electricity/ lightning (transgression against God)
• Milton (figure of rebellion), Paradise Lost: Satan’s rejection by God (nurture) – becomes the devil/ evil, because he is rejected by God (lower class)
• Rosseau and Godwin’s idea of nurture (pre-existence – epigraph address to her father) + noble savage ‘man is born free but everywhere is in chains’
• 1831 Preface: Mary Shelley’s monster = wanting to cause fear ‘hideous progeny’
• Luddite Rebellion 1811-1817: Frankenstein working class symbol – isolated, rejective and no destructive, second class citizens – women
• Linguistic determinism in the sense that the creature is conditioned to believe he is a monster and in turn, must fulfil his murderous tendencies.
• in the unconscious of Victor’s dream, Elizabeth inevitably cannot fulfil her biological role when ‘embraced’ transforms into ‘the corpse of my dead mother’. 


  Shelley proposes the idea that male’s deep-rooted fear of female sexuality that cannot be controlled, outlines a cause for the presentation of the female as an ‘other’.
• Locke’s idea of ‘tabula rasa’ or blank slate is an empiricist view that we develop through experiences of nurture.
• Shelley argues against her father, William Godwin who supported the idea of nature, while she proposes to nurture.
• The Christian belief that we are born from sin, contradicts Rosseau’s noble savage that we are born innocent and pure.
• The myth of Prometheus being a titian in Greek mythology who rebelled against Zeus and gave fire back to mankind; acts as a symbol for knowledge and progress.
• Women in Frankenstein

  -          Elizabeth: wife of Victor, objectified

  -          Justine: exemplifies no ‘justice’ for women

  -          The mother: denied agency

  -          Sadie: damsel in distress

  -          Female monster: destroyed in creation

  ·       Defined by their looks rather than their agency

  ·       Seen as objects to be owned or cherished

  ·       Seen as something to be fearful of
• Shelley is critiquing men for dehumanising and oppressing women from their own identity and sexuality – cannot control the world around them, so control women = master-scientists trying to rationalise the world, trying to be God > Prometheus going against the gods.
• Shelley presents women in Frankenstein as oppressed and denied agency through the subjectification of them to their beauty and purpose in serving men. The role of male dominance in the presentation of women is the desire to control through their fear of female sexuality (deep-rooted insecurity).
• • Women are commodified and denied agency =>This occurs either through a male fear of sexuality, or through the hubristic sense of male entitlement to all in the world around them (women and knowledge alike)
• Compassion = the true animating force that gives life to others