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Summary Frankenstein: Language Devices
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Frankenstein: Language Devices
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LanguageAllegory: The story is an allegory for the creation story from the Book of Genesis, in which
God creates Adam. This is made most obvious in Chapter 10, where the Monster says,
‘Remember that I am thy creature; I ought to be thy Adam, but I am rather the fallen angel,
whom thou drivest from joy for no misdeed.’ This builds sympathy for the Monster, and
Shelly reminds the reader that humans are prejudiced, and Victor’s has resulted in the
violence of the monster.
Allusions: The full title ‘Frankenstein; Or, the Modern Prometheus’ is an allusion, as
Prometheus is a figure from Greek mythology. He gives fire to humanity, then is tortured by
the Gods for this as he stole the fire from them. The myth implies that civilising forces (like
science??) has both positive and negative consequences. Victor is similarly punished for
discovering the secret to life.
The epigraph is from John Milton’s Paradise Lost, which is an epic poem that chronicles the
fall of man from Eden. In Letter 4, Victor tells Walton ‘you have hope, and the world before
you.’ This is a reference to Satan’s words ‘the world as all before them.’
In Chapter 4, Victor alludes to The Arabian Nights when he talks about his love of natural
philosophy. ‘I was like the Arabian’ who was being guided by ‘seemingly ineffectual, light.’
In this story, Sinbad is buried with his dead wife and follows the light to escape, with the
light representing freedom. For Victor, it’s the secret of life.
In Chapter 8, Victor says he ‘felt the never-dying worm alive in my bosom.’ This is a Biblical
allusion to when Jesus says it’s preferable to suffer on earth and be rewarded in death. This
quote comes after the wrongful execution of Justine and suggests that Victor’s silence will
have grave moral consequences. The worm that never dies is used to describe the never-
ending torments of hell.
Dramatic Irony: Chapter 8 ‘she appeared confident in innocence and did not tremble, (…)
the kindness which her beauty (…) was obliterated in the minds of the spectators by the
imagination of the enormity she was supposed to have committed.’ The spectators think she’s
guilty, and thus see Justine differently. We and Victor know she’s innocent and sees her as
‘exquisitely beautiful.’
Foreshadowing: Letter 4: ‘one man’s life or death were but a small price to pay for the
acquirement of the knowledge which I sought, for the dominion I should acquire and transmit
over the elemental foes of our race.’ This foreshadows the mindset which got Victor in his
pickle in the first place.
In Chapter 5, Victor has a dream of Elizabeth turning into ‘the corpse of my dead mother in
my arms’ and he then wakes to see his ‘miserable monster.’ It foreshadows that the Monster
will be Elizabeth’s murderer, and possibly that Victor’s attitude towards him will drive him
to that level of violence.
Natural Imagery: ‘The tremendous and ever-moving glacier’ of Chapter 10 ‘filled me with a
sublime ecstasy.’ Later, he describes ‘a few shattered pines were scattered around; and the
solemn silence (…) the brawling waves, or the fall of some vast fragment, the thunder sound
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