Summary Frankenstein Chapter-by-Chapter Study Notes and Analysis
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Literature post-1900
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A chapter-by-chapter set of study notes on Mary Shelley's Frankenstein consisting of a chapter summary and analysis of the contents of the chapter, with links to broader themes in the novel and the Gothic genre. Excellent to use alongside first-time readings of the novel or as a last-minute recap o...
Introductory letters
A series of letters from explorer Robert Walton to his sister Margaret. They
reveal Walton’s intense ambition and his preparations to conduct great scientific
discoveries in the North Pole; however, he also feels isolated and friendless,
despite his Romantic soul. When the ship is stranded in ice, he encounters
Frankenstein dying. He recovers, and soon bonds with Walton, consenting to tell
his story.
1) Which features of the novel create a sense of reality?
Recent scientific discoveries, such as the resurrection of the creature
inspired by Galvani (galvanism), who conducted an experiment where a
dead frog spasms due to electricity
Epistolary form heightens the verisimilitude and realness of the events
described
2) Explain the role of the introductory letters and the gothic tropes
included within them (referring to relevant context where possible)
Walton’s letters are used to present the motif of journeying and introduce
characters through the frame narrative; gothic tropes included in the
letters include:
o Isolation, from family (as Margaret never replies to Walton’s letters)
and physically, in setting (‘far North of London’ and ‘the winter has
been dreadfully severe’)
o Sublime scenery and awe (‘a belief in the marvellous intertwined in
all my projects’)
o The unknown (‘tread a land never before imprinted by the foot of
man’)
o Dreams, liminal state of nature (‘my day-dreams become more
fervent and vivid’)
o Arrogant, doppelganger of Victor, the Promethean hero, the
outsider, the ‘other’
3) In what ways is Walton a Promethean hero?
Two versions of the myth of Prometheus: 1) he steals fire from the Gods,
bequeaths it to humankind, and is punished with eternal torment or 2) he
moulds the first humans from clay
These converged, and fire became the vital force from which the clay
beings were animated
o Walton clearly possesses excessive hubris in his pursuit of science
and discovery, such that he feels entitled to transcend human
knowledge (doppelganger of Frankenstein)
o ‘I might obtain a niche in the temple where the names of Homer
and Shakespeare are consecrated’ and ‘do I not deserve to
accomplish some great purpose?’
Chapters 1 and 2
Victor Frankenstein assumes the role of narrator, describing the circumstances
of his parents’ meeting, his birth in Geneva, and the adoption of his sister
,Elizabeth from a poor, peasant family. Elizabeth and Victor grow very close, and
he develops a further friendship with Henry Clerval. As a teenager, Victor
becomes increasingly fascinated by natural philosophy, alchemy, and the occult,
inspired by an incident whereby lightning destroys a tree near his house. He
studies the sciences intently.
1) What is the significance of names in Frankenstein?
There are several potential sources of meaning for the name
‘Frankenstein’:
o Ben Franklin, following his recent and famous experiments around
electricity
o Frankenstein = aristocratic German family owning a castle which
Shelley passed on her travels; literally ‘stone of Franks’ as it was
built near to a quarry
o Franks stone could also be a reference to the philosopher’s stone,
an idea propagated by Paracelsus, whose work Victor Frankenstein
tellingly studies as a youth
2) How does Victor present his childhood in these chapters? Why is this
information about Victor’s childhood significant for your analysis of the
creature later in the novel?
Victor’s childhood is presented as idyllic and content, with his parents
indulging his every whim and both being supportive of his decision to
study natural philosophy
Elizabeth is described as a constant source of joy and comfort, within a
close, loving family
o This paradisical childhood is a stark contrast to the creature’s
formative years, which are plagued by rejection and disgust from
those he holds most dear
3) How are Victor’s mother and Elizabeth presented in these chapters?
What does this tell you about Victor’s attitude to women? Look
specifically at Victor’s use of language to describe them.
Victor condescendingly describes his mother as a ‘poor girl’ saved by the
benevolence of his father, who is virtuous and dutiful, compelled to visit
houses of the poor and provide aid
His sister Elizabeth is idealised by Victor as angelic and faultless, with
desirable physical attributes which connote purity and innocence
(‘heaven-sent’ and ‘blue eyes cloudless’)
o He feels an obsessive ownership over her (‘since till death she was
to be mine only’) and objectifies her in accordance with traditional
Victorian gender roles
o Elizabeth is valued for her domesticity as has stereotypically
feminine qualities, caring, kind, and loving, posing a direct contrast
to his manly desires for glory
Women in Frankenstein are almost exclusively passive, filling roles such as
the sacrificial mother, innocent maiden, and abandoned lover; all utterly
reliant on men
, 4) Explore how Victor presents his growing passion for science in
chapter 2.
Frankenstein’s passion for science is presented as inevitable and the
product of some deterministic force: he obsesses over his pursuit of occult
knowledge (‘hidden laws of nature’)
He constantly references that this passion eventually leads to his ‘ruin’
perhaps as a warning for Walton, there is a sense of tension and
foreshadowing of this ‘fatal impulse’
He mirrors Walton, as he not only desires knowledge, but the concomitant
adulation and glory, which ultimately is what leads to his downfall, as he
cannot usurp God’s role
Chapters 3, 4 and 5
Victor leaves Geneva to attend the university at Ingolstadt, but just before he
leaves, his mother catches scarlet fever from Elizabeth and dies. Victor proceeds
to university and sets up a meeting with a professor of natural philosophy, M.
Krempe, who tells him his study of alchemy is a waste. Despite this, Victor
studies natural sciences with enthusiasm, ignoring his social life. He studies life
and physiology, but soon masters all his courses, and isolates himself in his
pursuit to reanimate the dead. After months of labour, Victor finally completes
his creation, but its horrific appearance terrifies him. He is troubled by
nightmares about Elizabeth and his mother’s corpse, but soon comes across
Clerval, who nurses him through a nervous fever for several months. Clerval
gives him a letter from Elizabeth.
1) Explore and evaluate the significance of the following quotations
from chapter 3
‘Before the day resolved upon could arrive, the first misfortune of my life
occurred- an omen, as it were, of my future misery’ (Victor about his
mother’s death)
o Foreshadowing, to further Gothic trope of suspense and Victor’s
main warning over the consequences of seeking forbidden
knowledge and attempting to ‘play God’
‘My firmest hopes of future happiness were placed on the prospect of your
union...Elizabeth, my love, you must supply my place to my younger
children’ (Caroline, on her deathbed)
o Transference of maternal role with Oedipal connotations, role of
females exclusively restricted to marriage and childrearing,
reinforced by female group pressure
‘She indeed veiled her grief, and strove to act the comforter to us all. She
looked steadily on life, and assumed its duties with courage and zeal’
(Elizabeth, following Caroline’s death)
o Female stoicism and self-sacrifice; Victor mentions that Caroline’s
death improved Elizabeth’s temperament in making her more
malleable and submissive
‘I ardently desired the acquisition of knowledge’ (Victor)
o Victor’s curiosity, which becomes transgressive and transcends the
boundaries of what is considered acceptable human knowledge,
seeking the occult and divine
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