Theme, Character, and Setting in Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley’s Frankenstein

Upon being asked to conjure up a name associated with fear and horror, the contemporary mind cannot help but envision the green-skinned, flat-skulled, and mentally slow Frankenstein monster. His creator, the mad Doctor Frankenstein, and his hideous hunchback are silhouetted by a flash of life bestowing lightening in a vision which crosses the mind’s eye immediately thereafter. Certainly, this "monster" movie has achieved the status of most well-known horror flick, but it in fact only provides a twisted and distorted façade to enshroud its inspiring book. The original book, Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, lacks most of the movie’s "Hollywood" adornments, yet retains a quality surpassing even the hugely successful movie. Shelley employs a "story-within-a-story" method of writing (Victor Frankenstein relates his tale to a ship’s captain) to engage the reader with a sense of personal connection to the horrific events, thus magnifying the suspense ten-fold.

After growing up with an interest in forgotten science, Victor moves to Ingolstadt and proceeds to create a living organism on his own. No fantastic contraptions aid his life-bestowing activities, and no Igor assists the student (no, not Doctor) in his endeavor. His success proves to be his failure and his monstrous creation escapes into the wilderness to learn on his own. Upon returning to Geneva after his brother is murdered, Victor catches a fleeting glimpse of his creation and instantly holds the crime against the creature. Nevertheless, planted evidence points to an innocent, and she is executed soon thereafter. Victor, horrified at his mistake, vows vengeance on the creature and strikes out into the wilderness for an undetermined duration of reflection. It is during this excursion that the monster intercepts Victor and entreats him to take shelter and heed his tale. The tale-within-a-tale factor increases again as the monster paints a vivid image of his life since his creation. Apparently he had observed, aided, and even loved a French family living in a cabin without ever revealing his presence to them. After learning much about human life, not limited to language, a resolution to introduce himself first to the blind old man in the family had ended in tragedy. Those blessed with the gift of sight had returned home, discovered the aberration, and abused him briefly before he had taken flight with mixed feelings of rage, disappointment, and despair flooding his fledgling soul. The monster’s travels had eventually crossed paths with Victor’s young brother, and he had attempted to befriend the boy before discovering his relationship to Frankenstein and killing him. The boy’s necklace had been planted in the pocket of the young Justine, and she then paid the ultimate price for the monster’s murderous act. Upon concluding his tale, the monster insists that his creator, Victor Frankenstein, construct another monster, a female, to serve as his companion. It takes a promise of banishment from mankind in conjunction with a threat to make Victor’s life miserable before Frankenstein agrees to the detestable task set before him. After months of misery, Victor begins construction in near-isolation in Scotland. After weeks of labor, Victor sees the monster again one night, and resolves not to complete his task. Rather, to the horror of the monster, he tears his new creation to shreds. His original creation vows to adhere to his former threats and promises that he will be with Victor on his wedding-night. The monster’s reign of terror begins with the grisly death of Victor’s best friend, Clerval, of which Victor is initially blamed. He resorts to near-hysteria and is nursed back to health by his father before returning to Geneva, where he is to wed his long-time friend, Elizabeth. As is foreshadowed, Elizabeth is murdered on her wedding-night, and a long and bitter pursuit ensues. Victor vows to wreak revenge on his creation and traipses around the globe in eager pursuit of the perpetrator. Thus ends his tale, as a ship near the North Pole picks him up. His ailing health leads to death, and the ship’s captain meets briefly with a mentally anguished monster. After displaying his unfathomable mixed feelings, Frankenstein reveals his intention to commit a fiery suicide, and escapes onto the ice.

Needless to say, Shelley’s novel depicts more than a horror story; it interweaves intricate workings of a human and not-so-human mind and soul. A tragedy in its own right, various aspects of the story’s tone dictate a feeling in the reader of despair, mental anguish, and fear. Imperfect creations are the only creations man is capable of producing, and this eerie theme is made tangible and explored from several varying points throughout the work. As for despair and mental anguish, every principle character grapples at one point or another with these foreboding emotions. In particular, the young Victor Frankenstein, blinded by scientific ambition and family love, fails to recognize positive traits of his foe and allows his entire being to fall into the dredges of depression and anger. In addition to this theme exploration and characterization, Shelley further fleshes-out her story’s dark tone with a seamless integration of settings throughout the novel.

Despite the universal nudge that spurs humans to strive for perfection, popular belief holds it true that mortals are actually incapable of it. Needless to say, due to the fact that anything man creates is imperfect, it is exceedingly impossible for man to bestow life on a perfect creature. Mary Shelley insists that her concept for the novel Frankenstein materialized from a dream, but nevertheless this theme has swam around in the minds of men for millennia. The sheer fantasy that enabled Frankenstein to initially construct his foe would be enough to fill the requirements of this theme of impossibility, but an entire novel ensues to further develop and explore these intriguing ideas. The most basic fulfillment of this theme outside of the actual creation is the physical build of the beast. His features are, at best, grotesque, and his size, while perfectly proportional, is grossly inappropriate. In his haste to create, Victor regards his creation with love and affection and sees only physical perfection. He mistakenly never even considers the physical beauty and appeal of his result. Next, the monster’s seemingly impartiality to violence (the morality of which, as perceived by the audience, is somewhat tempered by his mixed emotions) reveal a mental instability; yet another imperfection of the creation and thus the creator. Finally, the treatment of the monster by Frankenstein reveals the inability of a human to cope with the magnitude of constructing such a being. Victor fails to understand, much less meet, the monster’s needs, and rarely endeavors to relate to his unique and torturous situation and resulting emotions. Each of Victor’s failures in creation, physical and mental deformities as well as a lack of comprehension by the creator, resulted in the culmination of a dark tone of anguish transferred to the audience.

Shelley’s initial characterization of Victor Frankenstein as an ambitious young man is later offset in order to adhere to the rest of the novel’s overall tone. Driven by an unidentified motivation, Frankenstein is originally portrayed as an eager young man with boundless aspiration and love. After realizing his mistake in creating, Victor blames himself for each of the monster’s crimes in their entireties. Needless to say, such a heavy load is difficult for anyone’s sanity to bear, and Frankenstein’s state of mind does occasionally slip. Frankenstein’s first devastation is the loss of his creation, followed soon thereafter by the death of his small brother and the resulting mistrial and execution. For these reasons in particular, Victor departs to spend time alone in the wilderness, to contemplate his mistakes, past, and future. His conflicting emotions become painfully evident when the monster confronts him, confesses his crime, yet asks Victor to engage in a loathsome activity. Certainly Victor recognizes the monster’s inherent goodness and longing for love, but he despises the monster’s acts of retaliation towards man for hatred borne from misunderstanding. His choice is made beneath the pressure of guilt for what his creation was forced to endure as well as frightening threats from the powerful being. Before the initiation of his project, Victor contemplates his decision for several months, dwelling on his position and inducing mental turmoil. Then, after the project’s termination, Victor is forced to bear the stress resulting from the death of his best friend, and later his wife and father. His bitter depression soon shifts into an attitude darker still: hatred. It is this characterization of Victor Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, in conjunction with the characterization of the other main characters, which assists the morbid tone of the novel.

Blending each factor of the novel’s tone together is Shelley’s wise choice of settings. Not only do the various settings underscore the tone of the work, they also parallel and foreshadow many of the events. Both the beginning and the conclusion of Frankenstein take place on a frigid arctic wasteland; bleak, desolate, and parallel to the novel’s tone. The ice surrounding the ship is unpredictable and shifting, just as Victor’s seemingly demented creation. Geneva, a town in the Swiss Alps, naturally receives its fair share of inclement weather and provides, along with its surrounding countryside, the primary setting for much of the novel. Naturally, the night of the monster’s conception is described as "dreary" with rain and darkness, and the morning after is "dismal and wet." After the murder of Victor’s brother, Victor glimpses the monster alive for the second time on a cold, stormy night as violent rain fell and "vivid flashes of lightening" struck. Sub-settings independent of the weather and terrain, such as gloomy house interiors, add to the seamless and virtually unnoticed mix of settings that provide the backbone underlying the morbid tone of the work in its entirety. Essentially, settings provide the third essential component of the recipe for the dreary tone in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein.

In summarization, a novel as chilling as Frankenstein requires a complete awareness of and control over various aspects of writing. Theme, characterization, and setting, only three of many, were skillfully rendered by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, author of Frankenstein. The combination of morbid themes, internal character conflicts, and settings can only result in a morbid tone: Shelley’s exact intention. "Man can never create perfection." Shelley drags graphic representation along with this theme to prove its truth and strengthen the novel’s darkness. Likewise, the tragedies befalling each and every character can only result in inner turmoil and anguish, which Shelley flawlessly delivers with incredible characterization. Finally, the seamless setting combination, only evident under careful scrutiny, subconsciously instills a sense of dread in the audience. This esteemed classic maintains its position, not for its Hollywood interpretations, but because of the thought and effort injected into it by Shelley. Frankenstein will thrill those seeking entertainment, challenge analysts, and please critics.