Essay Topics for Frankenstein

You may prepare one page of notes (front and back) to use, along with your book, for the
Performance Exam. You will turn in your notes along with your essay, as usual.

1. Discuss the narration of the novel: its style and purpose as well as the resulting effects of
the narrative.
a. 1. * beings with walton's point of view using frame device(a tale told to us by
someone who hears it from someone else)
* uses literary device called epistolary form(where letters tells the story)
uses the letters between walton and his sister to fram both victor's and creature's
narration
* in chapter 1, victor tells the story stating from his childhood and evenful
memories leading to his studies at the University and the making of the creature
* then the creature tells his side of the story of the significant moments that lead to
the want of a partner
*purpose
because of the frame device
- the theme of listening
get to hear all three sides of the story (victor, walton, creature)
and sometimes even Elizabeth, victor's father, and Henry
- builds suspense
walton as the overall narrator the suspense is built from the beginning
because of the epistolary
- the book is divided into three different parts by the distinct time

2. List four books that the Creature read or was exposed to and tell how they helped to shape his
character.

3. Promote the idea that nurture is much more powerful than nature in one's development OR the
opposite: that nature is much more powerful than nurture in one's development.

a. 3. nurture is much more powerful than nature in one's development

*nurture: how the enivorment contributes to a person's character
*nature: how the person's character is born that way from the start
* the creature was born with good intensions for others around him
"I had been accustomed, during the night, to steal a part of their store for my own
comsumption, but when i found that in doing this i inflicted parin on the cottagers, i
abstained and satisfed myself with berries, nuts, and roots which i gathered from a
neighboring wood" (shelly 92)
*This changes as the social community does not accept that fact of an eight foot
hideous being
"At that instant the cottage door was opened... who can describe the horror and
consternationon beholding me?..." (shelley 115)
"finding the door open, i entered... he turned on hearing a noise, and perceiving me,
shrieked loudly, and quitting the hut, ran across the fields... "(shelley 87)
he saved a little girl from a rapid stream
 "I suddenly interrputed by the approach of... the person from whom she had
playfully fled.
"On seeing me, he darted toward me, and tearing the girl from my arms... he aimed
a gun" (shelley 121)
* The creature starts a rampage, to have revenge ober his creator, victor
"cursed, cursed creator! why did i live? ... my fellings were those of rage and
revenge" (shelley 116)
* the creature takes his revenge by killing everyone that has a relationship with
victor
" Frankenstein! you belong then to my enemy... i have sworn eternal revenge;
you shall be my first victim." (shelley 123)

4. Discuss whether Robert Walton or the Creature is the more effective foil for Victor Frankenstein.
Describe how the presence of this foil adds to the overall structure and meaning of the novel.

5. Discuss Victor as a tragic hero.

6. Discuss Gothicism and its effect on the novel.

7. Compare and contrast the story of Frankenstein and his Creature with the Judeo-Christian story of
Creation, and examine how the differences help Shelley establish the theme of her novel.

8. Discuss Romanticism and its effect on the novel.

a.

9. Discuss the parental conflict apparent in the novel.

10. Discuss the role that power plays in the plot and overall meaning of the novel.