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Intertextuality in Frankenstein                       

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Intertextuality in Frankenstein                       

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In many literary works, the use of intertextuality can greatly contribute to the meaning of the work.
In Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein, there are several intertextual references that help the reader to understand the novel and its connections to other works.

Even before the novel begins there is an allusion to Greek Mythology and the story of Prometheus, the creator of man. Many of intertextual references are of creation stories like Genesis and Paradise lost, that can be used to compare Victor Frankenstein to God and his monster to Adam.

Dante’s Divine Comedy: Inferno presents many similarities to Frankenstein: moments before bringing his monster to life, Dr. Frankenstein looks his creation, and is filled with disgust at the very sight of the gruesome being he intended to give life to. Examining the finished creation he cries, “Oh! no mortal could support the horror of that countenance. A mummy again endued with animation could not be so hideous as that wretch.  I had gazed on him while unfinished; he was ugly then; but when those muscles and joints were rendered capable of motion, it became a thing such as even Dante could not have conceived,”. Dante Alighieri’s poem, the Divine Comedy: Inferno, is what Shelly is referencing in the brief cadence before the grand experiment of animation begins.

Although there are many connections between Frankenstein and Inferno, the main reason Mary Shelly decided to use Inferno as an intertextual reference is to show how incredible repulsive Dr. Frankenstein’s monster is, even when compared to the creatures in Dante’s Inferno. On the journey through the nine circles of Hell, Dante encounters many hideous creatures that he finds repulsive.

When Dante is lost in the Dark forest he encounters a leopard, a lion, and a she-wolf. These animals symbolize carnal sins divided into three categories of severity: fraudulence, violence, and incontinence (lack of self control over one’s actions). These animals represent the primitive temptations that block our path to God. Virgil helps Dante for his journey to Heaven where be will meet Beatrice. He says where are Dante'mistakes and he brings him on the right way.

After being created by Victor, the creation leads his creator on a Hellish journey of his own. He causes immense suffering in Victors life through his revenge inspired actions. Virgil and the monster both lead their counterparts on dark journeys.

Frankenstein wanted to create the monster to prove that he could bring life to lifeless matter, and keep people from dying. For Frankenstein, the monster is his ticket to success. The monster is similar to Virgil because he shows Victor the consequences of his egotistical actions.

Conversely, Victor Frankenstein’s character is paralleled by  Dante, for the emotional suffering and feelings of disgust that they both endure on their journeys.

Victor is engaged to a woman named Elizabeth, who he plans to marry after his scientific endeavors hopefully make him a distinguished scientist. Dante, like Victor,  has a woman in his life that he plans to be with at the end of his journey, but in order to see her he must first go through Hell to see the consequences of his actions as a sinner. Victor has sinned just like Dante.

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In the 18th century, not only there was a lack of funding for anatomical research, but also a lack of availability of cadavers to examine. The anatomists were forced to steal bodies of graves and dissect autopsies. This led to riots and disagreements by the dead's family. Much of the 18th century knowledge consisted of old manuscripts from Greece and Italy.

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Frankenstein study guide contains a biography of Mary Shelley, literature essays, a complete e-text, quiz questions, major themes, characters, and a full summary and analysis.

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Mary Shelley's Frankenstein - A Documentary (Trailer)

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Take a journey of discovery into the mind of Mary Shelley, the remarkable English woman who imagined both Dr. Victor Frankenstein and his monster into being. Visit early 19th Century London to see the places and meet the people who influenced her.

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Mary Shelley dedicated Frankenstein to Godwin and used many of the ideas held by her parents. Mary was interested in science, in particular in chemistry and eletricity, so when she wrote Frankenstein, she was aware of the latest scientific theories and experiments.

The story
Doctor Frankenstein, a Swiss scientist, manages to create a human being by joining parts selected from corpses. The result of the experiment is ugly and revolting, the monster becomes a murderer, and in the end of the story he destroys his creator. The story is not told chronologically and is introduced to us by a series of letters written by Walton, a young explorer on a voyage of expedition to the North Pole, to his sister, Margaret Saville.

Narrative structure
This novel is told by different narrators;
- at first, Walton informs his sister whose initial are the same of Mary Shelley, that is Margaret Saville;
- then, Frankenstein;
- finally, the monster.

Themes
The main themes of the novel are:
•the quest for forbidden knowledge;
•the overreacher, in the characters of Walton and Dr Frankenstein;
•the double: Frankenstein and his creature are complementary. They both suffer from a sense of isolation , both being with a desire to be good, but become obsessed with hate and revenge;
•social prejudices, through the figure of the monster as an outcast.

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Mary Shelley was born in 1797, the daughter of the pioneer feminist Mary Wollstonecraft and the radical thinker William Godwin. Both her parents had been influenced by the ideas of the French Revolution, and were part of a small group which included other important men of letters of the time such as William Blake. Godwin's house was visited by some of the most famous writers like Percy Bysshe Shelley. In July 1814, Mary and Percy fled to France, and later the poet decided to rent a country house on the banks of Lake Geneva near Village Diodati. In 1816 Mary Shelley began to write Frankenstein, which was published in 1818. In 1822 the Shelleys moved to Lerci, where Percy set sail in a storm and was found drowned ten days later. Mary returned to England in 1823, where she died in 1851.

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A new philosophical concept, the sublime comes from the philosopher Edmund Burke. The term, of Latin origin, refers to a linguistic, literary or artistic form which expresses noble or elevated feelings. In Burke's A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful, he regarded beautiful and sublime opposed. Burke thought that the sublime should be discussed in terms of its effects upon the perceiver. Sublime is something that caused astonishment in human being, a particular state of min hat is between happiness, pleasure, fear and terror. We fell astonished for example when we see a seaquake, a tyger ,a snake.

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The origin of the name.
It came to popularity at the end of the 18th century.
The adjective Gothic has three connotations:
- medieval, linked to the architecture of the 12th-14th centuries, characterized by the presence of heights;
- irregular forms opposed to classicism;
- wild, supernatural,in the sense of mysterious.

The writer Horace Walpole (1717-1797) was the first to estabilish a link between the term gothic and the medieval connotation. His obsession with miniature castle at Strawberry Hill was the inspiration for his novel The Castle of Otranto (1764).

The most common
features of Gothic novel are:
• the great importance given to terror and horror;
• the night as the most important setting, because darkness is a powerful element that helps to create an atmosphere of gloom and mystery;
• ancient settings, like isolated castles,mysterious abbeys and convents;
• the use of supernatural beings, like vampires, monsters, ghosts and witches.