·      Nature as nurturer and punisher

·      Danger of knowledge – romantic versus enlightenment message

·      Nature as nurturer and punisher (creature versus Victor – illness)

·      Isolation – self-imposed or circumstantial

·      Abandonment of parental responsibility/obligation

·      Human desire for companionship

·      Societal values – superficial fixation on aesthetic beauty

·      Rigid patriarchies

·      Women instruments of revenge

·      Paradox – ugliness and beauty

·      Creature as a product of his experiences – tabula rasa

·      Corruption of innate goodness

·      Nature 

·      Individual versus society

·      Shelley’s romantic message/authorial purpose

·      Foils – Victor and Henry

·      Foils – Safie and the Creature

·      Foils – Walton and Victor

·      Walton and Margaret Saville

·      Women as silenced – marginalized – consequence

·      Victor as monster

·      Creature as monster

·      Creature as human

·      Biblical allusions – Paradise Lost thread

·      Exploration and ambition; elitism (Walton and Victor)

·      Positives of progress

·      Promethean myth – thread

·      Dante’s Circles of Hell – ice

·      Ancient Marriner – Walton

·      Fathers

·      Safie and the creature

·      Fire

Narrative structure – embedded voices, cyclical, parallel 

·      Marriage – newlyweds

·      Setting – apartments, cloistered, city alternative

·      What it means to be a neighbor

·      Secondary characters – sculptress, lonely hearts, composer

·      Lisa – song/composition

·      Message – multiple
Fulfillment 

·      Emergent leaders

·      Distribution of power

·      Subversion of patriarchal power – gender and class

·      Binary religious lenses

·      Superstition used as justification for persecution

·      Mass hysteria driven by religious fervour

·      Mass hysteria driven by superstition and loss of faith

·      Scapegoating 

·      Conformity versus individual autonomy

·      Danger of rigid conformity

·      Loss of faith: Mompellion/Anna & Hale/Proctor

·      Nature; fear versus comfort

·      Measures of goodness

·      Hypocrisy in leadership; words and action

·      Facades – public versus private

·      Punishment atonement/redemption (self and others) – punitive versus forgiving God

·      Evolution of self  - Anna and Proctor

·      Reputation – names

·      Isolation – geographical

Testing times/ordeals/ - crucible of crisis 

In its “enchanting appearance”, nature serves as a source of rejuvenation to which its grandeur transcends concerns and instils a sense of peace. Such as Victor, his profound affiliation with the environment enables him to “forget the passing cares of life” and “aspire to become greater”. Although enduring countless impediments, its cyclical tendencies allow him to return to routine and largely ensure his ability to maintain sanity despite the ensued chaos. Shelley presents an image of nature that is at once benevolent and diabolic, breath-taking in its beauty and shattering in its brutality. The power and dominance exerted by nature to Frankenstein is also able to emulate its disapproval for his lack of recognition of his duty and consequences of hubris pursuit. Through natures role as a punisher, Shelley’s moral tale warns of what happens when intellectual pursuit is not supplemented with ethics and an awareness of responsibility. The punishment incurred by Frankenstein when he experiences ‘scenes of evil and despair’ as he seeks solace after his attempts to uncover the ‘secrets of heaven and earth’ reinforce Shelley’s message towards avoiding conquering an area of knowledge described as sacrosanct. Similarly, where nature gives Frankenstein a ‘moment of darkness’ in which he could dispose of the female creature, reflects Shelley’s message to surrender to nature and emphasis the hierarchy in which nature dominates. The reoccurring ‘eternal twinkling’ of the stars is able to ‘weigh upon; Frankenstein as a watchful heavens resembling God watching over acting as ‘witness and testimony’, the stars acting as a moral reminder of his imposing intentions onto nature. Yet, despite nature’s restorative influence on Frankenstein, his greatest desire is to subvert its natural laws and harness its prevailing power. 

Corrupted by his own physicality, the creature is subjected to externally imposed isolation enacted by the prejudice of humanity. “Alone and miserable”, he is condemned to eternal solitude in which “no man will associate with [him]”. Regardless of such devastating adversity, the creature remains largely optimistic in his assumed eventual reconciliation with his denouncers and thus perceives his circumstantial isolation as merely temporary. However, the progression of the novel unveils the mutability of his prior beliefs as he divulges into to raw animosity and eventual vengeance. Viewing his isolation as an unceasing punishment, the creature is compelled to escape the barbarity of man and inflict an equally vindictive retaliation to satiate his resentment of humankind having “sinned against [him]”. Conversely, the suffering endured by Walton and Frankenstein occurs only as a result of their self-induced isolation and hubristic desire to conquer the ‘natural world’. Their positions as white males afford them the privileged of being accepted in society, yet both feel isolated by their intellect that each arrogantly assumes elevates them beyond the normal sphere of man. The pursuit for ‘eternal glory’ supersedes the human necessity of connection and interaction. Walton is able to acknowledge the dangers involved with his isolation and quest and is able to adopt the learnings from the ‘Rime on the Ancient Mariner’ to apply a lense to his own experiences and reflect before the same mistakes are made, which embodies Shelley’s use of a warning tale. Frankenstein also self imposes his isolation as he disguises his egotistical pursuit for the ‘inestimable’ benefit to all mankind but is not immune to the consequences of being removed from society. Thus he loses the emotional interactions with his family which lead to his moral demise and engagement into unethical pursuits such as the creatures creation as he believes that the people around him who are imperative to his survival will only act as a hinder to his intellectual pursuits for glory. 

Shelley creates an environment where nature plays the role of God, as both nurturer and punisher. As exemplified through the suffering Victor encounters, after his undignified creation and the immediate abandonment after beholding the Creature’s ‘yellow eye’. Nature torments Frankenstein, as he mimics the role of God without considering the consequences of his actions. 

-       Victor and Creature. à irony 

Could also do:

-       Delacy and kids

-       Walton – no father figure (mother Margret) when sees Frankenstein becomes very attracted, and he becomes like a father figure to him.

 

Shelley explores the negative impacts a child can have without the guidance and support from their father due to their poor parental influence and skills. Victors narrative begins with an account boasting about his idyllic childhood filled with happiness and “filifal love”. He articulates his appreciation towards his parents who filled his childhood with happiness, support and love. His relationship with his parents thrived in his younger years with his father who raised him “possessed by … kindness and indulgence” along with his mother’s “tenderness caresses” filling his childhood.  While Frankenstein’s upbringing was positive, he saw this as his parents “duties towards [him]” as  this is what they “owed towards the being ..they had given life” to. After his mother’s tragic death we see a shift in Frankenstein’s relationship with his father to a more negative and rejectful one. As Frankenstein gained his passion for Natural Philosophy he started to feel rejected from his father as Alphonse saw his passion as “sad trash”. His fathers disproval of his studies left Frankenstein distant and eventually being sent way to school in Ingolstadt. When contrasted to the creatures upbringing there is a heavy sense of irony. Frankenstein when becoming a father did not adopt his own expectations and preform the “duties” a parent owes towards the being they created. He grew up with the expectation and understanding that it was his parents “hands to direct happiness or misery” yet failed to give the creature any sort of support or guidance instead just abandoned him. This failed fathering from Frankenstein left the creature desolate and vengeful.