Knowledge - Frankenstein, Ambition - Frankenstein, Playing God - Frankenstein, Prejudice - Frankenstein, Nature - Frankenstein, Loneliness, Love, Religion, Motherhood, Oppression

Walton - introduction to an obsession to knowledge, nothing will "satiate" the minds of humans, endless thoughts + theories to be written and tested etc

"I shall satiate my ardent curiosity"

Victor - overcome by knowledge that it is all he can think of.

"thirst for knowledge"

The Creature wishes he had not come to know human warmth and feelings because of his inability to share in those feelings.

"I cannot describe to you the agony that these reflections inflicted upon me; I tried to dispel them, but sorrow only increased with knowledge

Walton - very self-absorbed person, thinks highly of himself. He has an obligation to lift people's "spirits"

"I am required not only to raise the spirits of others, but sometimes to sustain my own, when theirs are failing"

Ambition, if directed towards science and discovery, carry risks when taken to the extreme

Seek happiness in tranquillity, and avoid ambition, even if it be only the apparently innocent one of distinguishing yourself in science and discoveries.

Victor

Chapter 5.

Victor begins to realize the dangers of taking science too far and playing God with life and death, when he sees the kind of monster he has created.

"I beheld the wretch - the miserable monster whom I had created."

Victor

Chapter 10.

Biblical references abound. The Creature sees himself as Adam, but Victor plays God—badly. Religion here becomes a lens for failed creation.

"Remember that I am thy creature; I ought to be thy Adam, but I am rather the fallen angel, whom thou drivest from joy for no misdeed."

The link between Walton and Victor is they both believe they have no limits, but realise soon enough, limits are there for a reason, and any who try to go beyond that face serious consequences.

"I feel my heart glow with an enthusiasm which elevates me to heaven"

Justine is tormented by the crowd as she is labelled a child murdered without evidence as shown by:

"fear and hatred of the crime of which they supposed her guilty rendered them timorous"

"A thousand times…her who suffered through me."

The use of hyperbole of 'a thousand times' seems to show Victor's strength of feeling, but ultimately we do not trust him, since he is quick to give himself two excuses not to take the blame: 'I was absent' and his confession would have been seen as 'the ravings of a madman'. Ironically, his speech does become like this towards the end of the book when he is consumed by guilt. Even if Victor had tried to take the blame for Justine, because of the social prejudice, perhaps she still would have been blamed, and Victor would have been let of easy.

Victor here is completely oblivious to what he has really done. Justine is about to be condemned to death, not "sustained by innocence." He doesn't realise the danger he has caused. "Fangs" - metaphor - even when he's imagining his own guilt, he will never own up to anything, and always find an excuse. He is talking about his own guilt, but its someone elses fault, doing it to him, passing on the responsibility. He projects these ideas onto people, when really they aren't correct.

"The tortures of the accused did not equal mine; she was sustained by innocence, but the fangs of remorse tore my bosom and would not forgo their hold."

Justine is forced to confess by a priest, who is prejudiced against her

"I did confess; I confessed a lie"

Examples of xenophobic prejudice - Safie's dad

"The injustice of this sentence was very flagrant"

Xenophobic prejudice - Victor

"it is the custom of the Irish to hate villains"

Aesthetic prejudice. Villagers see something odd, so try to remove it.

"some fled, some attacked me"

The old man is the only person who is not prejudiced only because he is blind

"I am blind, and cannot judge of your countenance but there is something in your words which persuades me that you are sincere"

The rest of the De Lacey’s, who the creature has previously described as kind/ unselfish/ altruistic, still harm and abandon him

"in a transport of fury, he dashed me to the ground"

William, who should have been untainted by prejudice, still rejects him

"monster! ugly wretch! you wish to eat me and tear me to pieces"

Even when the Creature saves the girl from drowning, people immediately judge his actions as intended to harm

"This was then the reward for my benevolence!"

Victor is prejudiced and is disgusted with his creation right after he brings it to life

"now that I had finished, the beauty of the dream vanished and breathless horror and disgust filled my heart"

Victor's prejudice: "yet you...

"yet you my creator, detest and spurn me, thy creature, to whom thou art bound by ties only dissoluble by the annihilation of one of us"

Before he kills himself, he says:

"Was there no injustice in this? Am I though to be the only criminal, when all humankind sinned against me?"

Victor

Chapter 5

After falling ill from the horror of his creation, nature helps put Victor on the path to recovery.

"It was a divine spring; and the season contributed greatly to my convalescence."

Victor

Chapter 10

Victor, tormented by guilt, finds solace in nature—ironic as he has disrupted the natural order. The gothic imagery highlights a lonely, angry protagonist, embodying the gothic hero.

"These sublime and magnificent scenes afforded me the greatest consolation that I was capable of receiving."

Sibilance - reflects the silence.

Oxymoron - "vast fragment" - 1. It shows Victor's inflated sense of his own importance.

2. Makes us think of the creature - he is parts of different bodies, becoming this overwhelming force of nature.

"Imperial nature" - imperial - royal/ human royalty - humanising nature - showing the power nature holds.

"The solemn silence of this glorious presence-chamber of imperial nature was broken only by the brawling waves or the fall of some vast fragment"

Walton

Letter 1

Walton is on a quest to reach the northernmost part of the earth. The light refers to new ideas and discoveries that have yet to be found by humanity.

"What may not be expected in a country of eternal light?"

Needle - inanimate object leading all these men to their deaths.

Needle - foreshadowing

"I may there discover the wondrous power which attracts the needle"

Solitude as a fragile freedom

"The night is mine, my own time, to do with as I will, as long as I am quiet." (Chapter 7)

Isolation

"We lived in the gaps between the stories." (Chapter 10)

Imperfect love leading to loneliness

"Nobody's heart is perfect." (Chapter 35)

Regret and lost love

"We thought we had such problems. How were we to know we were happy?" (Chapter 6)

Craving intimacy

"I want to be held and told my name. I want to be valued, in ways that I am not." (Chapter 17)

Religious greeting showing control

"Blessed be the fruit" (repeated through book)

Surveillance tied into relgion

"Under His Eye" (repeated through book"

Manipulation of religious nostalgia

"When we think of the past it's the beautiful things we pick out. We want to believe it was all like that." (Chapter 6)

Biblical allusion showing the pressure and pain of infertility.

"Give me children, or else I die." (Chapter 11)

Motherhood being reduced to nothing

"We are for breeding purposes: we aren't concubines, geisha girls, courtesans." (Chapter 23)

Dehumanisation of the Handmaids.

"We are two-legged wombs, that's all: sacred vessels, ambulatory chalices." (Chapter 23)

Silencing of the oppressed

"We were the people who were not in the papers." (Chapter 10)

Power being disguised as freedom

"A rat in a maze is free to go anywhere, as long as it stays inside the maze." (Chapter 27)

Commander's blunt admission of structural oppression

"Better never means better for everyone... It always means worse for some." (Chapter 32)