Frankenstein key quotes

isolation and loneliness

“I am alone and miserable: man will not associate with me” - monster chapter 10

  • awareness and empathy - reader is learning that he has this (same as humans)

  • semicolon physically divides sentence - like divide between monster and mankind

“ increase of knowledge only discovered to me more clearly what a wretched outcast I was” - monster chapter 15

  • monster establishes himself as outcast

  • the more he tries to learn the more outcast he is

  • Shelley puts reader in his shoes and shift perspective of mankind and humanity

“winter, spring, and summer passed away during my labours; but I did not watch the blossom or the expanding leaves… so deeply was I engrossed in my occupation” - victor chapter 4

  • victor is experiencing a different type of loneliness - Shelley is portraying the complexities of emotions in isolation and loneliness

  • links to the Romantic period - emotions feared when taken to extreme (e.g. corruption of mind from isolation) - cuts him off from society causing his downfall

“solitude was my only consolation - deep, dark, deathlike solitude” - victor chapter 22

  • alliteration emphasises emotions and reinforces gothic qualities

ambition

“it was the secrets of heaven and earth that I desired to learn” - victor chapter 2

  • religious imagery - communicated to Christian audience how much he values his knowledge of science (parallel with religious values of the time)

  • religion and science contradiction at the time - controversy to link both

  • sets the foundations for his obsessive ambition]

“now that I had finished, the beauty of the dream vanished, and breathless horror and disgust filled my heart” - victor chapter 5

  • appearance vs reality not aligning - emphasized by juxtaposition of ‘beauty of the dream’ and ‘breathless horror and disgust’

  • highlights the dangers of ambition to the reader

supernatural

“it was on a dreary night of November, that I beheld the accomplishment of my toils” - victor chapter 5

  • gothic theme is reinforced through imagery of ‘night of November’

  • use of alliteration ‘night of November’

  • events happening in night gives reader sense that they are witnessing something forbidden (like many experiments in this era) - unnatural creation

“I saw the dull yellow eye of the creature open; it breathed hard, and a convulsive motion agitated its limbs” - victor chapter 5

  • highlights unnatural actions of victor creating life against god/natural order

nature vs nurture

“I was benevolent and good; misery made me a fiend” - monster chapter 10

  • semicolon functions divide - past and present versions of monster (highlights how he has changed overtime due to mankind’s treatment)

  • Shelley humanises monster through his apparent awareness

  • Jean-Jacques Rousseau ideas

“the gentle manners and beauty of the cottagers greatly endeared them to me… I longed to join them, but dared not” - monster chapter 12

  • monster learns kindness and love from others

  • shows his desire to do good - what he has seen rather than innate

responsibility

“I had been the author of unalterable evils, and I lived in daily fear lest the monster whom I had created should perpetrate sine new wickedness” - victor chapter 20

  • fear doesn’t allow him to take responsibility - Shelley is showing that avoiding accountability leads to self-destruction and suffering

“you are my creator, but I am your master; obey!” - monster chapter 10

  • show how power dynamic has shifted

  • consequences of lack of responsibility and neglecting duty

  • punctuation - exclamatory

“I ought to be thy Adam, but I am rather a fallen angel” - monster chapter 10

  • religious imagery - compares himself to Adam (victor should’ve cared for him the way God cared for his creation)

  • directly criticising victor for actively bringing in life and refusing to nurture it

  • compares himself to the devil

“am I to be thought the only criminal, when all humankind sinned against me?” - monster chapter 24

  • rhetorical question - at end of novel so Shelley is wanting readers to reflect on their own moral responsibility and individual approaches to justice

appearance vs reality

“his yellow skin scarcely covered the work of muscles and arteries beneath” - victor chapter 5

  • shows the hypocrisy of humankind

  • ironic that it’s victor who is the first to judge him for his looks after carefully choosing them

“the children shrieked, and one of the women fainted” - narration chapter 11

  • emphasises that all kinds of people showed judgement towards monster

  • shows monster’s innocence in wanting to be kind when meeting people but being met with judgement and cruelty