Assignment paper 103(Literature of the Romantics)

Assignment writing: Paper 103( Literature of the Romantics)

This blog is Assignment writing on paper 103(Literature of the Romantics) assigned by Professor, Dr. Dilip Barad sir, Head of the Department of Maharaja Krishnakumarsinhji Bhavnagar University.

Name: Nidhi Dave

Paper: Literature of the Romantics

Roll no: 16

Enrollment no:4069206420210005

Email ID: davenidhi05@gmail.com

Batch: 2021-23( M.A sem - 1)

Submitted to: Department of English Maharaja Krishnakumarsinhji Bhavnagar University.

🔅Imagery and Literary Elements In Frankenstein

👉Introduction of Frankenstein:

The novel, Frankenstein, previously titled The Modern Prometheus, was written by Mary Shelley. It was first published in 1818. It is known as the epitome of the science fiction of the early 19th century, and also it set the stage for scientific passion among the scientists with caution to shun the seamy side of experiments. The novel revolves around the story of a young scientist, Victor Frankenstein, who becomes the victim of his own creation, a monster. The monster later attempts to take his own life, before wreaking havoc in the life of the scientist, and his family. The unique feature of this story is that Miss Shelley started it when she turned 18 and finished at the age of 20.

Mary Shelley's Frankenstein is a 19th-century epistolary novel associated with both the Romantic and the Gothic genres. The novel, which follows a scientist named Frankenstein and the horrifying creature he creates, explores the pursuit of knowledge and its consequences, as well as the human desire for connection and community.

👉Imagery in Frankenstein

Imagery – the use of the rich and descriptive language – serves the purpose of making the reader feel as if the events of the novel happen to him personally. The depicted scenery always corresponds to the character’s emotions.

Shelley pays special attention to the description of nature because it most accurately reflects Frankenstein’s inner state. Writing about nature, the author utilizes a literary technique called personification. Rain, wind, rivers, mountains, and lakes are not just picturesque backgrounds but living beings with their own color, mood, and unique human characteristics.

• Psychological scenery
• The passage of time
• Bodily manifestations of emotions
• Sublime nature

⭐Psychological scenery

Particularly in Frankenstein's narration, the description of scenery often reflects his mental state at the time of the scene. Take, for example, the morning after he brought the monster to life and fled his home: "Morning, dismal and wet, at length dawned, and discovered to my sleepless and aching eyes the church of Ingolstadt, its white steeple and clock, which indicated the sixth hour. The porter opened the gates of the court, which had that night been my asylum, and I issued into the streets, pacing them with quick steps, as if I sought to avoid the wretch whom I feared every turning of the street would present to my view. I did not dare return to the apartment which I inhabited, but felt impelled to hurry on, although drenched by the rain which poured from a black and comfortless sky" (Volume I, Chapter 5). The loss of night's 'asylum' and the dismal, wet weather both echo Frankenstein's weariness and anxiety.

⭐The passage of time:

Imagery techniques are used to focalize the passage of time. This is what happens when Frankenstein returns home from university following the death of William, and gazes upon a portrait of his mother: "Six years had elapsed, passed as a dream but for one indelible trace, and I stood in the same place where I had last embraced my father before my departure for Ingolstadt. Beloved and venerable parent! He still remained to me. I gazed on the picture of my mother, which stood over the mantel-piece. It was an historical subject, painted at my father's desire, and represented Caroline Beaufort in an agony of despair, kneeling by the coffin of her dead father. Her garb was rustic, and her cheek pale; but there was an air of dignity and beauty, that hardly permitted the sentiment of pity" (Volume I, Chapter 7). The past-focused imagery functions as a link between Frankenstein's history and what he must cope with in the present.

⭐Bodily manifestations of emotions

Imagery and rich descriptive language bring the inner states of Frankenstein to life. Take, for instance, the moment after Justine was wrongly sentenced to death for the death of William, when Frankenstein is overcome by guilt for his own crime of creating the monster: "The blood flowed freely in my veins, but a weight of despair and remorse pressed on my heart, which nothing could remove. Sleep fled from my eyes; I wandered like an evil spirit, for I had committed deeds of mischief beyond description horrible, and more, much more (I persuaded myself), was yet behind" (Volume I, Chapter 9).

⭐Sublime nature

The backdrop of nature, particularly in the scene prior to Frankenstein's mountaintop encounter with his monster, subsumes human nature within the grander, terrifying scope of the universe. This has a somewhat humbling, soothing effect on Frankenstein, as he notes in the passage prior to his encounter with the monster; "I [roamed] through the valley. I stood beside the sources of the Arveiron, which take their rise in a glacier, that with slow pace is advancing down from the summit of the hills, to barricade the valley. The abrupt sides of vast mountains were before me; the icy wall of the glacier overhung me; a few shattered pines were scattered around; and 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, the thunder sound of the avalanche, or the cracking reverberated along the mountains of the accumulated ice, which, through the silent working of immutable laws, was ever and anon rent and torn, as if it had been but a plaything in their hands. These sublime and magnificent scenes afforded me the greatest consolation that I was capable of receiving. They elevated me from all littleness of feeling; and although they did not remove my grief, they subdued and tranquillised it" (Volume I, Chapter 10).

👉Literary Elements in Frankenstein

Mary Shelley uses various literary devices in Frankenstein to help the reader make an intense and accurate perception of the narrative. Commonly, literary devices are understood as artistic structures and techniques that writers apply to beautify their works and emphasize their meanings.

Literary elements most often used in Frankenstein – setting, imagery, allusions, symbolism, and personification – help the reader to immerse into the gloomy atmosphere of Frankenstein’s time and live thought character’s experiences.

In some ways, the novel is a bildungsroman, which is a narrative about growth. Perhaps even more specifically, the novel could be considered a kunstlerroman, which translates to 'artist novel.' In a sense, Victor's story follows the growth of an artist. When he stitches together parts of dead bodies and brings the whole creation to life, it is a sort of metaphor for an artist's work--or even more specifically an author of literature, who puts together words and endows them with meaning. Food for thought.

Let's explore some more specific examples of literary elements in the novel.

⭐Heroes and Villains

We should also focus on the concept of protagonist and antagonist, or rather the roles of hero and villain. It is perhaps customary to think of Victor as the novel's hero; he is the central character, and we root for him to succeed.

With that in mind, we usually consider the creature that he creates as the villain. After all, the creature does go on a murderous rampage, picking off Victor's friends and family. 'I too can create desolation,' the creature reflects: 'my enemy is not invulnerable; this death will carry despair to him, and a thousand other miseries shall torment and destroy him.' Indeed, the creature has become a monster in our culture, part of the Halloween dress-up game alongside vampires and mummies.

But Shelley muddles these categories. The creature is often heroic, and Victor is often villainous. When the creature tells his personal and emotional story, he becomes the protagonist of the novel, and readers care about his struggles. And when Victor tears to pieces the creature's incomplete mate, he exhibits his own sort of violence and blood lust. Thus, both characters are hard to define, and each might be considered as an 'anti-hero.

⭐The Novel's Frame Structure

A frame narrative occurs when one narrative introduces another narrative (and so on). The technique has been around since at least the Arabian Nights, in which a young bride, Scheherazade, avoids death at the hands of the murderous king Shahryar by telling a series of stories. In Frankenstein, Shelley borrows from this rich formal tradition by setting up a series of narratives that introduce one another.

⭐Narrator and Point of View

There are three levels of first-person limited narration, with each successive level embedded in the immediately prior level. The first level is R. Walton, writing to his sister; the second is Frankenstein, speaking to Walton; the third is the monster, speaking to Frankenstein.

⭐Tone and Mood

Because the horrific events of the story are conveyed as retrospection, the tone oscillates between remorse/anger on the part of the narrator, and suspense on the part of the reader for not having total knowledge of the events that will unfold, in spite of the narrator foreshadowing them.

⭐Protagonist and Antagonist

The major protagonist is Frankenstein, and the major antagonist is his monster.

⭐Major Conflict

Most of the conflict in the story can be read as a struggle of will between Frankenstein and his monster. The monster wants Frankenstein to make him a mate, and Frankenstein believes that he must destroy the monster in order to end the monster's destructive rampage.

⭐Paradox

One of the primary threads in the book is that the scientific progress purported by Frankenstein actually effects pain and destruction, and might ultimately be socially regressive. Such a notion of 'progress' is paradoxical.

⭐Personification

Nature as a force is often personified in the text. An example of this is when Frankenstein travels through the countryside following the execution of Justine: "The abrupt sides of vast mountains were before me; the icy wall of the glacier overhung me; a few shattered pines were scattered around; and 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, the thunder sound of the avalanche, or the cracking reverberated along the mountains of the accumulated ice, which, through the silent working of immutable laws, was ever and anon rent and torn, as if it had been but a plaything in their hands" (Volume I, Chapter 10).

Words Count: 1,704

Reference:

• https://www.gradesaver.com/frankenstein/study-guide/literary-elements

• https://literarydevices.net/frankenstein/