Intense Feelings With Frankenstein

Thunderstorms. A rampaging monster. Intense feelings. These are all tell-tale signs (see what I did there?) of gothic literature. While Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein checks all these boxes and more, the specific gothic element that grips me is her rich language. Shelley’s descriptions bring Frankenstein’s monster to life. Her words create her characters’ happiness—and terror.

However, at first, I struggled to connect with the writing style. Eventually, everything else faded to background noise, and Shelley’s words sucked me into the gothic world. When I previously thought of the Frankenstein story, I pictured the stereotypical green monster speaking gibberish. I didn’t know the harrowing original tale. By the time Frankenstein starts to tell his story, I was tense with curiosity about why he was in so much pain.

A passage that struck me is the intensity of Frankenstein’s guilt when Justine is executed for the monster’s crimes. The descriptive language not only creates a timeless read, but enhances other gothic elements of the story, like overwrought emotions.

Frankenstein states, “I wandered like an evil spirit…” (Shelley 101). The connotation of evil spirit shows readers the punishment Frankenstein feels he deserves. Plus, Shelley’s dark word choices throughout the passage reinforce Frankenstein’s suffering, such as “deathlike solitude” and “weight of despair” (101).

Even the simpler language creates an engaging descriptive rhythm. Shelley writes, “Justine died, she rested, and I was alive” (101.) When Frankenstein considers his own aliveness, he subverts the previous repetition of the two word phrases, an abrupt change that can connect to Justine’s unnatural death, as opposed to the monster’s unnatural life.

On a larger scale, the passage relates to discussions of morality. An innocent woman is dead, while Frankenstein’s monster is somehow alive in the first place. Who should be penalized? From Frankenstein’s tortured thoughts, he seems to have punished himself enough.