Throughout Mary Shelley’s first four letters of her gothic novel Frankenstein, she alludes to the poem “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner”, written by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, in order to give readers background knowledge that will help them understand the setting and characteristics shown in her novel. Shelley demonstrates the similarity of setting by having the ship that Robert Walton is aboard gets stuck in a huge iceberg. This happens to the mariner’s ship early on in “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” too. Robert Walton expresses his troubles of being stuck in the ice to his sister in the beginning of the fourth letter of Frankenstein by writing “Last Monday (July 31st) we were nearly surrounded by ice, which closed the ship on all sides, scarcely leaving her the
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He stated to the wedding guest “The ice was here, the ice was there,/ The ice was all around:/ It cracked and growled, and roared and howled,/ like noises in the swound” (Coleridge I. 57-60). Both of these stories showed related settings as both characters were at sea, but most importantly, they both got stuck in an iceberg. This event that both stories demonstrate clearly show that Shelley was trying to allude to “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” so readers will gain a richer understanding of the setting of her book. With their prior knowledge of “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner”, readers can visualize where the story of Frankenstein begins. Shelley also alludes to the characteristics the mariner displays. The mariner feels isolation after all his men die, and although Robert Walton’s men don’t die, he feels isolated too because he doesn’t “fit in” with any of his shipmates. Walton states to his sister in letter 2 “Well, these are useless complaints; I shall certainly find no friend on the wide ocean, nor even here in Archangel, among merchants and seamen” (Shelley 5). Robert feels alone on his voyage and is an outsider to his
He stated to the wedding guest “The ice was here, the ice was there,/ The ice was all around:/ It cracked and growled, and roared and howled,/ like noises in the swound” (Coleridge I. 57-60). Both of these stories showed related settings as both characters were at sea, but most importantly, they both got stuck in an iceberg. This event that both stories demonstrate clearly show that Shelley was trying to allude to “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” so readers will gain a richer understanding of the setting of her book. With their prior knowledge of “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner”, readers can visualize where the story of Frankenstein begins. Shelley also alludes to the characteristics the mariner displays. The mariner feels isolation after all his men die, and although Robert Walton’s men don’t die, he feels isolated too because he doesn’t “fit in” with any of his shipmates. Walton states to his sister in letter 2 “Well, these are useless complaints; I shall certainly find no friend on the wide ocean, nor even here in Archangel, among merchants and seamen” (Shelley 5). Robert feels alone on his voyage and is an outsider to his