Death is often a tool authors use to spice up their novels. Authors will kill off characters such as the innocent child, the love interest or the character everyone is rooting for just to get their readers more emotionally involved in the story. Mary Shelley does this very often in Frankenstein when she eliminates characters in her novel to elicit an emotional response from her readers and to move the plot forward.
In Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, the affect death has on the plot is tremendous. Death causes the entire story to develop into something darker and more gothic than what it was originally. For example, the beginning plot of Frankenstein goes from Victor only being burdened by his creation and the thought of the monster being out in …show more content…
One may also believe that Shelley adds his inability to cope in her novel to make readers sympathize with Victor. Before Victor’s mother’s death took place, there is a paragraph in Frankenstein where Victor states, “It was the secrets of heaven and earth that I desired to learn; and whether it was the outward substance of things, or the inner spirit of nature and mysterious soul of man that occupied me, still my enquiries were directed to the metaphysical, or in the highest sense, the physical secrets of the world” (Shelley 19). From this quote, it becomes obvious that Shelley plans to use life and death as a major plot point in Frankenstein. Victor speaks of being fascinated by the metaphysical aspect of man, which is a foreshadowing of his obsession with death and disease that comes into play later in the novel when Victor is creating the monster. It almost seems as though the death of Victor’s mother is the beginning of a domino effect of death; meaning, every time a character passes away, no matter the circumstances, Shelley hints to Victor going a little bit more mad each time. For example, when Victor’s mother dies, he becomes arguably more obsessed with life and death, then when William and Justine are killed, he goes mad with grief and remorse. And finally, after the death of Elizabeth, Victor goes completely mad with his obsession of finding and killing the monster. Death seems to play a huge part in Frankenstein because it looks as if Victor never learned how to properly deal with death when he was younger, and that transfers to his impulses as an adult. All of the death that occurs in the novel is meant to make readers feel sorrowful towards and for
In Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, the affect death has on the plot is tremendous. Death causes the entire story to develop into something darker and more gothic than what it was originally. For example, the beginning plot of Frankenstein goes from Victor only being burdened by his creation and the thought of the monster being out in …show more content…
One may also believe that Shelley adds his inability to cope in her novel to make readers sympathize with Victor. Before Victor’s mother’s death took place, there is a paragraph in Frankenstein where Victor states, “It was the secrets of heaven and earth that I desired to learn; and whether it was the outward substance of things, or the inner spirit of nature and mysterious soul of man that occupied me, still my enquiries were directed to the metaphysical, or in the highest sense, the physical secrets of the world” (Shelley 19). From this quote, it becomes obvious that Shelley plans to use life and death as a major plot point in Frankenstein. Victor speaks of being fascinated by the metaphysical aspect of man, which is a foreshadowing of his obsession with death and disease that comes into play later in the novel when Victor is creating the monster. It almost seems as though the death of Victor’s mother is the beginning of a domino effect of death; meaning, every time a character passes away, no matter the circumstances, Shelley hints to Victor going a little bit more mad each time. For example, when Victor’s mother dies, he becomes arguably more obsessed with life and death, then when William and Justine are killed, he goes mad with grief and remorse. And finally, after the death of Elizabeth, Victor goes completely mad with his obsession of finding and killing the monster. Death seems to play a huge part in Frankenstein because it looks as if Victor never learned how to properly deal with death when he was younger, and that transfers to his impulses as an adult. All of the death that occurs in the novel is meant to make readers feel sorrowful towards and for