Thomas Godwin

Perhaps one of the most emotionally appealing themes a writer can utilize is that of the social outcast endeavoring to find its place in the world, a theme utilized to great effect by both Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre despite their character’s different fates, the former featuring a supposedly monstrous creation who is ultimately rejected wholly by society and the latter an orphan child who is eventually able to carve an admittedly precarious foothold as a…

Romanticism is a literary movement which is marked by several key components, many of which are observable in Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. One element of Romanticism is the belief that imagination is able to lead to a a new and more perfect vision of the world and those who live in it. In this novel, Victor Frankenstein is the idealist who wants to create life from nothing; that is the ultimate ideal, marking victor as a Romantic. In another sense, Victor's actions demonstrate the Romantic…

Written Task 1 Jane Eyre Rationale I have decided to write my Written Task 1 as a diary based on the novel Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë. Born on 1816, Charlotte was one of the many Brontë sisters. She was raised by her stern religious grandparents due to the death of her mother and eldest siblings. She then attended a clergy institute. Following this, she earned a living as a governess and a writer and soon after published the highly-critiqued novel ‘Jane Eyre’ in 1847 under the pseudonym…

How Does Shelley’s Frankenstein Comment Upon Gender Issues? In her world-renowned novel, Frankenstein; or the Modern Prometheus, Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley recounts the tragic story of the miserable Victor Frankenstein and his monster. The plot of the story is centered around the novel’s subtitle: “The Modern Prometheus”. Mary Shelley portrays Victor Frankenstein as the modern incarnation of Prometheus because he symbolizes the dire consequences resulting from seeking god-like knowledge and…

The novel Frankenstein by Mary Shelley is a masterpiece that explores the fascination of creating human life from nothing. Since this book was published in 1818, there have been many different recreations of the story throughout these past centuries. The movie Victor Frankenstein directed by Paul McGuigan is one recreation made in 2015 that has an interesting take on the characters in Shelley’s story. Although the film and novel share the same general plot, the movie loosely follows the novel's…

Frankenstein: An In-Depth Analysis from Past to Present When evaluating and analyzing a novel, one must examine its qualities to determine the category of literature to which it belongs. When Mary Shelley first published her novel Frankenstein, the story was considered peculiar and avant-garde for her times, rendering it a popular subject of analysis. Since its original publication in 1818 until nowadays, professionals and students alike continue to study and critique Shelley’s timeless novel.…

This diploma paper discusses and analyzes the lives of major characters in Frankenstein. This is a novel written by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, in 1818. In this paper will be analyzed and discussed the lives of the major characters in “Frankenstein”, there will be analyzed their educational, social, familiar life. The reason why this novel was chosen is because it is an interesting story with a lot of themes with an interesting creature; it is a little bit complicated and very powerful for the…

As early as the 1790s, then, Ann Radcliffe firmly set the Gothic in one of the ways it would go ever after: a novel in which the central figure is young woman who is simultaneously persecuted victim and courageous heroine. But what are we to make the next major turning of the Gothic tradition that a women brought about a generation later? Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, in 1818, made over the Gothic novel into what today we call science fiction. Frankenstein brought a new sophistication to literary…

In her novel Frankenstein, Mary Shelley repeatedly suggests—and eventually delivers upon—the imminence of doom based upon the protagonist’s unbridled ambition in order to warn of the gruesome consequences of hubris and ego. Victor Frankenstein, the title character and protagonist, seeked to discover the secret of creation, not to cure disease or to better the world, but instead, simply to gain fame and clout in the scientific community. Not only did Frankenstein aim to essentially “play God”…

Mary Shelley, the author of the novel Frankenstein was the daughter of Mary Wollstonecraft, a woman whom many consider to be the first modern feminist. Mary Wollstonecraft authored the pamphlet “Vindication of Women’s Rights” in 1792, in which she argued that women were not, by their nature, inferior to men, but may have appeared so only because they lacked the same educational opportunities to which men had far greater access. Much has been written about Mary Shelley’s life that demonstrates…