Mary Shelley Frankenstein Marks-2
1. Why did Mary Shelley write Frankenstein?[Mary Shelley Frankenstein Marks-2]
She wrote it as a response to a challenge to a contest by Lord Byron and her husband, Percy Shelley, to think of a horror story. Whoever wrote the best story would be declared the winner.
2. What discussions influenced the development of her idea?
She was listening to her husband, Shelley, and Lord Byron talk about the nature of life, and the possibility of creating a creature.
3. In the preface, what does the author say she is trying to preserve?
She is trying to “preserve the truth of the elementary principles of human nature. ?
? ” 4. What is the structure, or form, of the novel?
It is an epistolary novel. This means it is written as a series of letters.
5. Who was writing the letters?
They were written by Robert Walton.
6. To whom were the letters written?
They were written to Walton’s sister, Mrs. Margaret Saville, in England.
7. Where was the writer, and why was he there?
He was in the Arctic, exploring unknown regions.
8. How did he meet Victor Frankenstein?
He and the crew found Frankenstein stuck on a large piece of ice. They rescued brought him aboard their vessel.
9. How did Robert feel about his guest?
He liked Frankenstein, and hoped they would become friends.
10. Why was Frankenstein in the Arctic?
He was pursuing the creature.
11. “I saw-with shut eyes, but acute mental vision-I saw the pale dent of unhallowed arts kneeling beside the thing he had put together.” – Who this and why?
Taken from Mary Shelley’s Author’s Introduction to the 1831 edition of Frankenstein, this quote describes the vision that inspired the novel and the prototypes for Victor and the monster. Shelley’s image evokes some of the key themes, such as the utter unnaturalness of the monster (“an uneasy, half-vital motion’), the relationship between creator and created (“kneeling beside the thing he had put together”), and the dangerous consequences of misused knowledge (“supremely frightful would be the effect of … mock[ing] … the Creator”).
12. When does the climax of Frankenstein occur?
The climax of Frankenstein occurs in Chapter 22 (Volume 3, Chapter 6), when Monster kills Elizabeth, strangling her to death on her wedding night. This is the climax of the novel because this is the point of highest interest; everything in the novel builds to this point. By killing Elizabeth, the Monster succeeds in destroying everyone in Victor’s family unit-his brother, the family servant, his friend Henry, and his wife, which results in indirectly destroying his father. Now Victor truly knows how the Monster feels, doomed to social isolation and loneliness. It is especially fitting that the Monster kill Elizabeth, Victor’s bride, because Victor brutally tore the promised female monster apart, depriving his potential lifelong companion.
13. “Did I request thee, Maker, from my clay / To mould me Man, did I thee / From darkness to promote me?” – Explain. –
These lines appear on the title page of the novel and come from John Milton’s Paradise Lost, when Adam bemoans his fallen condition (Book X, 743–745). The monster conceives of himself as a tragic figure, comparing himself to both Adam and Satan. Like Adam, he is shunned by his creator, though he strives to be good. These rhetorical questions epitomize the monster’s ill will toward Victor for abandoning him in a world relentlessly hostile to him and foist responsibility for his ugliness and eventual evil upon Victor.
14. Who told this part of the story?
Victor Frankenstein told his story to Robert
. 15. How did Elizabeth come to live with the Frankensteins?
Caroline Frankenstein saw her with a peasant family, and offered to raise her in better circumstances.
16. Who was Frankenstein’s closest friend?
It was Henry Clerval.
17. What was one of the themes of the writers who influenced Frankenstein?
The authors he liked wrote about raising ghosts or devils. He tried to mimic them.
18. What natural phenomena influenced Frankenstein?
He watched a tree being hit by lightning during a storm. He became interested in the theories of electricity and galvanism.
19. What two major events happened to Frankenstein when he was seventeen?
His mother died and he went to the university at Ingolstadt to study.
20. What goal did Frankenstein decide to pursue?
He wanted to try to renew life in a corpse, to “bestow animation upon lifeless matter.”
21. How did Frankenstein feel when his experiment succeeded, and the creature came to life?
He was horrified and disgusted.
22. What happened to Frankenstein the day after he completed his creation?
He became ill with a fever and delirium for several months
. 23. Who took care of Frankenstein during his illness?
Henry Clerval did.
24. What did Clerval give Frankenstein when he was better?
He gave him a letter from Elisabeth.
25. How did Frankenstein and Clerval spend the next several months?
Frankenstein introduced Clerval to the professors. They studied and went for walks.
26. What news did the letter from Frankenstein’s father bring?
Frankenstein’s youngest brother, William, had been murdered.
27. What did Frankenstein see just outside the gates of Geneva as he was returning home?
He saw the monster he had created.
28. Who was accused of committing the murder, and why?
Justine, who lived with the family, was accused. She had not been with the on the night William was murdered. Several people had seen her the next morning looking confused and frightened. A servant found the locket that Elizabeth had given to William in Justine’s pocket. ?
30. What did Frankenstein do about his dilemma?
He appealed to the courts to let Justine go free, and told his family that she was innocent, but he did not tell anyone about the creature.
31. What happened to the accused person?
She confessed under pressure from her priest. She was convicted and hanged.
32. What was Frankenstein’s state of mind after the trial and its conclusion?
He was filled with remorse for all he had done. He was also fearful that the creature commit other crimes.
33. Where did Frankenstein go to seek relief ?
He traveled to the Alpine valley and the village of Chamounix. country of eternal light and why?
36. Whom did Frankenstein meet after he had ascended to the summit of Montanvert?
He met his creature.
37. How did Frankenstein react to this meeting?
He was full of rage and horror. He threatened to kill the creature.
38. What did the creature want of Frankenstein?
He wanted Frankenstein to listen to the account of his life so far.
39. How did the creature feel when he first felt life?
He felt confused because of all of the new sensations.
40. What was the reaction of the villagers the creature encountered?
They shrieked, and threw rocks and other things at him, and drove him away from the village.
41. Where did the creature take shelter?
He stayed in a lean-to attached to a cottage.
42. What observations did the creature make about the people in the cottage?
He saw that they cared for each other, that the two younger people treated the older man with great respect, and that they were often sad and hungry.
43.What does the creature learn to he learn this?
He learns to speak, and then to read, by observing and listening to the cottagers. He found a portmanteau that had several books in it, and he read them. He then read the letters that were in the pocket of the coat he Frankenstein.
. 45. What was the reaction of the rest of the De Lacey family when they saw the creature?
Agatha fainted, Safie fled, and Felix hit him with a stick until he left the cottage.
46. What did the creature do to the cottage when he returned and found that the De Laceys had moved out?
He set fire to it in a rage.
48.What discovery did the creature make when he approached another human?
He seized a small boy, and discovered that he was William Frankenstein.
49. What did the creature do to this person?
He strangled the boy.
50. How did the creature feel after his deed?
He was delighted that he was able to create despair for his creator.
********************************************************
mary shelley frankenstein mary shelley frankenstein mary shelley frankenstein mary shelley frankenstein mary shelley frankenstein mary shelley frankenstein mary shelley frankenstein mary shelley frankenstein mary shelley frankenstein mary shelley frankenstein mary shelley frankenstein mary shelley frankenstein mary shelley frankenstein mary shelley frankenstein mary shelley frankenstein mary shelley frankenstein mary shelley frankenstein