A/N -Other exciting (sarcasm) essay written at the last minute. I found some other people's Frankenstein essays that I found on here useful for the points they raised, so hopefully someone can use mine for the same reason.

In this essay I shall focus on the relevance and effect of the writer’s use of language and what it shows about historical and social influences, to find the significance of chapter five on the whole novel.

The novel “Frankenstein” was written in the early 1800’s by a woman named Mary Shelley. Perhaps it is her life that gave the story such passion and truth – something only a very small minority of authors can achieve. Born on August 30th 1797, her mother died of puerperal fever around ten days after her birth. This probably fuelled the idea of creating life, eliminating death, living forever, that Frankenstein centres around.

At only nineteen, she took a challenge set by Lord Byron on a wet summer night of 1816 to write a ghost story. Based upon a dream, she turned her ghostly tale into a horror manuscript and had it published. In the 19th century, science was evolving and making way for massive developments we rely on today – if it wasn’t for the break away from the religious based treatments, we wouldn’t have the skills we possess today.

Frankenstein tells us the story of a young doctor, desperately trying to create life and struggling with his emotions once his goal has been achieved. This could indeed make reference to the scientific developments at the time of Shelley writing it, but it also has the underlying message of human’s goal of cheating death and its possible consequences.

It is often referred to as the “Modern Prometheus”, based upon a Greek Myth in which a God gave the humans fire – the tool to spark its development so it was no longer a mere creature. This can be linked to the novel as Prometheus himself was tortured for all of eternity by an eagle eating out his liver each day where he was chained to a rock – being immortal, it grew back and so the suffering continued until Heracles released him many years on.

Chapter five is a very significant part of the novel. In a nutshell, it is when Doctor Victor Frankenstein’s (whom the novel is named after, not his creation as it is often thought) efforts at creating life finally pay off. This then paves the way for the rest of the story, based upon the creature’s life and Victor’s struggle to live with the guilt of his work.

It starts with Frankenstein finally giving life to his creation in the early hours of the morning, after nearly two hours hard work. His emotions suddenly took over the feeling of achievement and he left the scene, to have his monster disappear and he gave up all responsibility for its life. Whatever he was surviving on over these years quickly ended and he became ill from exhaustion resulting in fever – his good friend Henry Clerval nursed him back to health and he left his studies behind to return to his family.

This piece of text shows us that Frankenstein is mainly scared at what he has created and denies any responsibility for it, despite his efforts that have given it life. This is shown when he describes his own emotions in the diary that the novel is made up from – “How can I describe my emotions at this catastrophe, or how delineate the wretch whom with such infinite pains and care I had endeavoured to form?”. From this we can show that his emotions are based upon the “catastrophe” and “wretch” that lies before him, both words being hateful and disgusted at the creature.

This affects the rest of the novel in two different ways. First of all, we hear the life of the creature after it is abandoned by Frankenstein. He is hated, unloved and brings disgust to those who see him – if Frankenstein had not forsaken his responsibility then the creature may not have become the hateful, murderous monster it is. There is also Frankenstein’s story – his guilt and emotions of his past directly affect the way he lives the rest of his life. He thinks he has forgotten it, but then the nightmare returns and he must lie to his own family despite them suffering for it along with him.

Chapter five can show us more about the character of the doctor that we have not previously seen in the first few sections of the book. He is seen as persistent, putting relentless effort into fulfilling his dream by the quote “It was already one in the morning;…”. He had deprived himself of rest and health to get him to the creation of the monster, showing that he could almost be classed as a mad doctor – no doubt that the lack of these things resulted in madness or at least illness as we find out later on. His reference to his nightmare can tell us that not only his conscious mind was engulfed with creating life, but his sub-conscious mind was also influencing his resting hours – this may also attribute to his lack of rest, as his work continued even as he slept. At the end of his toils, when he finally beheld his creation, he was found to be disgusted and sickened by it – “the beauty of the dream vanished, and breathless horro and disgust filled my heart.” so we see that his emotions can suddenly change after his sugar-coated dream has ended. Finally, we can see how much he wants to protect his family and friends from the heartache he has created and will inevitably put himself through again – the way he assures Clerval that everything is fine shows he is trying to push his own guilty feelings away. He also assures himself in this time that everything will be fine, despite his illness and worries in the form of hallucinations about the monster.

This can fit in with some people’s beliefs at the time because they thought what could be achieved with science was wrong. There was also the thought that the quest for things humans are not able to do, such as cheating death, would turn a man away from sanity, religion and his family – most of these Victor lacks by the end of his efforts. At the beginning of the century, advances were being made in science that were “un-godly” and shocked the world into experimenting futher with new techniques.

These beliefs and Victor’s change can link into the novel too. He restrained himself from telling his family about his work, all through the time of its creation and even when it had ended – this was more than likely due to their possible reactions at such an atrocious experiment and reflects upon people’s ideas of scientific developments in the real world. There can also be a link back to Prometheus – with his gift of fire and skills came the punishment of Pandora. She unleashed upon the world a variety of things, all making human life much harder than anything they could have thought of – it was too late for her to close the box which released these things before hope filtered into the world. The novel has this in the monster’s longing for acceptance, the doctor’s longing for normality and his previous longing of creating life.

Mary Shelley created a very rich atmosphere in chapter five, let alone in the whole book. She used the very basic horror conventions and added them to her descriptions to give a not too cliché dexription of a classic scary scene such as “It was already one in the morning; the rain patered dismally against the panes, and my candle was nearly burnt out…” to create a spooky atmosphere. She used connotations of dramatic horror words and used a narrative style to tap into the thought of being told personally of this event. “I saw the dull yellow eye of the creature open…” is a typical example of this. The atmosphere creates emotions which are heightened when we get given the idea of the character’s own emotions – how are we not supposed to be scared or digusted if he is? This lets us experience the character’s fear at his situation and we can refer back to that feeling throughout the novel.

A large variety of language is used in this chapter. The description is very horror orientated, as should be in a horror novel, and contains the ingredients to give the reader a tense and hair raising feeling. She uses a variety of dramatic and horror based words to scare and excite the reader as she uses very vivid imagery and description.

All of these factors give a very effective finish, such as the way it engages the reader with the narrative style and the way it seems like you are being told the story personally. Everyone has a love of anything gory and repulsive, even if it does send a shiver down your spine, and the way she talks about the monster makes an even more intense atmosphere such as “His shrivelled complexion and straight black lips.”

I think this is a very effective and riveting story, giving us an outlook on what may sometime be achieved – we may be able to carry it out, but it may not be right. Chapter five is very intense and can really involve the reader, but the whole manuscript carries this out with apparent ease.

Shelley may have been trying to give us a moral message in this. Like the story of Prometheus, it shows we can deceive, trick and dream all we want, but one day we will be punished – Victor’s torment and torment of his family show us that it not only affects you, but those around you. As I have mentioned before, it may also be talking about the fact we may be able to do certain things with our newly gained knowledge, but it may not be right. One day in the future we may be able to cheat death, but is it really what we are here living and dreaming for? There is also the more apparent message that whatever we may do, whoever it may benefit and whatever we may put ourselves through, however dedicated we are, it will probably hurt those closest to us more than ourselves.

It was a popular story when it was first published and it is a popular story now for the same reason – it can apply to both times. As the years have moved on, we have become more aware of the horror genre and the classic stories of zombies, but none have shown what could be achieved by science like Mary Shelley wrote about. She made the 19th century world think of what could happen if they discovered so much about the science they were so dedicated to, and even now we can see that this could also happen to us.

A good story is one that everyone can relate to for years to come – something which Shelley definitely achieves not only in chapter five, but the whole novel. She gives us a message which is still as relevant today as when it was first written and uses the horror theme to deliver this in an outstanding piece of literary work.