- Who is writing to his sister at the beginning of the story?
- Where is he? And what is he doing?
- Who comes towards him on the ice?
- What does Victor go to study at university?
- Who is his best friend?
- What was the news science called?
- What became Victor’s aim and purpose?
- Where did he get his bodies from?
- What new invention does he use to animate his experiments?
- How did Victor know he had succeeded?
- How did Victor react?
- What happened to his health for months afterwards?
- Who looked after him for that time?
- Whose death does he learn of?
- Who is accused of her murder?
- What evidence was there?
- Where does Victor go to walk to get away?
- What does the monster accuse him of?
- Which biblical character does the creature compare himself with?
- Why this character?
- How does he become like other humans?
- How does he learn to read and write and be like humans?
- Who does he hope will accept him for what he is?
- Why does this person accept him?
- What relationship did the monster want with his creator?
- How does the creature want him to feel?
- What task does he set Victor?
- Why?
- What does Victor become afraid of?
- What does he do to this new creation?
- Why does the creature threaten Elizabeth?
- After Elizabeth’s death what does Victor vow to do?
- How does the monster make that task easier?
- How does the monster justify his killing spree?
- How does the monster kill himself?
- Why is this method ironic or poetic?
Frankenstein language, vocabulary and style
A Letters
Like bookends begin and end the story
B Emotional style
Adopted by all three narrators – passions are always extreme – we see others through:
Descriptive language – adjectives and adverbs all intensify feelings’
Metaphors and similes – Shelley compares her characters to other things: Victor as a ‘gallant vessel’ his passion for science to a ‘mountain river…‘
Contrasts – Victor’s fascination for science: his ‘imagination‘ is ‘exalted‘ and he is ‘animated by an almost unnatural enthusiasm‘ but he is filled with ‘agony‘, ‘sensations of horror‘ and ‘heart sickening despair‘ when he realises the consequences of his work.
Rhetorical language – use of repetition to build an emotional climax: Victor’s mind is ‘filled with one thought, one conception, one purpose,‘; using different types of sentence to create different moods, ‘do you not feel your blood congeal with horror like that which even curdles like mine?‘ or ‘ Abhorred monster! Fiend that thou art!’
C Images and Symbols
- Hands
- Birth and death
- Moon and storms
- Books
- Windows
- Heaven and hell
D Irony
(See Shelley’s purposes)