Frankenstein and Gothic Literature

Mary Shelly’s classic Gothic Novel, “Frankenstein” contains a variety of different references to Gothic Literature, and is among the best works of fiction to consume when analyzing the Gothic thanks in part to the novel’s use of various tropes of the genre. Immediately upon beginning the book, the reader is welcomed to the desolate, unforgiving, and completely isolated environment of the North Pole. Isolated environments are a common trope of the gothic novel, as these kinds of places serve to cut the main characters off from receiving help in their struggles.The protagonists are often alone with their thoughts, forced to confront their own minds and struggles with morality.  More specifically in the context of the time period, the North Pole represented a fantastical region of the unknown. Very little had been recorded of the area, and for all the average person of the time knew, it was a land of great mystery and intrigue. In the book, the ship of an explorer known as Robert Walton’s ship stalls in the ice. Eventually, the isolated environment of the North Pole presented in the beginning serves to kick off the framing device of the book, as one day a mysterious stranger appears from the fog, Victor Frankenstein. The book is framed as Frankenstein telling his life story to a group of sailors. The book describes him as being in a weak and emaciated state from running himself ragged chasing his creation, and with little hope of fully recovering, he begins airing his wrongdoings and sins to those who will hear them. This feeling of isolation serves to intensify the emotions of the storytelling. The feeling of being completely alone is a common trope used in Gothic Literature, it serves to intensify the emotions of the characters. With no emotional support and being backed into a corner, Mary Shelly uses this sense of isolation to make her characters more prone to irrational thinking, to acting out of turn, and to letting their inner demons gain control of them.