To Animate the Lifeless Clay

Up to the fifth chapter of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein there is little said about setting. The focus that would have been put on that is instead directed to events in comparison to other novels. This is primarily because, as is expected, in the chapters in which Victor Frankenstein is the narrator, he is telling his tale to Robert Walton so the style of narration takes on the form of spoken word from memory. However, this created room for the reader to imagine the setting themselves. What is interesting about this is that the way the reader imagined the exact setting of each event, if they did at all, could possibly be a projection of their interpretation of the story (or even on an even broader scale - how they interpret stories in general) This is true with all stories of course, but it may be even more so with a story dealing with fear, which is especially so in the case of Frankenstein as it deals with scenes in which Victor's fear is described in great detail, notably moments such as when he described "his yellow skin scarcely covered the work of muscles and arteries beneath; his hair was of a lustrous black, and flowing; his teeth of a pearly whiteness; but these luxuriances only formed a more horrid contrast with his watery eyes, that almost seemed the same colour as the dun white sockets in which they were set, his shriveled complexion and black lips." (p. 43) as well as the when he describes the dream he had when trying to find a momentary escape from dealing with his creation, "delighted and surprised, I embraced her; but as I imprinted the first kiss on her lips, they became livid with the hue of death..." (p. 44). It should also be noted that these moments were specifically chosen to be described in great detail over others by Mary Shelley, assumably because both are moments where tension is built up to a horrific and grotesque scene. This places a greater emphasis and significance on the expression of Victor's fear and enables the reader to strongly "share" the same emotions as Victor.  Another point that can be made is that even with great accounts of detail in passages to describe the specific placement of objects and a character's actions, the reader may choose to, or without noticing, ignore that and imagine their own idea of the event.

But to focus on something less abstract and broad I thought of how chapters 3 through 5 primarily have the purpose of providing in great detail the build up and fall of Victor's preoccupation with creating the monster. This brought me to think of the default mode of the brain, which is described simply as one dwelling on self reflection, often negatively, as a result of an idle mind. This brought about ideas of contrasts and similarities between Frankenstein and Wuthering Heights, in that Wuthering Heights deals with characters whose conflicts can be described as due to excess free time, and the conflicts of Frankenstein so far, which can be described as having a similar cause, as Victor and the characters of Wuthering Heights are both from a similar social class, but yet dealing with the workings of the brain and almost straining to achieve something above human power. There is the moment on page 43 when Victor reflects "a human being in perfection ought always to preserve a calm and peaceful mind, and never allow passion or a transitory desire to disturb his tranquility. I do not think that the pursuit of knowledge is an exception to this rule."

There is also the broad question that is brought to mind just by hearing the title Frankenstein, and that is, what is the significance of the universal enjoyment of fear as entertainment, if there is any at all?