Frankenstein Questions for Discussion: Due April 27th/28th

For class on Wednesday/Thursday, you will need to prepare answer/discussion points for the following questions that address the Introduction/Letters that starts Frankenstein. 

THE INTRODUCTION

Tracing the opening quotation:

Did I ask thee Maker from my clay

To mould Me man? Did I solicit thee

From darkness to promote me? Paradise Lost (X 743-5)

In this quotation Adam is addressing his God (his maker). The quote Mary Shelley uses is written by Milton who wrote Paradise Lost (1667) and Paradise Regained (1671). Paradise Lost is a book length poem about the Fall of Man.

1. What is Adam asking?

2. What is the Darkness to which he is referring?

3. How are we expected to feel about God from this passage?

4.  What does this quotation suggest about Mary Shelley’s monster?

 Introductions to novels are always important. In the introduction the author sets up what is to come, establishes a sense of character and introduces a complication.  There are four letters sent by Walton to his sister, the fourth letter written over a few days.  Consider what is revealed about Walton in each letter.

1. What are his aims?

2. What does he value? (Consider education, solitude, obsession and dreams).

3. Trace the religious references and determine what they add to the text.

4. How does he react to Victor Frankenstein? 

5.  In letter 4 what is it that alerts Victor Frankenstein to his similarity to Walton when he says: “Do you share my madness?”

The letters may seem a distraction from the main plot but they serve to foreground many important ideas and to show that what Frankenstein did was not an isolated act. 

1. Summarize what these letters reveal about creative genius and the desire for glory.