Mary Shelley e Frankenstein: tesina d'inglese

MARY SHELLEY E FRANKENSTEIN: TESINA INGLESE

Mary Shelley wrote Frankenstein in 1816 in Geneva.

The novel starts as an Epistolary novel in which an English explorer, Walton, describes his experiences in the Arctic to his sister. He tells her about his meeting with the scientist Frankenstein in his pursuit of the monster he has himself created. In fact the monster murdered Victor’s brother, wife and friend. In the heart of the creature there was goodness and kindness, but humans had persecuted and rejected him, so he promised revenge to his creator. Frankenstein dies in the Arctic and the monster is so disgusted by his deeds of revenge that there is now only one course of action: he must kill himself.

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MARY SHELLEY: RIASSUNTO VITA IN INGLESE

The narrative comes back full circle as Robert Walton provides us with the final and unexpected climax to the novel.
We can distinguish three kinds of narrative structure: Epistolary novel, Gothic novel and Science fiction.
The “Chinese box” narration is very important in Frankenstein.
I.    Epistolary novel
Popular in the sixteenth century the Epistolary novel is a collection of letters written by one and addressed to one or more people. An “Epistolary novel” is a group of letters collected and published as bibliographical or historical sources.
There are two kinds of Epistolary novel:
1) the narration is made of letters of more characters;
2) the narration is made of letters written only by the main character.
In the first type there are a lot of point of views, in the second type the letters are a type of personal diary.
The common characteristics of an Epistolary novel are:
1) the narrators are the characters;
2) the narration is at present.

Frankenstein: riassunto in inglese

FRANKENSTEIN: RIASSUNTO BREVE

We can consider Frankenstein an Epistolary novel because through some letters captain Walton tells the whole story of Victor Frankenstein and his monster.
a)    The first part is in the Epistolary form, in fact Walton tells his sister about his first meeting with Frankenstein;
b)    Frankenstein’s own story follows, an autobiographical account of his dreadful experiences;
c)    Within Frankenstein’s narration is inserted a written report by the monster himself, in which he explains the reasons for his “monstrous” behaviour;
d)    Finally, in the last pages the narration is resumed and concluded by Walton again, always in the Epistolary form.
This novel may be said  to belong to the Gothic tradition of fiction, even if it differs from it in some important respects. Frankenstein is not set in a Gotic castle and it  does not deal with supernatural events. It  deals with a scientific experiment and the horror derived from the unexpected outcome: The Gothic element is to be found in the description of the monster's ugliness and in the reactions of his creator, in the dreadful setting and use of hightly emotional language.The theme of scientific research is connected to the development of science in the period and the desire the Romantics had to penetrate the secrets of life.