Thursday, April 14, 2011

Framestory

"It was on a dreary night of November, that I beheld the accomplishment of my toils. With an anxiety that almost amounted to agony, I collected the instruments of life around me, that i might infuse a spark of being into the lifeless thing that lay at my feet." (page 35)

This was where Victor's tale actually began and the novel became a framestory. Something I found intriguing was that Mary Shelley originally started writing at this point and then added on the whole beginning of the novel at a later date. After reading the letters and first four chapters of the novel, I can't really imagine starting the book at this point instead and losing all of the knowledge I had gained previous to this point. I think that the beginning of this book is rather crucial to grasping the identity of the characters and the mystery of the plot. I was also sort of surprised at how quickly Shelley got to the description of the monster Victor created. She didn't really allow for time to build up suspense she just jumped right into the description of it. And, oddly enough, Frankenstein's monster didn't look anything like I imagined him too. The movies are a crock! Instead of being neon green with gruesome stitches, his "yellow skin scarcely covered the work of muscles and arteries beneath; his hair was of lustrous black, and flowing; his teeth of pearly whiteness; but these luxuriances only formed a more horrid contrast with his watery eyes, that seemed almost of the same color as the dun-white sockets in which they were set, his shriveled complexion and straight black lips." His description was something I found particularly interesting.

Random sidenote: the last time I read the phrase "dun-white" was in a Shakespearean sonnet written about his wife. I was impressed that I recalled that detail all this time later.

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