Mary Shelley wrote Frankenstein in 1818, a Gothic novel about a scientist named Frankenstein who creates a horrific creature through an experiment. The novel explores themes of the pursuit of knowledge and its consequences, as well as the human desire for connection. Shelley uses symbols like light and nature to represent these themes against the backdrop of the Industrial Revolution. The epistolary structure allows the reader to develop sympathy for both Frankenstein and the creature by hearing their personal accounts.

1.  Presented by : Sanjay A. Dharaiya
 Paper no.5 : ( The Romantic Literature )
 Topic : Frankenstein Themes, Symbols, and Literary Devices
 Course Sem : 2
 Roll no. :25
 Email id : Dharaiy9@gmail.com
 Submitted to : S.B.Gardi Department of English MKB
University

2.  She was an English novelist who wrote
the Gothic novel Frankenstein; or, The Modern
Prometheus (1818).
 She also edited and promoted the works of her
husband, the Romantic poet and
philosopher Percy Bysshe Shelley.
 Her father was the political
philosopher William Godwin and her mother
was the philosopher and feminist Mary
Wollstonecraft.
 Until the 1970s, Shelley was known mainly for
her efforts to publish her husband's works and
for her novel Frankenstein, which remains
widely read and has inspired many theatrical
and film adaptations.
30 August 1797 – 1 February 1851
Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley :

3.  Mary Shelley's Frankenstein is a 19th-
century epistolary novel associated with
both the Romantic and the Gothic genres.
 The novel, which follows a scientist
named Frankenstein and the horrifying
creature he creates, explores the pursuit
of knowledge and its consequences, as
well as the human desire for connection
and community.
 Shelley depicts these themes against the
backdrop of a sublime natural world and
reinforces them using symbolism.

4.  Shelley wrote Frankenstein in the midst of the Industrial Revolution,
when major breakthroughs in technology were transforming society.
 he disregards his family and ignores all affection as he pursues his
studies.
 Frankenstein's efforts lead him to discover of the cause of life, but
the fruit of his pursuit is not positive.
 The creature Frankenstein produces is an embodiment of
man’s scientific enlightenment: not beautiful, as Frankenstein
thought he would be, but vulgar and horrifying.
 Frankenstein presents his story to Captain Walton as a warning for
others who wish, like he did, to be greater than nature intended.

5.  This theme is most clearly expressed through the creature,
whose singular motivation is to seek human compassion
and companionship.
 Frankenstein isolates himself, puts aside his family, and
ultimately loses those dearest to him, all for his scientific
ambition.
 This isolation that drives the creature to seek revenge and
kill.
 Throughout the novel, family is an entity fraught with the
potential for loss, suffering, and hostility.

6.  The tension between the pursuit of knowledge and the pursuit
of belonging play out against the background
of sublime nature.
 The sublime is an aesthetic, literary and philosophical concept
of the Romantic period that encapsulates the experience of
awe in the face of the natural world’s extreme beauty and
greatness.
 Nature is also presented as the ultimate wielder of life and
death, greater even than Frankenstein and his discoveries.
 The sublime uninhabited terrains, of equal beauty and terror,
frame the novel’s confrontations with humanity so that they
underline the vastness of the human soul.

7.  One of the most important symbols in the novel is light.
 Light is tied to the theme of knowledge as
enlightenment, as both Captain Walton and
Frankenstein search for illumination in their scientific
pursuits.
 The symbolism of light arises when the creature burns
himself in the embers of an abandoned campfire.
 Frankenstein similarly took a kind of ‘fire’ for himself, by
harnessing a power not otherwise known to mankind,
and is forced to repent for his actions.

8.  The novel is filled with texts, as sources of
communication, truth, and education, and as a
testament to human nature.
 Letters were a ubiquitous source of
communication during the 19th century, and in
the novel, they are used to express innermost
feelings.
 Letters are also used as proof, as when the
creature copies Safie’s letters explaining her
situation, in order to validate his tale to
Frankenstein.
 Books also play an important role in the novel, as
the origin of the creature’s understanding of the
world. Through reading Paradise Lost,
Plutarch’s Lives and the Sorrows of Werter..

9.  Letters are also important to the novel's
structure. Frankenstein is constructed as a nest of stories told in
epistolary form
 The novel opens with Walton’s letters to his sister and later
includes the first-person accounts of Frankenstein and the
creature. Because of this format, the reader is privy to the
thoughts and emotions of each individual character, and is able
to sympathize with each one.
 In this way, Frankenstein as a whole serves to demonstrate the
power of narration, because the reader is able to develop
sympathy for the monster through his first-person storytelling.

10. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Shelley
https://literarydevices.net/frankenstein-themes/