Is 'Frankenstein' Anything More Than A Horror Story?
Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein" is a novel, which contains many aspects and themes. Although Shelley originally wrote it as part of a 'ghost story' competition amongst friends, it is more complex and deals with greater issues than those of a short and fictional ghost story. However, as we see by the prefix, Shelley's first ambition is to horrify the reader. She wanted to "awaken thrilling horror - one to make the reader dread to look around, to curdle the blood and quicken the heartbeat." This she evidently accomplishes through imagery and intense language, yet during the novel, many other themes are introduced. We recognize not only a traditional Gothic horror, but also deeper psychological horrors, which, even today are being explored. While 'Frankenstein' creates the path for 'Dracula' and other great Gothic novels with the ability to thrill whilst exciting disgust and horror, it also shows much more realistic horrors, which sow the seeds of true terror.Mary Shelley captures our fascination in the passage "Great God! His yellow skin scarcely covered the work of muscles and arteries below." The symbolism of the colour yellow deliberately brings images of sickness and disease to the reader, and the image of bulging huma
Despite the physical terror Shelley's creates, she also extends the horror to the imagination and science of the novel, creating a deeper psychological fear. Frankenstein's burden of guilt and the monster's rejection by society is perhaps more horrifying than the images of death and pain traditionally associated with horror stories. To live one's entire life in such misery is a forbidding and terrifying thought. In Frankenstein's dream the two types of fear come head to head when Frankenstein kisses Elizabeth, only to find she turns into the corpse of his dead mother with "grave-worms crawling in the folds of her flannel." Frankenstein's guilt and psychological trauma becomes physical horror. n tissue leaves us in disgust. Man has an unexplained fear of human anatomy, perhaps because it is one thing he cannot control; Shelley identifies this loathing and uses it to heighten the reader's emotion. If the modern reader; accustomed to horror films and special 'extra gory' effects still feels disgust, the reader of Shelley's own time must have been truly revolted.
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Approximate Word count = 1551
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page double spaced)
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