Narrative framing devices in Frankenstein
- 2. FRANKENSTEIN Frankenstein opens with letters from an explorer, Robert Walton, to his sister. The Explorer is stuck on his ship in the ice of the North Pole.
- 3. LAYERS OF STORIES IN FRANKENSTEIN Robert Waltons NarrativeVictors Story Creatures Story
- 4. FRAME NARRATIVE A fusion of two respected 18th century genres epistolary novel, a traditionally feminine genre explorers journal, a traditionally masculine genre and an archetypal enlightenment genre
- 5. FRAME NARRATIVE Functions: provide a frame of verisimilitude to an improbable tale It SEEMS more true It is VERY familiar and conventional: it was told Ancient Mariner Ozymandias
- 6. EPISTOLARY NOVEL A Novel written as a series of documents Letters Diary entries Newspaper clippings Blogs Emails
- 7. EPISTOLARY NOVEL CONVENTIONS Reveal inner life: individual psychological struggles Growth to knowledge and virtue
- 8. IDEOLOGICAL FUNCTIONS Reassure readers of the capacity of individual to combat the temptations of evil and grow towards virtue
- 9. FRANKENSTEIN SUBVERTS THE EPISTOLARY NOVEL Male narrator No growth: fails to resists temptations; learns nothing
- 10. EXPLORERS JOURNAL CONVENTIONS Protagonist : heroic scientist-explorer Quest structure pursuit and achievement of a goal (c.f. the heros journey) Encounters with strange lands, creatures and beings Increased understanding of the world and humanity
- 11. EXPLORERS JOURNAL Ideological functions celebrate the quest for knowledge and the power of reason celebrate human achievement - illustrate mans increasing mastery of his world (archetypal embodiment of enlightenment ideologies)
- 12. Frankenstein subverts the conventions and ideologies of the Explorers Journal genre Heroic protagonist exposed as flawed: narcissistic etc Quest ends in failure reveals human limitations, rather than celebrating achievements Protagonist learns nothing from experiences and encounters NB: Gullivers Travels
- 13. Further subverts the Explorers Journal by embedding within it a disreputable genre a gothic tale. Foregrounds the importance of the Explorers Journal genres neglect of the: irrational inexplicable supernatural
- 14. VICTOR FRANKENSTEINS GOTHIC TALE Gothic conventions Emphasis on the irrational and fantastic Emphasis on emotion rather than reason Challenge to enlightenment values
- 15. Setting: relics of past corrupt society or wilds of nature Protagonist: innocent, often virginal, victim Villain: supernatural figure or authoritarian patriarchal figure representative of past, corrupt regime Narrative structure: triumph over the monstrous
- 16. IDEOLOGICAL FUNCTIONS Acknowledge the existence of the monstrous Reassure readers that the monstrous can be defeated or controlled
- 17. FRANKENSTEIN SUBVERTS THESE CONVENTIONS AND IDEOLOGIES Setting: locates monstrosity in everyday world: bourgeois domestic sphere Protagonist: is victim and villain/monster Ironically, victim of own villainy
- 18. The monstrous a product of human action: external diabolical agency replaced by internal human agency The evil patriarch is an archetypal enlightenment bourgeois figure Villain is victim and hero
- 19. Blurs boundaries between victim, villain and hero and human/non-human The monstrous not defeated or controlled